The Energon Pub

The way megatron's face is drawn for the IDWs Collection Phase one, is what I always thought there faces should have been like, kind of like a ventrilaquists puppet, obviously a few more hinges and moveable panels here and there to help show more emotions, but at the end of the day ventrilaquists puppets convey enough emotions, just with the movement of there eyebrows or whatever feature has been built in. This concept isn't new and is definently not from the live action movie, if you look at some of the G1 toys they have slits and panels which look like they would slide rather than bend like liquied or flexible futuristic metal.
The futuristic metal idea that has been adopted by alot of people who have said how G1 would work in real life or in Live action, is based around the comics/cartoons. The concept of how the faces would work was not something that had any set rules, it was left down to the individual artist at the time. This is more evident in the comics, when artists who were more used to drawing human characters, gave the bots human like hands rather than mechanical looking hands, again with the faces. Anyone who can draw will tyell you hands are tricky to draw, and faces are too. Hnds and faces are important when telling a story as both can be used to convey emotion, tools which are very important when telling a story. Due to deadlines aand lack of experience maybe, most artists either did hands and faces in there tried and tested biological look, and if we were lucky the hands were made to look mechanical. Sometime sthe bots even had teeth and even saliva.
Mechanical faces have become a terade mark of the live action movie, but there roots stem back from G1. I think the old answer of alien technology and flexible metal is a cop out, as why aren'tother parts using this flexible metal. It's just an easy answer, for a problem that with some time and effort can be easily solved. A mechanical face doesn't have to be as obscure as the live action movie, and a full range of motion isn't always needed to convey alot of expression.
I think mechanical faces should be the norm through out the whole transformers series, from simplistic G1 to elaborate live action with ethe exception of animate detc. Eyes show plenty of emotion, and prime prove sthat with his faceplate covering most of his face. There are plenty of actors on TV with there face pumped full of botox more or less parallising there face and they are still acting, not very well mind you. But even if there is some compramise, which I don't think there would be, I realy feel flexible looking faces or just simple flowing cartoony lines should be left to the likes of animated and spin off lines like robot heroes and mighty muggs which are stylised version so it works there. Human hands just look wrong, I still see it used today especialy in some manga, and what's with teeth and saliva.
I know some of you are fond of this old nostalgic style, but things have moved with the way transformers are brought to life by artists, but he way G1 and many other lines, have had the issue of how there faces are tackled, is still not fully solved convincibly. Ithink we can all agree that the way the hands are rendered now look convincing, and it is rare that we see human hands on a robot. But Faces are still tackled in many different ways, and I have read alot of threads and no one seems to agree on one thing. Alot of people seem to think the mechanical look came around from the movie. The movie prooves that it works, but the original toys and some artists today have proven a simpler way can work for G1, it just has to be adopted across the board. Everyone has mixed vues on G1 on going with the movie based inspired look. I'm in 2 mindas about it, and although I think the faces look iffy, I still think if reworked they could look really good. But a more simpler mechanical look is already therew. Take a closer look at some of your toys, and newer lines also have slits and grooves indicating a tyraditional mechanical movement is involved rather than a more biological flexible method

Mechanical faces have become a terade mark of the live action movie, but there roots stem back from G1. I think the old answer of alien technology and flexible metal is a cop out, as why aren'tother parts using this flexible metal

Well, it is possible that there are/were gears and actuators moving, rolling, and etc under a thin sheet of flexible metal for those older characters. The movies just had a series of plates strewn together by, what it looked like, a series of actuators that compromises the face of the bot.

Flexible metal is not a far flung idea tho. Look at aluminum and gold. Both are soft, malleable metals that can be flexed back and forth under the right conditions. Now you might think that this would warp the transformer's faces over time and perhaps it even does, but either way, this is a sentient, space-faring race that lives upon a planet made of hundreds of thousands of, if not, millions of different metals and therefore makes it completely plausabile in their setting to have this flexible metal that covers their faces.

But even the (80's) movie showed that there was parts under the face that make the expressions what they are (when Megs gets turned into Galvie). I think it really depends on the artist.

