TF2 - Stunticons - Reventon 01

This one came together really fast...and now that I think about it, I did the Omnibots first, so there were already a lot of car idea sketches to pull from, but in this case, the crouched over, skinny one on the left side middle captured the prize.


So I went to work and came up with this guy, kind of an Alien Warrior Meets the Transformers. These guys were to be Super Cars, so the Reventon'-esque' made the final cut, and I kept all the angles sharp and flat in bot form.

TF2 - Aerialbots 03

The Unpainted Man stands. I like this one, I thought the arms were a pretty good solution to break up the standard shoulder and elbow conventions, and with the jets I tried to play a lot with the idea of hydraulics and linkages holding everything together. More an idea of creating jointing appropriate to the vehicle - linkage for jets, as opposed to the differential and disc brake gearing approach of the ground vehicles.


This view shows off the airframe, which I almost lost - I placed it in the block-in, showing a lot more with the intent of integrating better as I took it to final, but Luxo had a big reaction, and I had to talk them down a bit. That's a tough thing, they took a lot of things too literal in the roughs, which is how I best work, get all the ideas in there fast, and refine as I go. Their approach was to lay all the groundwork even in the tone drawings - but to me those are the most basic of ideas, to set up the discovery of new ideas along the way.


The side view is my favorite of this guy, just in that it illustrates the movie-ification of a G1 concept, with the canopy/nose, meeting the tail/engine to form the back torso.

It pleases me, I wish I could have done as well for all of them!

TF2 - Aerialbots 02

Again, a slightly modified F-16, and again, no paint job. Just posting these up, I'm getting annoyed again. I mean, there's not much to talk about without the colors, it's pretty much a straight up illustration of the jet.


Along with the slight mod on the real world jet, I do the same for the missiles and other armaments. The Autobot symbols were temporary until I got a chance to do the paint jobs, so they got left as is.


There was a break of a few hours before I was told to move on to the Stunticons, so I managed to whip these up really quick. In the design doc, it stated they wanted to try air show type paint jobs, so I did one (the middle) that was similar to one they used for reference, and then I of course did a Skydive paint job, and threw in a Fireflight one as well.

So, they're really fast, pretty much flat color over top the finished vehicle, so they're not very well integrated...but I just wanted to get SOMETHING in there to see if I could push them towards a G1 reference instead of something I thought was a little abstract, with the airshow idea.

I see in the game both G1 paint jobs made it, but I wish I was allowed to go back and re-integrate the paint jobs to fit the shape of the jet better - especially the Fireflight paint job, it's a little much in it's current state, I would have pulled more white into the red areas. Of course, I would rather have exact G1 coloring, rather than none at all!


And again, I tried to make the transformation as close to the original Skydive as possible.

TF2 - Aerialbots 01

An F-16 Aerialbot? I say 'sweeeeeeeeeeet.' So this is what I started with, Skydive, the original F-16 from the cartoon - no more messing around. I grabbed a pic from the gallery at Siebertron.com, and a pic from my invaluable Ark compendium of G1 model sheets, and got going...


A series of sketches, all different shapes and sizes, but keeping the main transformation and vehicle cues as close as possible to Skydive, with the tail/engine and canopy merging, to form his upper back torso, leaving the rest for limbs.

Some additional head studies, the original (below) wasn't quite 'movie' enough yet...


And this was the first submission...my fault we had to go back, as requested by Hasbro, it seemed they kind of got caught up in the way he was standing. They got the impression that this was an evil guy, more Decept than Autobot, so they wanted me to rework him.


So this guy isn't really too much different, I stood him up like the Breakaway concept art, and JT and I took the opportunity to tweak some details on him. Hasbro approved, and I went on to the final views...

TF2 - Custom Seeker for 'Frogger'

So I know an F18 pilot. Or former F18 pilot I should say, he's now Top Gun, flying an F-5, training new batches of supreme American badasses.

Geoff Hughes, as I know him -the dude I went to Middle and High School with - or as it's written on his old Super Hornet, LT G.D. Hughes, "Frogger". Now it's 'LCDR Geoff Hughes' on his F-5.

The least I could do is throw his name up on the Seeker, (sadly it couldn't be in the game that way, because of the damnable legal department!) so hopefully he knows we're thinking about him, while he defends our country.

He's a real American Hero, and I'm proud to know him. Stay safe up there, buddy!

TF2 - Seeker 03

Seeker incomplete. This is as far as I got, uncolored and untextured like the jet modes. After a year I guess I'm still a little bummed I didn't get to design the color patterns, I was really looking forward to doing a quasi-tribute to the original 3 Seekers. But as far as the artwork goes, I'm pretty proud of him, there are some features I really like. The missiles embedded into the forearms, and especially the relationship between the 'armor' of the vehicle parts, over the more Cyber-mech of the underbody.


Even though it's not almost a movie version of the G1 Seeker like originally intended, I did try to put in as much of the vehicle placement as I could, as I mentioned before about the transformation, stuff like engine heels, wings, canopy in the middle of the chest. So in the end I think it sits somewhere between G1, and the Movie Starscream.


Something I couldn't quite reconcile was the heaviness of the feet; they are intended to be constructed around a fair amount of negative space, but the straight on views needed for production kind of hid that. So when I turned in this final view, I stressed that point, just in case.

TF2 - Seeker 02

So this is a modified F18 Super Hornet, again slightly changed for legal reasons. I got a lot of graphics done for this guy, creating the Seeker Fighter Squadron, numbered SFS-101 through 103. I'm not sure that really came across in the game. I saw in the cut scene a Navy fighter taking off to fight the Decepts had the SFS on it, not quite what I had in mind. I also took the much loved/hated Kremzeek character, and appropriated him for the Squad Mascot.


This is where more of the modifications took place, the lines of the body against the wings, tail wing shape, cockpit shape, etc. Enough to get us out of legal trouble, but not enough to keep it from being completely recognizable as the F18.


I don't know what happened with the graphics. There was talk of making them camoflauge, so this was a first pass at a Starscream color key. I had purple and black, and blue and black camo patterns set up for Skywarp and Thundercracker, but JT told me to hold off until they figure out what to do. And I never was asked to come back to it and contribute to the colors, so I finally stopped asking about it, and didn't know what to expect until I played the game. I don't know where the red and black comes from, I just know I don't like it. However, the Skywarp version looks great.


And the transformation sequence, trying hard to make the transformation as close to the G1 animations as possible.