Transtopia Newsletter - January Edition

It might be cold outside but the activity at Transtopia has been hot. This edition features the creative work from December. Check out the latest customs, artwork, painting guide, and contest. We also have exciting news in the wings - two new sections will roll out next month: Fan Fiction & Artist Interviews. Make sure to read about the details below so you can part take in the action and possibly get featured. And in March, get your cameras ready for another creative section. Remember, to visit Transtopia periodically for the latest work.

-Stormrider



How to Showcase Your Work
The newsletter is your opportunity to show off your work and talent. We rely on your articles, artwork, and customs to make it interesting. Entries will be reviewed on a monthly basis. You can submit your work here:
Repaints, Kitbashes, Scratchbuilds
Fan Art, Fan Fiction, Guides


Make a Difference, Join the Newsletter Team!
Want to contribute to the Seibertron community? Why not join the newsletter team? We need a few more volunteers for our crew. Duties require a few hours each month, consistently. Roles include layout & design, overseeing sections, and formatting. If you are interested send me a PM: Stormrider.


Newsletter Credits:
Newsletter Editor - Stormrider
Guides Editor - Dead Metal
Interviewer & Columnist - Burn
Fan Fiction Editor - Sledge
Customs Formatter - Mattyc1007





(Click on the links to see more)

Prowl by Sentinal Supreme

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Movie Starscream by Omega666

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Thredbolt by Sentinal Supreme

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Classics Armada Wheeljack by Grimlockprime108


TF Legends Wasp by Grimlockprime108


Movie Accurate Ratchet by Sabsabby85


Movie Beachcomber by Leobreaker1977


Movie Trailbreaker by Leobreaker1977


Movie Sunstorm by Downshift7


Longarm by Flix


Stockade by Flix


Movie Megatron by Mykltron


Movie Breakdown by Sentinal Prime


Breach & Tick by Sentinal Prime





(Click on the links to see more)

Sliver & Headmaster Matey by Technically Weird






Chuck Close is a famous and very talented painter from Monroe, Washington, United States of America. He was part of the Photorealism art-movement from the US in the 1960's in which the artists based their paintings on photographs. He was one of the greatest of this art-style; but after he was paralyzed from the neck down he really rose to fame. He managed to still paint but being unable to move his arms properly he created a completely new technique of painting to achieve photorealism. He achieved this by painting in grids similar to pixels so when looked at from afar it is indistinguishable from a real photograph.
He paints to this day in this art-style.

As the first Transtopia "How to .." painting guide fellow Transtopian, The Freezer, shows us how you can paint your favorite Transformer in the style of Chuck Close.

Painting Guide (Chuck Close Style)

I had a spare day at college a while back and did this.

1. Find a picture of your desired Transformer and then grid it.



2. Get a canvas or a peice of paper masking taped to some board.

3. Grid said paper or canvas. There MUST be the same amount of squares as on the original gridded picture.

4. Paint the squares in block colour using a mix of the colours in the square on the original picture. For example- original pic- red and black your painting- very dark red.
The end result should be like a pixelated image.



5. Now we add the detail, this is done by painting small shapes in the coloured squares to look like the corresponding square on the original pic. Close up its jibberish but back away and you should see it.





6. Fill in the back ground squares with more funny shapes.

7. Stand back and appriciate your work.




High resolution.

Do you want to contribute to the Transtopian guides? Then send us an e-mail: Transtopia.Guide@gmx.de You can find the guidelines by clicking here.



Featured Artwork
Cyber-Kun is this month's featured artist. Cyber-Kun gives us his rendition of Animated Jhiaxus. It is interesting to see how the color scheme, vehicle mode, and transformation were carefully considered during the execution of this piece. You can post your comments about this featured artwork here.


High Resolution

Honorable mentions goes to Zero-Kaiser for his Scourge/Nemesis Prime. To all of you modest artists out there, make sure to submit your artwork for the next newsletter here by January 31st. Submissions are open for all Transformers artwork (new & old pieces).



Fan Fiction
Okay Transformers Mythos Writers here's your chance to be featured in the next newsletter! Starting in February, the Transtopia Newsletter will feature a Fan Fiction story written by one of you. Seibertron member, Sledge, will be directing this new ongoing column and select one story each month.

Entries will be reviewed monthly. Make sure to conform to the guidelines below. Submissions are open for new and old stories. There is no limit to the number of stories that you can submit, but please do not resubmit the same story twice. Post your entries here.