The only face design i did'nt care for was that whole cyclops thing. For example:



But its weird, because i do like this guy very much:


Just not this

version of him...

EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?
2nd EDIT: or a nose, even? I think thats just the way we make these characters more humanoid so that we can relate to whatever emotions they convey at times. So i guess i do agree with most everything you said, because its obvious that even without a humanoid face, emotions can be conveyed perfectly thru varying 'guises', ie (everybody's fan fav):

vegetacron wrote:
EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?

I can think of a few good reasons...

Aside from that, the way I draw my TFs is half stretchy looking and half mechanical, I draw my own style of TFs though, and thats how I roll!

Although flexible metal isn't an outh there idea, it's not relly suitable for fighting machines, an if it is so togh why do the rest of there bodies use what seem to be more suitable parts for the job. I just don't like the fact that people who are used to drawing biological characters can't be botherd or don't have time to experiment on how the most complicated parts of a character are to draw, would look like on a robot, so therefor resort to an unconvincible looking robot. It kinda looks like someone dressed up for halloween.

DTR69 wrote:I just don't like the fact that people who are used to drawing biological characters can't be botherd or don't have time to experiment on how the most complicated parts of a character are to draw, would look like on a robot, so therefor resort to an unconvincible looking robot.

I think it's less "can't be bothered" and more that readers/watchers react better to faces that can convey recognizable emotion. (*points out at the large amount of flak Figueroa has gotten for the ongoing and the gripes Su has occasionally gotten for his faces, while Roche is frequently praised highly for his faces*)

But then, the only pro artist I can think of off-hand that draws TFs that I feel are too human-looking is Wildman on the old Marvel stuff.

Transformers' hands and face doesn't need to be flexible metal, I imagine it as fleshling skin: billions of cells held together to make a protective layer - what I don't like in Bayformers, is that those parts that make the faces and other parts are bigger than a humans arms, and so unnecessary - they bend more than it would be imaginable without stress to the metal (look at the license plate of Bumblebee - when he transforms, the plate bends in half 90 degrees).

Chaoslock wrote:Transformers' hands and face doesn't need to be flexible metal, I imagine it as fleshling skin: billions of cells held together to make a protective layer - what I don't like in Bayformers, is that those parts that make the faces and other parts are bigger than a humans arms, and so unnecessary - they bend more than it would be imaginable without stress to the metal (look at the license plate of Bumblebee - when he transforms, the plate bends in half 90 degrees).

Ive always wondered how BBs license plate got like that

SlyTF1 wrote:

vegetacron wrote:
EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?

I can think of a few good reasons...

Ok, like what? Honestly I was thinking of this a few days back when I should have been finishing a paper on Dostoevsky. I had G1 S3 on in the background and just started wondering what the point of an actual mouth is on a robot. I G1 they eat or drink energon to refuel, but even the ones with faceplates seem to do just fine at refueling. Yes, I know, they are aliens, but do they really need mouths? What good reasons are you thinking of?

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

vegetacron wrote:
EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?

I can think of a few good reasons...

Ok, like what? Honestly I was thinking of this a few days back when I should have been finishing a paper on Dostoevsky. I had G1 S3 on in the background and just started wondering what the point of an actual mouth is on a robot. I G1 they eat or drink energon to refuel, but even the ones with faceplates seem to do just fine at refueling. Yes, I know, they are aliens, but do they really need mouths? What good reasons are you thinking of?

Fire breath. You need a mouth to do that

Serious: Maybe it is easier to maintain to have an openable/coverable position for "speakers" for communication.

But for why transformers (without beast modes) would need teeth, I don't have any answer.

Chaoslock wrote:

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

vegetacron wrote:
EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?

I can think of a few good reasons...

Ok, like what? Honestly I was thinking of this a few days back when I should have been finishing a paper on Dostoevsky. I had G1 S3 on in the background and just started wondering what the point of an actual mouth is on a robot. I G1 they eat or drink energon to refuel, but even the ones with faceplates seem to do just fine at refueling. Yes, I know, they are aliens, but do they really need mouths? What good reasons are you thinking of?

Fire breath. You need a mouth to do that

Serious: Maybe it is easier to maintain to have an openable/coverable position for "speakers" for communication.

