Fellow Seibertronians! I bring to you the first glimpses of my next project. A few weeks ago Noise Maker asked for help making his comic dream a reality. I came to his aid & offered my services as an artist, to which he agreed. It has been a while, & has taken a lot of effort (the current 'scraped-ideas pile' is roughly 10 times bigger than the 'accepted pile') but finally I'm ready to bring the concept art for this comic to the public eye.
I must say quickly, that everything that isn't a drawing is
the work of our fellow Seibertronian, "Noise Maker". He's the one who's been working so hard on the story & scripts, trying to get things to work, trying to fill plot holes. I've mearly been the pencil to his mind, he provided me with characters, a setting, an idea, & I followed, creating transformations & new designs for each character. So thank you Noise Maker, without you I wouldn't have a new project to inspire me to further my drawing skills & look even more deeply than the average fanboy into the Cybertron after the great reformatting.
Ladies & Gentlemen, I shall first run over the basic plot idea:
Story
The Beast Wars long finished, & with Megatron finally out of the picture, Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, Nightscream, Botanica & Rattrap can finally settle back on their home world after many cycles in war. But the Maximal council has other plans. The council regains control over the planet of Cybertron, deeply disturbed by the planets new technorganic nature. While many Cybertronians embraced their new beast modes some of the older warriors kept by their old ways. Maximal elders Victory Leo & Star Sabre began reformatting Maximals into vehicles tipping the Technorganic towards the organic.
Cheetor watched as the Cybertron his old leader had died to create returned to it old, unbalanced ways. Speaking with the council numerous times Cheetor tried to convey Optimus's message to them, but to no avail. Cybertron was once again split.
However the return of an old menace causes Leo & Sabre to ask Cheetor, Silverbolt, Blackarachnia & Rattrap for their support fighting yet another war on prehistoric Earth.
The 4 warriors, selected because of their time on Earth fighting Megatron, join forces with the two Autobot veterans & head for earth, leaving their new friends & old forms behind. New bodies designed for combat rather than Technorganic warfare allow the Beast Warriors to fight along side the vehicle modes of the ex-Autobots, & together they face Magmatron, his Insecticons & his generals on prehistoric Earth.
Natures chew-toy also makes an impressive come back.
Magmatron is not the only threat to Leo's force of Maximals, an old foe thought long dead returns after generations stored in computer data.
Art
Hope you enjoyed (& understood) that, now why don't you take a look at some of the art I've created so far:
Concept Designs for the transformations of the Maximals & Waspinator:
-More Predacons to come, including the Insecticons.
Since making the initial designs (& in most cases 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th designs cause I just couldn't get it right) I've been working on some concept art sketches, very very sketchy, & not in anyway a representation of the final art quality. I have done minimal editing on these & even went through the actual drawing pretty fast for me. I wanted them to look good & represent the character & my ideal final design, but I never intended for them to look perfect.
- I have not yet found a way of drawing Cheetors head that I'm pleased with. I'm experimenting at the moment & will post his concept art when I'm happy with it.
Here is some close up designs for their heads & rough sketches of their Beast modes. I've given Silverbolt a battle mask to follow on from his Beast Machines Samurai feel, & also so I can use both an idea similar to his original face & a representation of the concept ideas for his Transtech design. I loved his Transtech designs, but I'd also like a face the fans can recognize. For Blackarachnia I focused on making her look more mature than BM, so each of her forms represents a growth in maturity, much like with Cheetors past designs. As you can see the final design is VERY different to the first; I found the initial idea to be too close to her Beast Wars series1 form. After looking at some other Blackarachnia fan drawings I finally settled on a way of making her different. Rattrap is pretty much a return to his old feel, I never liked his BM head, it made him look too puny, which I guess was the idea. I kept the vizor/HUP as it could serve great use for plot & other such things. It also gives him a bit more facial variety.
As for Beast modes, they pretty much speak for themselves. I'll be improving the Beast modes as I go.
Right, I think it's time you got some drawings, isn't it?
