TF2 - DLC Optimus Prime 03

I forgot to add this to yesterday's post! The Gun of Prime. Same idea, traditional silhouette, with filled in details.

And that's it! You have seen just about all I contributed to the Revenge of the Fallen Game, done by Luxoflux. I know they have their system of development, but Activision had me work on the first game, and was keen to have me back for the second, and happily Luxoflux agreed to work with me to create all of these characters. I'm pretty proud of the overall work I did, and I think they made an outstanding game - I've played it all summer!

Primarily I worked with Justin Thomas and Joby Otero for the art designs, with Chris Tremmel contributing with the game design ideas to help form those concepts. And the producers I worked with, Brian, Marc, and Adrian helping me with schedule, paperwork, and legal design battles. They did a great job, and I wish to thank all of them.

And mostly I want to thank Daniel Suarez, Executive Producer at Activision, (responsible for the TF titles, plus other badass titles like the Call of Duty series) who has brought me into the Transformers universe, by asking me to do some storyboards way back in 2005, to pitch for rights to the first movie game - it has spiraled out of control ever since! And to extend my appreciation for having me come back for the sequels, and helping out with other Transformers titles and internal pitches for them.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

TF2 - DLC Optimus Prime 02

The development of Prime was not as satisfying as Starscream, or even Megatron. I love the Starscream, and the differences of my Megatron, and the one that appears in the game aren't too drastic, but...Prime in the game is way too oversized, and not in a good way. Instead of coming across big and burly, which I think was the intention, he looks bloated with steroids. Instead of being ripped and huge like a pro wrestler, he looks puffy like home run 'King' Barry Bonds.


Again, trying to be faithful, the dotted sketch is the one I was wanting to go for...


...and this the one that we ended up with, after some arguments and revisions. It's just misproportioned, and I bummed with this is the representation. I had to really push the MP style, and that b.s. Revoltech toy, whereas I've said before, G1 toy and toon was my personal priority to draw reference from. That aside, and talk about the actual image, again I tried to keep the traditional transformation intact.


This is a revised version of what I had to turn in for final. The Transformation sequence shows that actual submission, but I went back and revised the design as best I could without totally redoing it. I gave him a longer torso, and slimmed and lengthened the upper legs, rescaled the head, and slimmed down and reduced the arms, trying to bring it all back to the origins. I just don't like the one I had to do, so this is the version that goes in the portfolio. The design pretty much follows the joint details of the MP toy, hydraulics and fairly exposed pivot points.


The back is a bit of a departure, but in keeping with the simplicity of the G1 transformation, I left the truck elements faily intact where I could, and the back reflects that in the lower lumbar area, and the hope was that it gave a bigger range of motion in the waist.


One of the things that kills me in that game is how far and peaked out the chest is, I reduced it back to keep the peak, but lose that massive overhang that somehow exists. Everything else is the same attempt to line up details in the side view, and fill in the gaps. You can see the socket for the shoulder, and all the joint details - that's all missing from the game. I don't know, but it could be the oversized shoulders that clip in and out of the body model that would have obscured it anyways, but whatever.

I was so burned about that Prime being the representation of me, and feeling that it was a missed oppotunity to get a faithful Prime on the market, and that led to my whole crusade to do these G1 illustrations to pitch to IDW and Hasbro. This version of Prime is essentially a redo of the game model, but doing it the way I felt was right. I added more curves, and changed to proportions around to bring more toon into it.

I'm interested to hear what people think of the game version, and if it even matters at all? I know I play the character all the time in the game, because the game is so much fun, and for all intents and purposes, it IS Optimus Prime. But I wonder if I'm too hyper-faithful to the origins, and am mistaken in feeling this was missed chance, and that the game skips some steps in giving fans not a true G1 representation, rather yet another 'G1-style' representation? OR, if it doesn't even matter at all, because it's not a toon shaded character?

TF2 - DLC Optimus Prime 01

Prime Time! This was an awesome assignment. The real Prime, as a real truck, with all the real world detailing I could fit. Again, looking to the toon and toy for inspiration, but also having the benefits of the real truck to work from as well. I kept it as close as possible to the real truck, and added in the Prime details where needed, like the yellow vents, etc. Gave him some mudflaps, and other tiny details.


I left the cab and drive train pretty much alone in the side view, but added some mass to the back of the cab, and the hitch area got a lot of beefing up to account for the leg mass. Put some branding on the tires, 'Primetime Shipping Co., Cybertron Autobot 84,' and a ton of nicks and scratches to punch up the battle weary warrior look.

Of course, in the game, there's no trailer, but I had blocked it out for approval before I found out. So after I was done with the project, I finished it for free - just in case they found they could use it. I couldn't leave him unfinished, and if anything, it's good for the portfolio!

TF2 - DLC Megatron

Megatron! As I did before, I started with the toon silhouette to define the shape, using both the show, and the Ark style guide. I did some slight variations, and settled on a similar take to the Starscream, Toon, plus a little more. After that is defined, I look to the toy for the primary details, and then fill in additional details and jointing from there.


Along with the G1 reference, I also grabbed some pics of an actual Walther P-38 gun, to help define some of the curvature and industrial design, and add a little real world nuance. The face, along with Starscream, is again broken up against the toon definitions - I went with the idea of how they animate puppet animatronics, with around six or eight pull points around the mouth, orientated in different angles, up into the cheeks, or along the jaw line. They seem to get a pretty good range of motion with that technique, so I thought (at least hypothetically) that it could apply here as well.


