Hello everyone! I am so excited and honored to start blogging as the Student Spotlight blogger! However, before I start celebrating and cheering on the amazing artists here at Marywood University, I wanted to show you a little bit of what I do. Over the summer, I plan on writing about some of my artistic explorations before the Fall 2025 Semester begins. Today, I want to show you a six part series that I have spent months working on, and have now just finished.
When I was a little five-year old, my older brother really enjoyed the television series, Transformers Prime. The series was made for Hasbro Studios by The Hub, and developed by Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Kline, Roberto Orci, Duane Capizzi, and Stephen Davis. My family often watched the shows together, so I ended up getting a huge amount of exposure to the world of autobots and decepticons. I had not really thought of the show much until this past fall semester. I had been looking for ways to work on my character design skills, but with all of my assignments for classes, I did not really have the time to create a bunch of new characters. I have found that a lot of my artwork has suffered from very similar figures/features, as well as being almost exclusively fantasy related. With my time being a little cramped from my schoolwork, I thought that a good way to practice these skills would be to take a non-human set of characters and translate their traits, backstories, appearance (to a certain extent) into re-designed human characters. This way, I would treat the characters as ‘prompts’ — the series’ characters backstories and personality would remain the same, but I would be giving them a new physical appearance to match. Of course, this is technically fanart, so the characters are not my own. However, for the sake of practice and improvement, I felt this use of fanart would be beneficial and acceptable. I initially thought to use franchises like Care Bears and My Little Pony that I had grown up with, but I ultimately decided not to use these shows because I have seen human designs for both franchises and felt I would be too influenced by other artists. Transformers Prime ended being the perfect series for this experiment. The few fan artists who do draw for this series do not usually populate my social media feeds. Even better, the characters of Transformers Prime, have much more rich and full backstories that aided by project better than other series might.
With all of that context out of the way, let’s talk art!
Starting the Series
For this project, I decided to draw each character individually on my tablet, and then put them together in Photoshop. I used Artflow on my kindle to create the characters, and Photopea (a free online alternative to Photoshop) for all backgrounds and type.
For every character, I considered different aspects. However, there were a few things that I paid attention to overall that helped the characters come together as a series. I used the characters’ height and build to make them appear like their on-screen characters and to make them proportional to each other. In addition, I also made all of their eyes blue, much like the Autobots in the show. I also followed a process of sketching, creating a line art layer, laying down loose color palettes, and then shading with various brushes.
Introducing the Characters
Optimus Prime
Optimus Prime was my first character to try to sort out, and he was definitely a tricky character to start with. Within Transformers Prime, Optimus is a very complex character. During the show, he is the leader of the Autobots, fighting the noble war against Megatron, on Earth. A crucial part of his character is his care for the Earth, as well as his selfless desire to protect the humans who inhabit it. However, several episodes establish a much more deep backstory from his time on Cybertron. In this version of the show, the epic warrior was once a clerk at the Iacon Hall of Records — he was a librarian! When creating Optimus’s human design, I knew I wanted to incorporate both his wisened, war-ready sense of command and his nerdy-librarian side. To make this work, I gave him a sleek jacket reminiscent of his in-show color scheme and a slightly more librarian-esque sweater. I also put him in a much more powerful pose — a hand on his hip, and one foot slightly foreshortened to make him seem taller.
Smokescreen
Smokescreen was the next character I chose to work on. Smokescreen was an accident; although he is considered to be part of the main autobot cast, I always felt like he was just thrown in at the end. He was my least favorite character growing up, so I was planning on leaving him out. However, while I was trying to get Bumblebee’s pose down, I found that I had a much more Smokescreen-like design and could not abandon it at that point. Thus, Smokescreen came into fruition! Once I had the pose down, I wanted to further increase his characterization with fashion. Smokescreen always read to me like a high school jock who is just a little too arrogant and reckless. Combined with his backstory of being in training to become an Autobot soldier and being the youngest Autobot on the team, I wanted to give him a letterman’s jacket. For a little bit of fun and challenge, I also gave him the newly dubbed ‘rizz-cut’ / ‘broccoli-cut’ which is a haircut popular with teen boys right now.