But for why transformers (without beast modes) would need teeth, I don't have any answer.

Man, fire breath. So obvious!

Dagon wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

vegetacron wrote:
EDIT: But to be completely realistic, what the hell do transformers need with 'lips'?

I can think of a few good reasons...

Ok, like what? Honestly I was thinking of this a few days back when I should have been finishing a paper on Dostoevsky. I had G1 S3 on in the background and just started wondering what the point of an actual mouth is on a robot. I G1 they eat or drink energon to refuel, but even the ones with faceplates seem to do just fine at refueling. Yes, I know, they are aliens, but do they really need mouths? What good reasons are you thinking of?

why don't they have 360 degree vision from like <9000 camera eyes, and 9 arms. why a bunch of stuff? sometimes thats just the way it is. why do they need hands? presumably on a metal planet, you could just use magnets for everything.

Remember Devastator in tf2? thats a damn good reason to have a mouth.

People could have eyes on stalks like insects, but we didn't evolve that way. hell why do we have an appendix? same argument.

also if they didn't have mouths, or hands, or legs, or eyes, it'd be like knightrider. possibly without the blinking lights. Or like staring at a car playing a radio. and havin no action, no emotion, nothing to make people care, when you talk doesn't market well. Granted its a good gimic for a few (like shockwave) but if all tf's were like that people wouldn't care as much about what happensto them. seeing someone scream in pain evokes emotion. its why you cry when your mom is in surgery, not when your car needs an overhaul.

Evolution has a strange way of coming up with the same answer for solutions even when sperated. A fish could leave the ocean and become a sries of warm blooded animals. Another fish could leave the ocean and evolve a series of cold blooded species. Down the line when presented with a problem, where evolution finds a solution, lets just say the ability to fly, evolution has answered the problem the same way, by the way I'm just using that for an example so please don't start saying, how I am wrong and that evolution has answered it in many different ways. I'm just using flying as a problem to be solved, not that its a problem, maybe living in an arean where the food is hard to digets or something. Anyway all I'm saying is species can be spearated, and can evolve into manydifferent variaties, lets say 2 snakes on opposite side of the worl, one evolves into a cow, to a bird, then into an animal with 10 legs and spikes on it's back, the other snake evolve sinto a mouse, then a giant mouse with wings, but then further down evolves into an animal with 10 legs and spikes on it's back, both look the same but are totaly different species, the only thing in common maybe that the enviroment they live in has led evolution to come up with a similar solution.
And fish have left the ocean for the land, grown legs, then lost there legs and returned to the ocean. Their forms have change dso much but the form given when returning to the ocean is fish like again, there are differences, in the way they breath and swim, but the form shows that the fish form, the ideal shape for getting around the seas. Evolution, isn't just chance, the changes that it throws up are tested, and the one sthat work go onto live and evolve. So in away we would never evolve with eyes on the souls of our feet as, it wouldn't of worked. Maybe if we had bigger eyes it would help us, but until that happens, and there is an improvement then that person will prosper and human kind wil evolve with bigger eyes, as it is we are still evovling, as humans years ago were alot shorter.
We still may have alot of evolving to do, as we are still growing taller, maybe we to will grow the height of optimus prime. MAybe in millions of years time there may not be that much differences between us and a transformer. I know that sounds unlikely but I mean teoreticaly.
It is very possible that the human form is the best form, to allow intelligence to evolve. Imagine a snail with the brain of Einstein. A snail cannot us ethat intelligence, to change the world around it, let alone expand it's knowledge. Hands are what allow us to advance. Unless you can move things telepathicaly. It's the combination of certain features that allow humans to be so dominant and not just dominat, put a whole different type of species. So the fact that alien life forms, inteligent ones that is would have many features like us, is not so unlikey.
I have often thought why do transformers need so many human features, as they don't need to eat like us, why do they nee mouths to talk, why not just a speaker. We have certain features due to the way we are made. Robots are made a different way so certain things like recreating sound would be done a different way, meaning the solution would look different. WHy do they have noses etc.
Transformers are created differently, so are they designed, or is there design generated on some other level. Some features like hands, are obvious, and even where they are placed in proportion to the body, ie having 2 arms with hands on the end.
What I like to think is that maybe on Cybertron, they never had noses, or maybe they had a bump there but it was used as something else, maybe to help protect the eyes if falling on your face, maybe thats the reason why our noses have evolved that way, and the reason we just don't havw a hole in our face. Anyway what I like to think is that when they change dthere alt modes o resemble eartyh vehicles, maybe they altered their faces as they knew at some point they would have to communicate with us, and maybe having a more human like face would be less threatening to us and just generaly help with communication, so maybe some of there features, are adopted from us for there stay on earth.

