Me and Transformers : Prime

The internet can be a pain in the ass, let me clear up a few things.

These rough, thumbnail sketches, are purely an exercise for me, they are based ONLY on published images of Transformers : Prime, found on the Hubworld.com website, combined with G1 and Animated model sheets.  They are not based on any of my past work for Transformers : Prime, unfinished or new ideas or otherwise, which leads me to my second point;

I guess I needed to be more specific in my contributions to Transformers : Prime.  I was hired on contract, by Hasbro, Inc. to contribute concepts for visual inspiration on the new show, which were then passed along to the Hasbro Studio team, of whom I'm not a part of in any capacity, who are responsible for the actual production of the show.  I didn't realize that there was so great a distinction between the two at the early , blue sky stages of concept art...but it needs to be said.

And now, I've seen this non-story about these, again, NOT OFFICIAL IN ANY WAY, images spread like wildfire - like a game of Telephone, where there are some headlines, about how I work on the show, and am the character designer.  And that IS where a distinction must be made.  I contributed some ideas through Hasbro proper, I am NOT a part of the production of the show, I have no title related to the show - there is a staff in place working their asses off to get this show out, and I want to make sure everyone knows I have no involvement in the Production of Transformers : Prime.  There is an official Character Designer for the show, and his name is Jose Lopez, and he's awesome.

I know it can be a little confusing, I'll try to explain the process.  I, along with other artists, got asked by Hasbro to draw some ideas.  Those ideas all got thrown into a pot.  My involvement is now over.

Hasbro takes that pot across the hall to Hasbro Studios, and gives it to the studio guys, and says "take the best of this, and mix it with whatever you guys have on the stove."  They take what they want, and over the long development process, ideas are re-purposed, expanded on, or simply ignored.  That is the nature of the creation process.

Like everyone else, I had to wait until SDCC to see the clip of the show, the only final characters I've seen are on the Hub - I did my work and was done many months ago, and now I'm seeing the new and final character designs as you all are, when you are, with fresh eyes, and as a fan excited and inspired by the next evolution of Transformers.

I know I promised some mushy thumbnail drawings of some Decepticons, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop this right now; after seeing some posts to an initial, and somewhat misleading headline on TFW2005, about folks thinking that these sketches of Inferno, Bumblebee, or Jazz are/need to be in the show, or toyline...let me tell you right now, that won't happen.  Again, these are just exercises for me, doing them absolutely on my own, without an art director, written concepts, and team goals for each character, and most importantly WITHOUT Hasbro - all those factors are involved in creating official characters.

ENTIRELY UNOFFICIAL, on the level of Fan Art - based only on images that are publicly available - I can't seem to say that enough!

I appreciate all the comments, but despite my initial statement that these were merely studies for me based on available images on the the final, official styling of the TF:Prime characters, too much has been made of what amounts to fan art.  I know that news of me doing some ideas for Transformers : Prime in official capacity has been out for some time, (and again let me stress, the work was through Hasbro, NOT Hasbro Studios - there is a difference) so I made the preface that the images created on 8/22/10, and posted on 8/23/10 were in no way connected, just to avoid this the very event that has occurred.  But what happened is the exact opposite, folks saw TF:Prime Concept Artist, and Click Here For Image - everything else got ignored.

So even if I get lucky enough to create or update more Transformers, I can guarantee, you won't see an image on this blog in thumbnail form, final form, an idea if it has a shot in official capacity in any way, and absolutely not before a product launches.  So when I mention waiting for October, as far as I know, officially 10/10/10 is still listed as the premiere - if it changes, I wouldn't know until there's a press release, and find out when everyone else does.  And whatever I do show, has to got through a vetting process, to get cleared by Hasbro, as with anything I've published on my blog or site previously, the games, comic covers, etc...and always, post-product launch.

I apologize for any confusion, I certainly didn't think that my involvement in anything TF:Prime related was for the most part unknown, or my statement was some sort of a reveal, nor did I think some ENTIRELY UNOFFICIAL rough sketches would get more than a comment or two.

So let me end with this, in case it got missed.  Those images posted yesterday of Bumblebee, Jazz, and Inferno are in no way official, associated, future designs, past designs, partial designs from or for Hasbro, or Hasbro Studios, in regards to anything Transformers.  They were purely exercises for me to independently study the  forms of the new characters, based only on previously published material, found on the Hub website, G1 model sheets from the Ark, and model sheets from the Allspark Almanac.

At best, they can be described as Fan Art Only.  Nothing more...

Thanks,

-KC