Now the drawing are out of the way, I'd like to show you something interesting. However my camera is acting up so these images will have to wait. I hope my camera works soon, I don't want to have to
lego of this idea. Well until I can get some images up, you'll just have to
figure out what it could be for yourself. I wonder if the photos will
build on the representation of the characters...
UPDATED: scroll down to see the results of my labor.
Teaser
Anyway, I hope you like the idea & my current work. I'm going to start work on the first two pages of the comic this weekend so I'll post them as a teaser when I've got them done. Until then you'll have to make do with a text version.
Of course it's been trimmed down to make it flow better on text format, however the whole script will be used in the comic & you'll be able to read more into the characters of Leo & Sabre.
Noise Maker wrote:Victory Leo stand in a chamber of the Maximal citidel, along with Star Sabre & four Maximal prisoners. He is wearing his calm, controlling his expression-but then again, he nearly always does. The only sign that he doesn’t like what he has to do is his creased brow.
Star Sabre is incapable of hiding his feelings-his face is a mix of confusion and regret.
Victory Leo: You might think that you have been brought here to be done away with. At ease, Maximals. No matter what I think should be done with you, the Council has ordered me to bring you here for a purpose.
STAR SABRE: You’re needed by the Maximal Council to make a…special run. It is of vital importance.
LEO : There’s a chance you won’t be needed-but we need you to accompany us on the Xenoth in pursuit of an escaped criminal, just in case he’s going where we think he’s going.
VICTORY LEO: We think he’s heading for a place you should be very, very accustomed to.
STAR SABRE: We may need you to return to Earth.
The Maximals Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Silver Bolt, and Rattrap stand in a row. The Maximals are bound in energy chains, linked together. They have energy plates over their faces. They appear to have been in a fight recently. The floor they are standing on is cracked and dirty, as are the walls behind them.
VICTORY LEO: Star Sabre, I think it’s safe to take off the muzzles, now.
STAR SABRE: The chains, too?
VITORY LEO: NO.
Cheetor’s is very, very angry-and he’s not hiding it. His eyes are slits, and his mouth is in a scowl.
CHEETOR: A lot, but I’ll just start with one: Why us?
A short conversation later.
CHEETOR: We’ll do it. Now tell us everything.
Models:
Now, from my previous hints you may have guessed what I've been doing recently. To test whether the transformations would work, & to design the Insecticons, I dove into my old LEGO Technic's & started messing around, first testing with Silvebolt, who is now my favorite design, the reason he has 5 images instead of 3. A few days later & I have the whole cast, minus Magmatron (I'm using his existing design), made into lego figures, which I will now show you.
I'd like to point out that all models are FULLY TRANSFORMABLE & are totally separate, I even have an image of the whole cast together. There is some Kibble between Leo & Sabre but other than that all parts fit in the Beast/Alt modes. I may one day create animations of the transformations to make them more realistic.
I've posted images of ???(Manterror) & the insecticon's Beast modes, which are based around the insects from Starship Troopers, but I will draw them differently, using different details & colours/shades in the comics to avoid copyright issues.
Cheetor:
Blackarachnia:
Silverbolt:
Rattrap:
Victory Leo: Shown here with his attachable guns, one four barreled missile laucher, & two hip/waist mounted gatteling guns.
Star Saber:
Waspinator: Shown with wings & gun attached & detached.
???: Working name is Manterror but we're currently unsure of his name. The middle shot shows his head & neck articulation in more detail.
Bludgeon: Shown with turret attached to back & without.
Bombshell:
ChopShop: His head is located on his chest, if it isn't obvious enough.
Venom: A little hard to see. If you look closely you'll see the basic design.
Battle shot to show that they were all made separate & never had to dismantle one to make another. All are still existing & use separate parts.
Kibble: This is everything that doesn't fit on the entire cast while in Beast/Alt mode. Leo's guns. Leo & Sabre's heads which just looked out of place on the vehicles.
) a follow on from the kind of limp ending to Beast Machines & an actual ending to Cheetors story, give him a chance to lead without Optimus watching him all the time. I'd love to see what people like us, who were Beast Wars fans at early ages think of the finalized comic. I just hope I can please the fans 
I cant wait to read more. I love the sig with grim in the background!