Ratchet
Ratchet was the third character to be completed, and I’m honestly so disappointed. If I had unlimited time, I would probably go back and redo him because his does not hit the mark as much as I had hoped. Ratchet is one of my favorites, so making him had a lot more pressure for me. Ratchet is the scientist and medic in Transformers Prime. His personality is rather gruff and annoyed on the outside, but on the inside, he has a very big heart and very high expectations for himself. For this design, I chose to use his profession as the main source of inspiration, but I also tried to work in the rectangular build his character has. Ratchet is also canonically an older Autobot, so I gave him a balding hairline. Probably my favorite part of this piece is his eyebrows; he has these two red pieces above his eyes in the show, and I felt I really captured them with the eyebrows.
Bumblebee
Bumblebee was so much fun to create! He has so much energy in the show, so translating this into my human design was just as refreshing. Bumblebee is Optimus’s young scout, and very much the kid-appeal character. His character is brave and loyal to a tee, and fast. Bumblebee also has a tragic backstory, being born into his planet’s destruction and having had suffered the horrors of war his entire life. With that being said, I wanted to create a energetic character that sported Bumblebee’s racing stripes. I chose to also emphasize his eyes to put focus on the light in his eyes, further adding to his boyish personality and energy. Unlike the rest of my designs, he is also in motion.
Arcee
Arcee was probably one of my more challenging designs, since I had a lot of different ideas for her. On the outside, she is often brash, logical, cynical, and quick to anger, but in the inside, she seems to hold a candle for hope. Arcee is a soldier who has lost all that she loves, but still fights on regardless. She also seems very down-to-business and plays by the rules. For her design, I really struggled. I knew that I wanted to give her a more office-professional attire, since her entire character always felt more business like to me. However, the way in which I presented her feminine side was something I wrestled with. Arcee at times is very stereotypically feminine-presenting in build and backstory, but also challenges gender roles within the show’s team dynamics and her characterization. Her character, in general, could be seen as a sexist stereotype AND an awesome example of female representation, depending on what lens you view her under. In the end, I tried to strike both aspects of her character by giving her a shorter hair cut with dyed streaks, as opposed to the flowing ponytail and emo-half-buzzed cut that I had previously considered. I also chose a more professional pants and vest duo but with pops of color and jewelry sprinkled throughout. In the end, I am really happy with how she came out, since I managed to still make her feel very feminine while also keeping her design professional and easy to manage, which would be important to the character.
Bulkhead
Bulkhead was my last and favorite character to design. Growing up, Bulkhead was my favorite of the team, so he is a really nostalgic character for me. Bulkhead is the strength behind the team, the heavy muscle. He is not always the brightest, but he makes up for it in grit, perseverance, and courage. His character runs on the more intimidating side, but on the inside, he is a huge softy. His backstory is also super rich, which was really fun to work with. Bulkhead, before the war on Earth, was a member of the “Wreckers,” a group of autobot soldiers who would do the jobs no other unit was willing to take. They often were given the most dangerous, the most high-stake missions, and are often characterized as being as close as brothers. Although he has since joined up with Optimus and his team, I knew that this central part of his character would have to be showcased in his human design. I decided to give him an old military jacket with patches I designed to look like something that the Wreckers might have had. Since other characters in the show were also Wreckers, I left the jacket a neutral color so that if I ever wanted to continue the project, the jacket could be reused. When creating Bulkhead, I also wanted to capture his powerful nature, but also his softer nature. For this reason, he has a more grim appearance combined with a softer, almost embarrassed, pose and expression. Finally, for fun, I gave him a mohawk, since I always thought that his head looked like he would have one.
Mission Complete!
I am super happy to finally have gotten this project done. It was neat to step outside of my comfort zone and experiment with different character builds, poses, expressions, etc. However, what I think was even more incredible was seeing my progress and improvement throughout the Spring Semester. I created all of these pieces at different times, and my work in class translated to my digital art.
I can tell which ones came earlier, and it is really cool to see where I was throughout the semester. For example, my posing got a lot better as I progressed throughout the semester. My conception of objects in space definitely sees a change. Most noticeable is probably my understanding of the anatomy of the human head. From Optimus to Ratchet, the faces feel a little flat. However, for Bumblebee, Arcee, and Bulkhead, I was either going through Drawing I, or finished with it. During this class, we learned about different planes of the face and how to draw them. This becomes more apparent in my digital work with the latter three characters, and I am THRILLED! This understanding of planes and surfaces also makes its way into the figures of these characters. While I am sad that the earlier characters are not quite at the same technical level as the later three, I am so excited that I can see a physical manifestation of my progress throughout the semester. I’m also excited to see where I can practice more — namely anatomy and texture! Overall, this project was a success and I am really happy I finished it.
Thank you so much for reading about this artistic journey! Until next time!