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.

Yet another of my Transformers Generations figure designs!
Transformers Generations Rattrap! This was done shortly after Rhinox, Waspinator and Cosmos, and I got to do only the Robot mode. But it's one of my favorite sketches and I love how the toy turned out!

When The Covenant of Primus was released, the Megatron design I had done for the  Transformers Binder of Revelations was finally revealed.
This piece of concept art was originally done in 2009, as part of the new TF brand bible.
Once more I was working under Eric Siebenaler's directions along with Aaron Archer's (whow, it was so much time ago that my memories are starting to fade away!).
Under those directions, I created it blending elements from a previous sketch I had done and another artist's ideas (the blacked out face and the axes on the back).

The concept was first only used fort the bible, but it was then sent out as reference for other media. He was the model we used for The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe and the one the other artists used for the Covenant of Primus illustrations, where it also appeared in tis full glory.
I didn't get to do the Alt Mode, which was done by Ken Christiansen and can be seen here.

As a bonus, here is also the "pencil" sketch. From that one I went straight to color devising the technique that I would have later used on the Pop-Ups. But at that time, this took me 4 days!

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!

Time from another of my Transformers Generations figure designs!
Transformers Generations Legends Class Cosmos and Payload! These were done at the same time of Rhinox and Waspinator, but as the last ones. There was very little time to complete them so I had to rush just rough pencil sketch. Overall, they are the ones that turned out to be more different in the final product, especially Payload which Alt Mode was changed. I guess it was also due to the technical needs of the figures.
But lots of the details remained the same!
Next time, Rattrap!

Following the previous post about the Generation figures I designed (also visible here), here comes Waspinator!
I could almost do copy and paste from the Rhinox's post:
I worked on these with Joe Kyde. The process was pretty straight forward, so there aren't other sketches of alternate versions.

Directly from the Botcon reveals, here is the first design from the Generation figures I helped designing.
I worked on these with Joe Kyde. The process was pretty straight forward, so there aren't other sketches of alternate versions.
The kind of rhinoceros was changed for the final alt mode, but I think it was the right choice as it now looks a lot more intimidating than mine!
I loved doing Rhinox, especially trying to capture the right attitude, silhouette and the details form the cartoon, and i'm so happy to see it translated so faithful to a toy!

What's better than waking up, checking news from Botcon and finding out Hasbro has just presented 3 figures you have designed?!

Today, for the first time, I saw pics of some new toys I helped designing. More than one year ago, I worked with Joe Kyde to create new designs for a few Transformers Generations figures and among those there were Rhinox, Waspinator, Cosmos and his little sidekick Sky-High
Especially with the Beast Wars figures, the goal was to make them as close as possible to their cartoon counterpart.
I will be checking with Hasbro the possibility of showing the original sketches, stay tuned!

It's Toy Fair time! And I just saw a lot of very cool Transformers toys.
Some of which I had the pleasure to contribute too.
Just an year ago, I helped the awesome Chris Hicks at visualizing a huge project: a new Metroplex! The sketches (which I hope to be able to post soon) were very crude, as we focused most on the features and the transformations. Exactly a year later, Metroplex is a toy! And a lot of visual cues translated directly from my sketch!
Enjoy Hasbro official pics, I can't be more excited about him! (And already dreading custom fees once I'll order him!)

Later there has been some buzz on a few Transformers websites about my design for Sideswipe, a concept included in the "Aligned continuity" brand bible. Fan mostly liked the design, but many didn't like the movie inspired legs. Considering that those designs, inspired by Eric Siebenlare's awesome work, were meant to be a blend of G1 Elements, TF Animated style and proportions and movie elements, I still think the legs fit him quite well, in that specific context I mean. Transformers Prime had yet to happen, that's why some of these designs don't really fit that aesthetic.

A couple years ago, under Hasbro autorization, I had revealed another design in an exclusive interview for L'Antro Atomico del Dr. Manhattan. I thought it would have been nice to repost it here for fans from around the world to check out.