Guidelines:
1) 10,000 word limit. Rough guideline to start with, I won't be automatically disqualifying anything that comes in over.
2) Decent spelling, grammar and punctuation. People need to at least run a spell-check over the thing before submitting it. This isn't me being a grammar Nazi, it's just difficult to get absorbed in a story if you're constantly being jolted out of it by bad spelling.
3) Be specific as to where/when the story is set. So what continuity is it in (G1 comic, G1 cartoon, Armada comic, etc) and where is it set? Before the events of the show or comic, after, during? If during, where does it fit?
4) Fan characters are fine, but I'd prefer people avoid making them those annoying "I am more powerful than any other Transformer!!!" types. Also, consider if there's an under-used existing TF who'd fit the needs of the story just as well as someone new. Existing characters are almost always more interesting to everyone else.
-Sledge



Artist Interiews with Burn
G'day folks, Stormrider's asked me to throw a blurb together to introduce myself and to also introduce another new part to the monthly Transtopia Newsletter.

My name, obviously, is Burn, and I've been handed the duties of having a chat with one (or more, depending on interest and time) of our many artists that frequent Seibertron.com and Transtopia.

The aim of the monthly chat is to get to know a little more about our creative geniuses, more than just their finished pieces of art. I'm sure many of you have looked at a kitbash or a repaint, or a photoshop piece or even read a fanfic and wondered who the person is behind that.

So that's where this little feature intends to come in. We'll get to know the people behind the art.

Some of you may be wondering, "Why you Burn?" Well Stormrider and First Gen were busy doing other stuff, plus I have done my fair share of creating things.

Some of you may remember a few of my characters from Seibertron.com's Heavy Metal War game. I'm the guy responsible for creating such characters as Gore, CATalyst, Slice, Dice, Dead Reckoning, Cannon Fodder Lemming, and the midget clone every body loved to hate, Mini-Maximus Prime, together they were better known as "The Freaks". I've written a number of back stories for some of these characters, and kitbashed nearly all of them (along with a number of other characters, including Autobots, plus a couple of characters created by Whisper and War Hammer).

So where did it all begin for me? Looking back it really began a bit over two decades ago around the age of 10. Al Gore had yet to really invent the internet, porn was still predominantly distributed on VHS, and Optimus Prime was a truck and Megatron was a gun.

I had never even heard of the term "kitbashing" and my skills up to that point in my life had been basically assembling model aeroplanes, which also often resulted in my fingers being glued together more than the planes themselves.

I also, it seems, had a fascination with the colour "black".

I'd take junker toys, including some busted TF's, and just cobble parts together. If anything these "creations" were the original "Freaks", because that's what they were, freaky looking things, I was a young Dr Frankenstein to plastic toys.

Who liked to paint things black?

I should also point out that at that age too, kids really shouldn't play with sharp knives.


High Resolution

Over the years though I drifted away from Transformers, blame High School. It was only a few years ago that I got back into TF's and in my quest to acquire many missing figures for my collection, I gathered up a nice pile of junker TF's.

This was the early days for kitbashing I might add, Transtopia didn't exist, and many of the major TF forums dedicated very little space to kitbashing. But I had all these junkers and influenced by the few artists that were around, I decided to try my hand.

In no way do I consider myself to be a great kitbasher, (and even less of a writer) but I do have a number of figures I am proud of, and then there are those I just don't even want to talk about!

If I was to say the one thing that is important to me when it comes to kitbashing and even writing, it's to create an original character. Canon characters just aren't my thing, I like creating a character from scratch, defining its personality, and making that personality match the figure.

I also rarely do a straight repaint. I always feel the need to modify a figure in some way to set it apart from the original mould. Whether it's something minor like a weapon change to something extensive like articulating a brick, anything to make it just that little bit different and unique.

So that's me, I'm sure Stormrider was hoping for some shorter, but I had to do SOMETHING while Dexter downloaded!

So this is where I turn it over to you guys, if you've showcased any form of artistic piece here on Seibertron.com recently, be it a repaint, a kitbash, a piece of fanfic, a photoshopped pic, or anything else that you've posted, and you're interested in being interviewed just drop me a pm and we'll get the ball rolling: ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose&u=4677

-Burn



Banner Contest:
Hey all you savvy digital artist. Do you enjoy whipping up signatures and showing them off on the Internet? Well, here's your chance to put your skills to the test. Create a banner for the Transtopia Newsletter and become the ultimate show off.

Additional banners are needed for the newsletter. Create one or several banners and enter for your chance at fame and glory. The deadline is January 31st. There is no limit to the number of entries you may submit. The winner(s) will have their banners proudly displayed in the newsletters and receive credits and bragging rights.

Create one or all four: (Banner titles)
"Artist Interview"
"Featured Artwork"
"Fan Fiction"
"Photo Blitz"


Requirements:
1. The banner should be 500 pixels wide x 165 pixels high.
2. You can only use pictures or artwork that you have received permission for. You are welcome to use the images from the Seibertron galleries for this contest.
3. Each banner should have the title in the bottom center.
4. Submit your entries in jpeg format.


Example:



Submit your entries here.