Just a couple of months ago I received approval on showing at least one piece of the work I did for Transformers Age of Extinction movie.
This is one of the craziest piece I did for the fourth Transformers movie and it was a lot of fun to work on.I did it under the direction of the mighty Aaron Archer who gave me a ton of details to fit into one single image.
I started with a couple of simple composition/mood studies, and then went into the full rendering.

We went throw a lot lot of revisions, including adding Drift, the sparkles and later on we also decided to change the color of the sky.


I loved adding all the dust and atmospheric elements, creating chaos during the battle.
There is so much going on that something can get lost, like Bumblebee fighting a bunch of Decepticons behind Grimlock.


There will be more? The title of the post suggests yes, as I did several other pieces, so, hopefully I'll get permissions to show some others in the following years.

Originally appeared on Facebook as daily posts, I decided to collect this series of MOTU concepts on my blog as well, so you can see them all in one place at once.

With all the talks about a possible rebrand of the Classics line of figures for 2016, I wanted to explore what I would personally like to see.

I then created a series of B-Sheets portraying a line-up of figures, based on MOTUC molds, but reworked to offer new versions of the main characters, offering a jump-in point for new collectors. Released as a full year line, they would probably work mixed with other unreleased characters, appealing to the existing MOTUC collectors too.

Going by the name of the line "Signature Series", a name mentioned by the former MOTU brand manager echoing the latest DC Signature Series, I envisioned a line of figures that pay a big homage to the original creators of the line. Most of the figures I sketched are redesigned to reflect as much as possible the original B-Sheets that Mark Taylor created in 1981.
Which mean, they are not really my own designs, but they are what originally generated MOTU, as Mark was the creator of all the main characters.

Mind you, you may not recognize some of this stuff, or think some of the color scheme are pretty arbitrary. They are not. Everything is based on the original Mark's colored drawings I had the privilege to see a couple of years ago and that hopefully will be published in one of the future The Power and The Honor Foundation publications.

But why not go completely wild and just design figures that look exactly like the b-sheets, with different bodies etc.? Because I tried to design a complete and affordable line up of figures that could be released over the course of an entire year and remain affordable especially since this would be what rebranding means: bringing back main characters for people that missed out, but using most of the existing molds and changing line name and packaging

That also means, some figures have more new tooling, and cost more, some would have less, and cost less but help fitting the higher-tooling ones in the budget.
It’s how MOTUC worked since day one.

A few extra notes: rebranding the line means mostly the following things:
-Refreshing the “appearances" of the line, by changing mainly the line name and the packaging.
-Reusing as much as it’s possible existing tooling
-Bringing back the main characters.
You may not want that because you already have them, but that is not how the marketing works for those things. A “rebranded” line will supposedly try to catch up with collectors that didn’t buy this line in the first place, or that got into it too late and can’t find or afford the first releases anymore, all this while appealing to a portion of the existing customer that will buy again the main characters.

Now, mine is just an idea of many possible. I approach it with a very nostalgic and historical eye. I don’t think this is the best possible, it’s just what I’d love most.
Also, this idea was originally what I would have loved for the 30th anniversary line.

Wow, it was almost an year ago... When Transformers Generation Metroplex went on sale and also made an appearance as an exclusive at San Diego Comic Con.

As some of you may know, I did some work on that giant sucker. But I didn't do the whole design. What I did was working with Chris Hicks on a concept to pitch the idea and work out the general shapes and features. After that, he was properly designed and engineered, but as you may notice, some spots remained faithful to what I had draw, like the chest area. As you can see also, those panels on the shoulders were supposed to open up. Hasbro kept them, but they are now part of the shoulder sculpture and don't move.
Overall, I believed I had to go for  TF Prime aesthetic, I wasn't aware this was for Generations.
Oh, and yes, it's a pretty rough sketch. But many of these things starts like that!

You know what? To the hell with all the crap!
Yeah, I spend my time much better than dealing with that mess all the time

Do you remember Skyman?
Here is another piece I did based on the Atlantic Galaxy series, Dynatlon!

The Original Sky Man figure

So, let's move on something else, possibly funnier
Does anybody remember the Atlantic Galaxy line? I bet most of you don't, they were cheap popular toys in Italy and France... But they were really interesting!
You can educate yourself about them on AtlanticGalaxy.com, the site is in Italian but the pics are not.

I never had them but I was always fascinated by them. Chatting about them with my friend Marco Failla  made me want to try to illustrate them. Not really an update, but trying give them some modern concept art flavor.

Even if I like the aliens and the robots more, the first once I did was Sky Man, and I loved to reproduce that really old sci-fi look while updating it with textures and extra details. If people like this one, I will do more. And maybe also try to do a more extreme update of them. What do you think?

Sky Man - Click on the image to enlarge

A more modern sci-fy take, but not changing silhouette much.

In those rare occasions where I have time between jobs, but it's too little to go on vacation, and too long to not get bored at the same time, I sometime try to get to draw stuff on my own.