But I also didn't want to just repost the same image, so I decided to also include the Alternate Mode and a glimpse of the process for these illustrations, a process I later refined to go quicker and accomplish scary amounts of work like the TF pop-up book. So, there are some differences from what I did back then and what I do now. But the principle is the same: on a refined enough sketch, I create very precise flats that will help me in selecting areas while rendering. I copy the layer and reflat with right colors, then copy the layer again two more times. I set the top one to Color Burn with 50% opacity and the one below is set to Colorize. The first copy is then converted to just grayscale and then rendered with an airbrush in various modes. Between the rendered layer and the color layers, I add a texture layer I created with custom brushes.
There are a few extra steps here and there, but this is the basic idea.

The Pop-up book feature a couple other of my redesigns, so hopefully I'll be able to post those after the book is released.

Remember the recent post about Thundertron? The new Transformers character introduced in the Exodus novel? Well, the folks at Hasbro have been nice enough to give me permission to share my original concept sketches for him!

As a fan and a designer, sometime I enjoy a lot seeing the process behind a design (some time even more!), so instead of posting just the final clean sketch for Thundertron, I wanted to share also a bunch of other sketches to show how the design evolved. You can see one of the preliminary sketch, the following finalized pencils based on Aaron Archer's suggestions and the final ink drawing. BTW, pencils and inks are now just terms for various stage in the process, all steps have been executed digitally.

Also I'm including the head study based on Aaron's awesome direction. If you look closer, in the final pencil I just shrinked and pasted the same head on the rest of the body, and then inked it.
Overall was a great concept to work on, trying to include some recognizable pirates elements and silhouette while keeping it cool and not to distant from the Transformers Prime visuals. I didn't get to color it, but I'm very happy with the color choice Hasbro went for!

Continuing this quick gallery of  toy I helped designing, one of the early assignments I got from Hasbro was to come up with the vehicles that I would have later on learnt being part of the Powercore Combiner Mudslinger with Decepticons.
Not too loved by fans, I think this was the first actual product released on which I had worked and it was incredibly exciting!

The Quad Changer - Republic Cruiser to Star Destroyer to Anakin to Dart Vader was a nice surprise for me.
I was involved with it at its very inception. I worked with the Star Wars team at Hasbro to create the ultimate Star Wars Transformers crossover toy. The project was ambitious: a Transformers with 4 modes: two robot modes and 2 vheicle mode.
I was asked to put the concept on paper, and what I did was a very rough sketch, in color, but still nothing refined. I figured out most of basic ideas of the transformation, but rarely freelancers are asked to develop the actual transformaton, so I only immagined how it could work and left the real engeneering to Hasbro.
I didn't know the project was moving on, I wasn't asked to provide more work on it, no revisions or sculpting input (when we refine the details for the model makers or the sculptor), so I assumed the concept was abandoned.
Then, this year at Toy Fair, the toy was presented and my jaw dropped at seeing how faithful the finished product was to my rough sketches. Even most of the transformation (like the Star Destroyer's sides detaching to become the Republic Cruiser's engines) looke a lot like what I had done.
That made me really proud: when I work on sketches, I don't only try to make them look good, but I want them to make sense, I want them to work as products that kids and collectors can enjoy.
I can't wait to see more of the work I did for Start Wars products on the shelves, it has been an absolute pleasure to work on one of my favurite brands!

Thundertron is a project I'm very proud of . He was a character I worked on more than a year ago and he has now become a real toy, in the form of the mighty Thundertron, leader or the Star Seekers, a new Transformers faction appeared in the Exodus novel!

I was honored to develope Thundertron along with the great Transformers design team, and seeing my drawings translated verbatim to toy form by Takara and Hasbro, in the main Transformers line is absolutely awesome!

Not only Thundertron is exactly like my sketch in robot mode, but the beast mode is exactly the same too! That blew me away: the folks at Takara and Hasbro have been able to make the transformation happens without changing any detail from the concept. They are really masters of toy making and it feels great to be involved in such amazing creations!