And like before, I tried to stay true in the front, and put all the exposed parts in the back. I added in some extra details to the back, just to punch him up a bit more, and give him the details that Starscram had. My plan was to do Starscream or Prime first, to set the standard, because I knew Megatron would need some help in the detail department.


This was one of the more successful side views, again because the simplicity of the design, it was easy to match up the lines from front to back. I tried to keep the complex detail contained to ease the creation of the side view. Of course, the brilliant original design helped a lot too!

As far as the game goes, I see he's a little puffier than this submission, which looks good on it's own, but I wanted to give the old school fans something original first, before getting away from that concept, and 'improving' it. Who knows, this could have been the only opportunity to do this, and as an insane G1 fan, I wanted to do something I wanted to see!

Of course, what I really want is to play a G1 toon game...!

And that's it for Megatron, at the time, I was not asked to do the gun version. They had no idea how to translate that transformation to the game with the engine they had. Had I known about special abilities, I would have suggested it for Starscream, but it looks like they were right on it, and that's how the gun mode appears in the game, and that's excellent. And the playable Megatron has a hover/flight mode as his Transform mode, and that's excellent too.

TF2 - DLC Starscream 03

It's Starscream! So I was really happy about this guy, I thought he came out the best, sometimes the characters seem to transcend the almost clinical nature of these turnaround views, and still project some personality. Like I said before, I was asked to reference the MP versions (and annoyingly even the Revoltech versions) but aside from visible jointing and other small details like that, I kept it G1 toy and toon as much as possible.*

With the joints, which I don't think was built into the game versions, I at least intended to have the boxy look, but with sliding panels to accomodate range of motion. I.E., the shoulder would be capped by the top of the 'box,' but the cap would attached to the rotator, and slide into the recess of the side of the shoulder as the arm was raised. Make any sense? It's a simple engineering concept, like a breadbox or a rolltop desk. But everywhere around the major joints. Made out of armored metal.


While trying to maintain the look, I knew I had some sacrifices to make, so I went with the idea of keeping the front true to the old designs as possible, and putting the functionality in the back, especially with the elbows and knees. So that's why you see more exposed gearing.


Again, the side view is more of a pickle to deal with, trying to reconcile the details from the front and back. I tried to keep it as true as possible, but I think a few changes had to happen to get things to line up.

Hopefully not too much of a big deal, because overall I thought he came out great...and I finally got to play him last night, and it was super fun! Using Megatron as the Special Ability weapon? Badass.

*I already saw on the boards someone dinged me for the orientation of the wing symbols! Like I said, I used a mix of G1 toy and toon to define this guy, the toon has upside down symbols, the toy didn't. Whether or not one version has lived on more than the other, I can't really say, but I can say I tried as hard as possible to stick to 1984 to a fault.

Of course, if someone really thinks this character is horrible and ruined because of this, please direct all blame to me. I can take it.

TF2 - DLC Starscream 02

Vehicle mode for Starscream. This was a joy to do. Aside from the scrapes (originally I turned him in wothout, but Luxo requested it) I thought it was great to see a fairly real world interpretation of the Transformers F-15. The MP toy is very close, so my interpretation is a mix of that and the real jet.

It's tough to pull off the bright, primary colors in a real world setting, so I dropped the saturation down, and pushed the textures to bring it a bit more into reality.


Same with the side view, but I deviated a bit from the MP toy, and made it more like the G1 figure, in regards to the feet. Aerodynamically, it's probably terrible...but this is Starscream! He can fly faster than anybody else!

I did two versions of the gun/null ray. The G1 toy, with the firing missile caps, and the toon verision, with the long barrels. I made them .50 cal barrels for the jet mode, but they transform into the more stylistic blasters in robot mode.


This is just a 'sticker sheet' of graphics for the Luxo guys to just for model textures. A little more GI Joe than Transformers, but it gets the job done!

TF2 - DLC Starscream 01

Okay, after I had finished the game, Luxo came back to me with the group of DLC characters they wanted to do, the afore-posted Soundwave, and G1 versions of Prime, Megatron, and Starscream. They were a little hazy on what they themselves meant by 'G1' and it took awhile to get some clear answers. At first I thought they meant movie-style G1 characters, and then when I asked if it was cartoon based G1 characters (which, c'mon...that's what G1 MEANS, doesn't it?) they said, kind of...but more detailed...

Then they referenced the MP style toys, and I finally got the idea. But, myself being a traditionalist, I fought as hard as I could to maintain the cartoon aesthetics, because as a fan, that's what I both wanted to see, and play. So while I was trying to puzzle out what they wanted, I did this range of designs, going from toon, to blown out overdone movie style.

After some discussion, it was somewhere in between the second and third choices, keeping the G1 silhouette, and breaking up the planes with detail and depth. Awesome with me, so I took that design sense into the rest of the body.


These are some variations of the G1 outline, but honestly I wanted to be true-blue-100% to the toon version, so the changes are pretty minor.


Obviously, Luxo could just look to the toon's to keyframe the transform, but I wanted to double make sure, so I continued supplying them with these instuctions...