The Energon Pub

vegetacron wrote:I agree, but stongly disagree with your point of view. I agree, that yes, they lacked the basic fundamentals and didn't go by the books and did'nt draw the apple like a traditional artist would.

I strongly disagree though, because these artist, however lacking they are to the art critiques, where absolutely phenomenal. I loved the 90s comics and i loved Pat Lee's artwork. And i 'm going to stop here, because if i keep going, we'll be debating personal preferences and tastes, which either one of us will be able to prove because it is 'preference'.

Respectfully, I think you missed my criticism of Pat Lee's work entirely. My criticism is based on technical merits. It has nothing to do with preferences or tastes or even a comment on his style of artwork beyond my statement that he uses the superficial aspects of manga styles.

For example, the man doesn't know how linear perspective works. If one were to take one of his drawings of a robot and tried to create a three dimensional replication accurate to the drawing, it would be a significantly warped object. It's not simply a matter of minor cheating to make imagery look cool rather than right, he often distorts perspective and it doesn't appear to be intentional.

Now I'm focusing on perspective simply because when you deal with depicting structural objects like robots/machines or architecture...proper application of linear perspective is usually important.

I actually like the idea of his style, which is to incorporate manga influence into his art, but the execution is poor due to his lack of understanding of areas of basic art methods.

Convotron wrote:For example, the man doesn't know how linear perspective works. If one were to take one of his drawings of a robot and tried to create a three dimensional replication accurate to the drawing, it would be a significantly warped object. It's not simply a matter of minor cheating to make imagery look cool rather than right, he often distorts perspective and it doesn't appear to be intentional.

An image from the TFwiki that further supports this:

For example, the man doesn't know how linear perspective works. If one were to take one of his drawings of a robot and tried to create a three dimensional replication accurate to the drawing, it would be a significantly warped object. It's not simply a matter of minor cheating to make imagery look cool rather than right, he often distorts perspective and it doesn't appear to be intentional.

Now I'm focusing on perspective simply because when you deal with depicting structural objects like robots/machines or architecture...proper application of linear perspective is usually important.

I'm gonna go with a "Yeah, but it still looks FRIGGIN AWESOME!"

But you have hit one of my pet peeves about the franchise: Reality. Ever go to see a sci-fi or fiction film and "that guy" is there? Ya know; the one that sits thru the ENTIRE movie and complains to his friend/girlfriend/kid that everything in the movie is absolute bullshit and has no premise in reality?

Me personally, i don't watch any of the TF movies, cartoons, etc for any basis in reality. If i wanted somewhat 'real' mech proportions and physics, i'll go play some Armored Core. Thats why ROTF was good enough to warrant a 3rd movie. Not because Michael Bay put awesome amounts of time and money into making it real, which he did anyway - too bad he wasn't paying attention to the story, but because he puts these elements into scenes and situations which most audiences are thinking "OMFG this is soooo awesome."

It sucks, i wished the writers and artists would do a better job sometimes of being just a tad more realistic, but ya gotta remember, this IP was made for kids.

vegetacron wrote:I'm gonna go with a "Yeah, but it still looks FRIGGIN AWESOME!"

There's nothing wrong with that, in fact, I do agree with that. I can see the intent in Pat Lee's work. It's just that it doesn't come through as well as it could if he was a more skilled artist.

vegetacron wrote:But you have hit one of my pet peeves about the franchise: Reality. Ever go to see a sci-fi or fiction film and "that guy" is there? Ya know; the one that sits thru the ENTIRE movie and complains to his friend/girlfriend/kid that everything in the movie is absolute bullshit and has no premise in reality?

I'm not talking about imposing realism in his artwork, I'm talking about imposing convincing depictions of what are structural objects(robots). I'm fine with the fact that he draws talking alien robots from another planet. I'm a Transformers fan, afterall.

vegetacron wrote:Me personally, i don't watch any of the TF movies, cartoons, etc for any basis in reality. If i wanted somewhat 'real' mech proportions and physics, i'll go play some Armored Core. Thats why ROTF was good enough to warrant a 3rd movie. Not because Michael Bay put awesome amounts of time and money into making it real, which he did anyway - too bad he wasn't paying attention to the story, but because he puts these elements into scenes and situations which most audiences are thinking "OMFG this is soooo awesome."

It sucks, i wished the writers and artists would do a better job sometimes of being just a tad more realistic, but ya gotta remember, this IP was made for kids.

