The Energon Pub

[jay5]

...

[Va'al]

In another retrospective look from artist Marcelo Matere, and his official Facebook page, we have a less lengthy stroll through the solar calendar instead, and back into the first part of the Prime Wars trilogy of the new Hasbro Transformers alleged 'story-first'direction: Combiner Wars.

The image mirrored below is none other than the protagonist of the second arc of IDW Publishing's Till All Are One, the first Gestalt love of many a fan, the second version of itself in the Generations line - the more successful compared to the first, no doubt - and the merging of the five Combaticons: Bruticus! Check out the packaging art below, and refresh your processors with a browse through our gallery here, where you will also find individual galleries for Onslaught, Blast Off, Swindle (Lives), Vortex, and Brawl.

[Deathsanras]

What is with this reaching-and-pointing schtick/stock pose for all the box-art?



It's all very Dreamwave. In the bad way.

[Va'al]

What is with this reaching-and-pointing schtick/stock pose for all the box-art?

They need to ..grab your attention.

[Seibertron]

Marcelo has done thousands of amazing pieces of Transformers artwork over the past 15 years.

While I agree the hand reaching out or finger pointing pose is way over done, what is the alternative? The fist clenched pose that has been way overused in comics and action figure artwork for decades?

[Deathsanras]

Marcelo has done thousands of amazing pieces of Transformers artwork over the past 15 years.

While I agree the hand reaching out or finger pointing pose is way over done, what is the alternative? The fist clenched pose that has been way overused in comics and action figure artwork for decades?

Since the artwork isn't even articulation-accurate, the answer would be "anything".
The hands have to be doing something, obviously, and the options can be summarized as either "open" or "closed". However, it's the pathological need to have them outstretched to the buyer ("Buuuuuyyy meeeeeee") that is tiresome and Dreamwavey/unimaginative. A running pose, for example, has context for the arm movements.






I would argue the alternatives are extremely simple: anything that does not make a single hand the central focus of your entire art piece. Unless maybe it's Shockwave or Scrounge. These characters/toys have body parts and features other than their hands. Use them.

[Agamemnon]

They should draw them picking their own noses.


What?


You'd rather they were drawn picking another bot's nose? You're a bunch of weirdos...

[Sabrblade]

They should draw them picking their own noses.


What?


You'd rather they were drawn picking another bot's nose? You're a bunch of weirdos...

Well, yeah. You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.

[TF-fan kev777]

They should draw them picking their own noses.


What?


You'd rather they were drawn picking another bot's nose? You're a bunch of weirdos...

Well, yeah. You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.

Wait, I thought it went: You can pick you nose, and you can pick your friends, but you can't wipe your friends behind the couch.

[Bronzewolf]

We saw some concepts from Combiner Wars a couple of weeks ago, from artist Marcelo Matere, featuring Bruticus in all his glory. We now have some additional pieces of Combiner Wars concept art this time from Ken Christiansen! His works would end up being the box art for the leader of the Aerialbots, Silverbolt, and leader of the Autobot, Optimus Prime! While they might have gotten cut off on the box, he has posted the full shots over on his Facebook page. Take a look at the concepts down below, included with his Facebook captions, and then tell us what you think down in the Energon Pub forums!

I did the character pencils for this Silverbolt packaging art!

Which showed almost nothing of the full figure art on the box...which was one of my favorites of the batch, Silverbolt with his feet on the ground, mustering up the courage to blast off and join the fight!

I did the character pencils for this Combiner Wars Voyager Optimus Prime packaging art!

Only the head and shoulders appeared on the front of the box, so here's the full figure.

©Hasbro, Inc. 2017

[Randomhero]

Ken Christianses! There’s a name I haven’t heard for almost ten years! Did spotlight Wheelie and nothing! I wish he’d do more work for IDW

[Sabrblade]

Ken Christianses! There’s a name I haven’t heard for almost ten years! Did spotlight Wheelie and nothing! I wish he’d do more work for IDW

Huh?

[o.supreme]

Ken/Klaus....they both start with K's

[Emerje]

His art is nice, though he seems to have a little trouble with guns. Silverbolt's gun has an awkward black blob under it because he forgot where the handle was supposed to go. Prime's right handed gun is at a weird angle from his arm.