Why do Transformers have humanish (for the most part) heads and faces?

My own belief is that Cybertron was once inhabited by organic humaniods that the original Mechs were based on, that have been forgotten over millenia.

Maybe transformers didn't have faces until they encountered humanoid species, and decided it was a good idea to incorperate into their designs.

Or, one could turn to G1's story of Quintesson creators. Tranformers were a consumer product, and perhaps many of the consumers were of humanoid species, and so the TF's were modelled after them for marketing and communication purposes.

Story-wise, readers and audiences need to relate to a character, and so we give those characters human faces and humanlike hands. The Brave Little Toaster didn't need a face, except to make us care about him.

Personally, I would like to see what the Henson Creatureshop would do to make a Transformer face. They would probably convey worlds more emotion than the jigsaw eyesores of the Bayformers' wounds-they-call-faces.

I might have a idea to toss as to why they have/once had teeth...

Long time ago, they were a techno-organic species like the Quintessons. They were a new emerging species, but as the Quientessions viewed them as primarily animals, they didn't feel that it was wrong to breed/reconfigure this species into a consumer product.
This new species did have teeth, but the Quintessons' customers thought that these were 'threatening,' especially on the femms created to care for offspring. Teeth were for eating and fighting, and what sentient wanted to be reminded of the 'animalistic nature' of his child's nanny? A mouth devoid of teeth was nonthreatening, symbolizing ultimate subserviance, as it could only slurp and suck like an infant's, and had no 'weaponry.'
So the Quints yanked the teeth of older models and modified the genetic structure of new models so that they could not develop teeth.
Since they now had no teeth, they had to be able to consume a substance that required no chewing, but was still enough to maintain them. So the Quints modified these creatures to consume Energon. This was also intended to make the Tfs even more dependant, because if you are the only one who can provide them 'food,' they can't rebel without dooming themselves.
The Energon was such a good fuel, that when they were creating the predecessors to the Decepticons, they kept the modifications and didn't bother to give them back the teeth.

I've always thought of the humanoid faces and other features as yet another layer of mimickry. What is a Cybertronian's true root form? Just a spark?

The best TF faces are the ones that do look human, but like DTR69 says, hinges, a bit harsher lines. The IDW collection one generally does it well. I'll never forget Megatron in TF Animated either, even the first season when he's mostely a half blasted apart head he conveys an amazing amount of emotion. Even still, I prefer too human looking to too blenderface looking as with the live action movies and the Figroa's TF Ongoing work.

Jeysie wrote:

DTR69 wrote:I just don't like the fact that people who are used to drawing biological characters can't be botherd or don't have time to experiment on how the most complicated parts of a character are to draw, would look like on a robot, so therefor resort to an unconvincible looking robot.

I think it's less "can't be bothered" and more that readers/watchers react better to faces that can convey recognizable emotion. (*points out at the large amount of flak Figueroa has gotten for the ongoing and the gripes Su has occasionally gotten for his faces, while Roche is frequently praised highly for his faces*)

But then, the only pro artist I can think of off-hand that draws TFs that I feel are too human-looking is Wildman on the old Marvel stuff.

I really do not like Wildman's faces, and Roche's push the limits. I love how he draws every other part of his bots (mostly), but the faces are definitely pushing it for me.

I prefer what EJ was doing in Prowl most recently, but in his -tion it was usually okay as well.

I'm not a fan of a smooth, rounded TF face either. I prefer a blockier, paneled face with plates more. I think Casey Coller did it pretty well in the new Ironhide book.