Zobovor
2024-12-13 22:59:05 UTC
Reply
Permalinksome of the assorted Autobot leaders who appear in the flashback scene
from "Five Faces of Darkness" part 4. Their official models have never
surfaced, to my knowledge, but I thought it would be fun to extrapolate
from what we do see on-screen, even if we don't get a full body shot of
every character.
It's worth mentioning that Floro Dery, the visual designer for the G1
cartoon for seasons one and two as well as the movie, had left the show
by season three. Without such a strong talent, the remaining art staff
frequently resorted to recycling his existing character designs and
repurposing them, sometimes with minimal changes and sometimes with no
changes at all. For some of the ancient Autobots who appear in the
episode, I noticed that their designs had been cribbed from characters
like Hot Rod and Cyclonus, with only the surface details changed. So,
it stood to reason that if I started with the models for those
characters as a basis, I coul change up some details and arrive at
something fairly close to what their actual character designs might look
like. For example (this is just one of them, but you can find links to
all the other ones here too):
https://www.deviantart.com/zobovor/art/Primon-Ancient-Autobot-Animation-Model-Color-742756355
I am always very transparent about the fact that this is fan art, not
official models. However, I know how easy it is to go trolling online
for reference materials and to not always be immediately aware of the
origins of the artwork you end up finding. My stuff has occasionally
been mistaken for official reference materials from time to time. It's
embarrassing, in some ways, but I suppose it's also flattering.
These ancient Autobot characters recently became relevant again with the
advent of next year's upcoming Age of the Primes toy line, which aims to
depict the thirteen original Transformers. The Transformers mythos has
always been kind of a mish-mash, with newer concepts, such as character
names, being applied to older cartoon episodes and comic books
retroactively. So, even though during "Five Faces of Darkness" the
former Autobot leaders were given nicknames in the script like Powerful
Robot or Brooding Robot or U-Haul Robot, they've since been assigned
proper names like Prima and Prime Nova and Sentinel Prime.
Do I care about getting toys of the thirteen original Transformers? I'm
not really sure. They seem important to the mythos, certainly, but if
they never appeared in the G1 media, I don't really have any strong
attachment to them. I tried plugging in the same idea with other toy
lines I collect and it didn't seem that appealing. Would I buy a Star
Wars action figure if he was marketed as the the very first Jedi? Would
I buy a Ninja Turtles action figure of Oroku Dakiki, supposedly
Shredder's father? Probably not.
At least one upcoming Hasbro toy is drawing directly from the cartoon
series, the Age of Primes figure called Prima Prime. The head sculpt
for the toy is clearly based upon the "Powerful Robot" gladiator (the
one whose design was cribbed from Cyclonus) even though the design from
the neck down does deviate rather dramatically from what we see in the
show. But this kind of makes me want to own the toy, since it's the
only such official release that pays tribute to this obscure and
largely-forgotten character.
It would have been difficult for Hasbro to come up with accurate toys
based directly on the animation, though, since the cartoon depicts these
guys as early robots from Cybertron, before the art of transforming was
even invented. Sentinel Prime (the "U-Haul Robot") is the only one who
is explicitly shown to be able to change into a vehicle. Given that
this is a toy line called Transformers, it's obvious Hasbro would have
to deviate from the source material in order to come up with viable toy
designs that could actually transform into something.
And because I am a raging egomaniac, sometimes I entertain thoughts
like, "Hmm, I wonder if somebody at Hasbro actually used my character
model for reference?" It's likely that they didn't, because they have
access to all the same screenshots of the character that I do. So, that
seems rather silly.
However, then I did a little more digging and I found something I had no
idea existed!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364280991837
Apparently manufactured by Deformation Toys and likely 3D-printed, this
guy (called Alpha Prime in the auction) is unquestionably based on my
drawing of Primon (the "Ancient Autobot"). We only see this guy in the
episode from the neck up, so there would be no way for anybody to arrive
at this specific design accidentally. And, yes, he's shaped a bit like
Hot Rod.
And there's more!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364821185497
This guy, Prime Nova (or the "Brooding Robot") we only see from about
the mid-torso up, so I had to finish his design from the stomach down.
He had a bunch of pokey-out parts, so I just went with that and gave him
more pokey-out parts on his legs and forearms. It is crazy to see my
fan art in three-dimensional form like this.
Yes, there's more.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364961849712
Here's Zeta Prime (or the "New Narrator") in all his glory. We do see a
lot more of this guy in animation than most of these others, so I didn't
have to guess too much what his final design would look like.
Oh, we're not done yet!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364838611967
This is Guardian Prime (or "Pre-Transformer") who obviously has a strong
resemblance to Rodimus Prime. The color key artists just slapped the
Rodimus colors onto the robot design without any changes, so even though
there are a lot of minor differences (the boxy shoulders, the different
shape of the wing on his back) the colors really negate the differences
to a strong degree. I really can't take credit for any of the design
work here, since we see this guy in his entirety in the episode.
And, finally...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364280985605
A much more cartoon-accurate take on Prima (or "Powerful Robot"), and
this eBay auction actually includes a side-by-side comparison image of
the character model I drew along with an image of the final CAD file
used to print the toy, just in case there was some confusion over what
images they're using for reference! I'm honestly kind of tickled that
somebody evidently thought my fan art was good enough to serve as the
basis for these amazing creations. At $199.99 a pop, they're way too
steep for me to consider purchasing right now, but this was still an
exciting discovery, so I wanted to share.
Zob (weirdly, I don't see a Sentinel Prime anywhere, aka the U-Haul
Robot, who is the only one of these guys whose official character model
has actually turned up)