Emerje

[Randomhero]

Whoops!

I don’t know how but I got them mixed up for whatever reason. Probably because their bot faces are similar.

[WreckerJack]

Marcelo Matere has done a lot of great artwork for the Transformers Combiner Wars series. Just last month we got to see a piece he did of Bruticus. Today we have to share with you a look at the line art of Victorion. This image was colored and featured on the box art and mini-poster included with the Victorion set.

The image mirrored below depicts Victorion in her combined form and the vehicles that make up her combiner team. Pyra Magna, Dust up, Jumpstream, Stormclash and Skyburst are all in vehicular mode. (We wonder where Rust Dust drove off to.) Here is what the artist had said about some of the design process that went into this piece -

Victorion - Combiner Wars Package art Pencils. 2015 - Full Poster.I had to draw all elements separately, them the designers could arrange them to the Horizontal Package and the Vertical Poster!

[Sarahthecutevixen]

explains why rustdust looks like a last minute addition 

[WreckerJack]

explains why rustdust looks like a last minute addition 

I also noticed that Victorion in the line art does not have Rust Dust on her chest, but on the finished poster she has an armor plate that kinda looks like her. Either way I am really glad they included her, she is a really fun transformer and really finishes off how Victorion looks in robot mode.

I think my love of small transformers is because of Rust Dust. I never bought any on my own before I got the Victorion set. I had assumed that bigger bots meant better articulation and stuck with deluxe/warrior on up. Now I am the proud owner of several other really fun small transformers.

[Va'al]

As a continuation of a previous post showing off the packaging art for Transformers Combiner Wars figures, we have a couple more from Ken Christiansen - who already shared Voyagers Optimus Prime and Silverbolt here - featuring two more Aerialbots: Sky Dive and newcomer to the team, but not to our hearts, Alpha Bravo!

This is the official pencil art that was used for the packaging, meaning that there are several more layers to the image applied by the studio that creates the final artwork - but it's always fascinating to get a look at the process involved in the creation of any type of artwork for the franchise, nonetheless. Take a look at the two deluxes from the very first wave of Combiner Wars below.

[Randomhero]

Oh Alpha Bravo...he certainly sits in the shelf with everyone else. Luckily with Elita and Inferno coming out he’ll finally become part of a Combiner team. Rook too.

[gothsaurus]

Agreed. I think Alpha Bravo (and Rook, etc.) got a bad rap when they got subbed for characters we loved and expected. In hindsight — after we've gotten those missing characters — I LOVE that Hasbro managed to squeeze in some new blood. We haven't gotten a lot of new characters in past years.

And now that we have finally found homes for those limbs — and some combiner names and stories from Hasbro, Botcon and TFCC — I'm a lot more excited to have those guys attached to Modulus, Galvatronus, or Wreckage.

[william-james88]

As a continuation to our previous posts showing the original line art for the packaging of Transformers Combiner Wars figures, we now have images of the entire Stunticon team from Ken Christiansen, a friend to the site. Below you will see Motormaster, Breakdown, Offroad, Dead End and Dragstrip.

This is the official pencil art that was used for the packaging, meaning that there are several more layers to the image applied by the studio that creates the final artwork, which Ken also added after each of the pencil drawings. It is really cool to see that Ken used only elements found within the toys and while the packaging artwork cropped a lot of the images, we can now see his full pencils.

[gothsaurus]

I'd really love to see a book put together of all this art. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[o.supreme]

Nice Artwork. Oh and I enjoy the extra bots as I've stated many times. Alpha Bravo, Rook, & Smokescreen (or the Hasbro exclusives as I refer to them since they were not released by TT), make up my Optimus Maximus along with Power Core Optimus and SG Starscream.

[gothsaurus]

Nice pairing up white SG Screamer with PC Optimus. Nice idea O.Supreme.

I'd love to see a thread devoted to everyone's fan gestalt. Curious to see how people have paired them up... and how the colors and characters match together. Could have some ground rules that a name and short bio have to be provided with photos (?)