Just to let you know, Bay wanted to avoid as much visual "cheating" as possible when choosing the designs for the Transformers characters. Mainly it was the concept of "mass shifting" that he wanted to avoid. The designs for the CG animation models and their transformation sequences do contain visual cheating but are visually convincing for the most part. The CG animators created mostly accurate depictions of how such fictional robots would behave and react in the environment. Bay also consulted the SFX crew on how reflections of images should behave on reflective metallic surfaces. Why are these points relevant? Despite the fictional aspect of the TF movies, the visual effects of the movie were created with consideration for trying to be convincing and plausible to the viewer. People do not simply throw out all reason and logic because they want to make a fun or awesome movie.

Now where this differs from what I'm trying to get at with Pat Lee's art is that his lack of good/convincing use of perspective is a problem. Shadowman's picture example linked from TFwiki demonstrates how distorted Pat Lee's drawings can be. The problem isn't that his drawing of Optimus Prime isn't of a realistic robot, it's that it's a significantly distorted and warped looking robot, especially when OP's right arm is removed and we look at the projected image of what his chest would look like according to Pat Lee's misuse of perspective.

I feel that you and I are discussing two different topics, vegetacron. I'm not concerned about realism or tastes in aesthetics, I'm talking simply about Pat Lee's deficiencies as an artist. Everyone in the world could adore his art style, it doesn't change the fact that he lacks certain fundamental artistic skills.

I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me. The story, however, was.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me.

Not to mention that most of the poses were "Squatting while also reaching out towards to the viewer."

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:The story, however, was.

I don't think he was a writer.

Cool. We're good.

Shadowman wrote:All I know of Pat Lee is what the TF Wiki tells me. Biased? probably, but I don't really have any other good sources.

No, that's correct, I've read that James Neiber (the writer on the WWII TF/Joe crossover) also got ripped off by Pat Lee. I don't celebrate crooks.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me. The story, however, was.

What story? DW never had storyline that made any sense. It was a bigger fanwank than the Animated was and at least Animated had a it's own story.

It's no big secert that I lothe Furman's whole IDW run, but I'll take all Furman's IDW crap at over the entire DW crapfest.

Cyberstrike wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me. The story, however, was.

What story? DW never had storyline that made any sense. It was a bigger fanwank than the Animated was and at least Animated had a it's own story.

It's no big secert that I lothe Furman's whole IDW run, but I'll take all Furman's IDW crap at over the entire DW crapfest.

The mysteries behind the Quintessons and their involvement? How Unicron was gonna factor into things?

And I loved Furman's work on IDW.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Cyberstrike wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me. The story, however, was.

What story? DW never had storyline that made any sense. It was a bigger fanwank than the Animated was and at least Animated had a it's own story.

It's no big secert that I lothe Furman's whole IDW run, but I'll take all Furman's IDW crap at over the entire DW crapfest.

The mysteries behind the Quintessons and their involvement? How Unicron was gonna factor into things?

And I loved Furman's work on IDW.

The Quintessons were weapon dealers...again, they helped Megatron and Unicron was going to try and eat Cybertron...again and he would be destroyed when Optimus or Rodimus Prime opened the Matrix...again.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Cyberstrike wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I'll admit, the puffy 'bots and 'cons were not appealing to me. The story, however, was.

What story? DW never had storyline that made any sense. It was a bigger fanwank than the Animated was and at least Animated had a it's own story.

It's no big secert that I lothe Furman's whole IDW run, but I'll take all Furman's IDW crap at over the entire DW crapfest.

The mysteries behind the Quintessons and their involvement? How Unicron was gonna factor into things?

And I loved Furman's work on IDW.

Eh, I always felt Dreamwave was telling the G1 story that was referenced in Beast Wars. They had a few pieces there, like the Golden Disks, the back door to the Ark that Ratchet and Brawn used in the former ongoing #1. There were probably another few nods in there as well.

Before Vol. 2 came along one could have surmised that Vol. 1 was the story between Season 2 and the Movie in the cartoon Universe, but obvioulsy that's impossible considering they went a whole different direction. Oh Red Alert, you continuity shattering feller....

Dreamwave may have had a lot of references for the fans(too many at once some think), but I can't deny that I loved the series, and wish it would still be around today. Yeah I like the IDW stuff, but I don't know, cheesy as the cartoon was, you could tell that the Dreamwave stuff was written around it.

Dreamwave was also the first media apperances of Bumper, Sunstorm, the Powerdashers, the mini-spies. Fan catering or not I thought it was great.

Oh, and in response to the question, I think Pat Lee should be celebrated for bringing Transformers back into the lime light. I wouldn't be here if not for Transformers Vol. 1 #3.

Dreamwave was also the first media apperances of Bumper, Sunstorm, the Powerdashers, the mini-spies. Fan catering or not I thought it was great.

Yeah, like Skyhopper! "WTF is 'Skhopper'!?" Dude, idk, but he was in that one, er 2, comics and was a decepicon who did things with stuff...yeah, i need to go read those issues. Its on the 'to do' list, its on the 'to-do' list! lol