The Energon Pub

I decided that Cerebros would be my next subject for a collector card, since he didn't get his own separate card during Titans Return. However, there wasn't any separate official art of him during TR that I could find. There's the TCG art, but I don't own the TCG Cerebros and Emissary cards so the scans wouldn't be mine, and it's not a match for the Prime Wars and WFC Trilogy art anyway.


So I decided to try making my own art that was a better match by putting the toy through Photoshop filters. How close would people say I got? I wanted to ask before I went to the trouble of doing the shadows around his legs and feet.

Lightning brushes from Brusheezy
Background from Hasbro's Titans Return website

Seriously, is it at all close to matching?

2 months and 10,000+ views...

Could I please get at least one comment opining as to whether it matches?

Turned the thread into a poll.

You wanted comments so I have some

There's a lot more fun that could be had here, I think. If you want to match the look of the Titans Return cards (which I assume is your goal) I think you should try to capture the oddly static, orthogonal way the characters were drawn. Obviously if you're editing an image of the toy there's no way to replicate the digital paint texture without, well, digitally painting over Cerebros's entire body yourself. So why not go all out for the pose and image composition?

I'd say try retaking your photo with Cerebros's shoulders level and both arms turned out (like how you currently have his right arm posed). Maybe use a filter to make him symmetrical along the center of his body if the toy won't cooperate?

The TR art added ankle tilts to figures that didn't have any, like Astrotrain. It would be easy to pose cerebros with his legs spread slightly and replace his untilted feet, on another layer in whatever program you're using, with ones touching the ground. Also use his thigh swivel to show the inside of the leg and brush/smear out the hollow if it irks you. Look at TR Kup's art, for example.

Finally, you should absolutely make emissary smaller. The head right now looks much larger than it does on the toy!