Lavatix

What to do if you find a baby bunny.

Prologue:

Next | Masterpost (For context: This part takes place and diverges from the last two episodes of Transformers Rescue Bots)

Next | Masterpost

So! The whole "what if" part of the au (or... half of it at least-) and how it connects to the main story! Apologies in not adding Quickshadow, High Tide, Blur, and Salvage to all of the panels, it was starting to get painful to add more to this HUGE comic so pretend they're hiding /silly

On another note, I want to mention that quite a bit happens in the 3 year time skip but I believe this au has gotten big enough as is, so I may either post the scripts in my docs or post a fic on a03 one day.

Headshots of Chase and my take on Barricade

As I’ve kinda talked about before Barricade is part of the same cold construct line that Chase was from. So that’s why they end up with the same sort of color scheme and physical appearance. But from vibes and added accessories with their personalities, it’s hella easy to tell the difference.

Barricade ends up being an antagonist in an arc in All Systems Normal where he takes Chase’s place for awhile find stuff out about the Autobots from the inside but gets found out and captured.

So the general thing for Barricade and the whole arc that goes down

At first he’s just spying right, getting stuff to bring back and info for the cons. Barricade and Chase have on some level a history, or really a one sided obsession. Because as I talked about before, Chase was specially built, he may had been part of a cold construct line, but his body was made specifically for his outlier in mind, and made be unique compared to the others of his police bot build

This gave Barricade a sort of complex, especially when time passed and the two went in opposite directions of what they considered justice and enforcement. Barricade didn’t even know Chase was alive until Griffin Rock.

He captures Chase and decides to take his identity and play it up. He tries to brush it off as getting more inside to take the bots down from there. …He starts to like being Chase, not the personality stuff, oh no, he hates having to use his counterparts vocal style and pretend to like his hobbies and stuff. But the camaraderie, the family, the love, the respect he gets from being Chase felt better then anything when being with the cons

So he turns traitor and abandons the cons to pretend to be Chase. Of course he gets found out and Chase gets released and those two end up having a fight. Barricade fully sees himself as Chase’s rival, his equal, someone who should have gotten the special attention, the privilege, the life that Chase had led up to that point:

For Chase, …this is just another bot who was from the line that made him. Sure an obsessive one who wants his life for some reason but nothing more. It’s honestly kinda sad that just finding a healthy safe life was enough for this guy to abandon his faction entirely to pretend to be someone else and play the parts. Not even like enjoying certain aspects of it, since some parts of it are things he personally hates, but playing Chase means he gets everything else that he wants, so he’s willing to destroy his identity to take another’s

Only to realize that no this guy is a massive threat and a massive crash out who is willing swapping places with Chase and leave him captured and half dead to play the part cause of a one sided rivalry. And they realize that oh shit, wait, this guy is going too far, they don’t want anyone to die and this guy is more then willing to kill them as well because of this crash out, and their redemption arc begins as they actually help the Burns out with Barricade till he’s defeated and captured.

Turns out things are much much more serious then just stealing some tech

this would be during the Barricade arc cause my brain is just trapped within it right now. So a sketch of Evan and Myles while they’re inside Chase who’s fighting Barricade who’s very much crashing out and fine with killing the two humans who were helping him until they realize how much more dangerous he actually is and helped Chase escape. Of course Barricade didn’t like that and Chase wanting to protect them placing them inside and doing what he can to keep them safe

The episode would play out practically the same, but it would be about the midway point where the swap ends up happening. So insread when Evan and Myles are thinking he’s obligated to their rules, in actuality the swap already happened.

Basically in the background the two found Barricade and thought he was just machine like how they thought the rescue bots were. So knowing that this one did follow their rules (Barricade pretending to so he can use them to further his own goals), they decided that using this opportunity (aka Barricade slipping the idea into their heads). They pull a swap, so when they are giving the commands, it’s Barricade already taking the place of his fellow construct just now in his appearance. The episode continues on as normal as Barricade plays Chase perfectly and the two get arrested by the end.

But they know they pulled it off and are ecstatic that they managed to swap one of the Burns precious bots with their own under their own command. Of course they fuck up when later when Barricade comes back and thinking he’s under their control starts beating on Chase and torturing him to get the location of the Autobots that the two realize that these guys are fully sentient beings and the one they thought was under their control actually had been using them as pawns to further his own goals.

It was rather unlike Chase to lose himself in battle. His fights usually ended faster than this, he could keep his cool and hold back when thought necessary, though that was him at his full strength, this was after weeks of torture by the hands of one who deemed himself his equal. His body and mind weren’t in the healthiest state to give true mercy to this mech.

Each colliding jab and slash just drew more and more energon. As humans had dubbed it, he was experiencing the ‘seeing red’ effect. He could barely make out the forms of his fellow rescue bots and the Burns. All he saw was the enemy in front of him that dared tried to take his place and harm the people he loved for his own selfish interest. That was what made him angry, the disgust of a mech that took his face and didn’t have the decency to be kind to his family, couldn’t even be kind to two who thought they had an ally, two that really didn’t know what they were getting into. That is why the threat must be removed, this isn’t someone that can stay alive.

The rational moral parts of him were fighting the internal code that was built in from the start of his construct. Combine that with all of the mess his mind and body had become, it followed more the internal than the true parts of him. Emotion or code, whatever it was that wanted the closest thing he had to family in the frame sense, he was more then willing to see the lights go out in his optics.

He almost fell down a cliff when Chase kicked him away, caught him before he took the fall. He didn’t deserve such a quick death. He almost had him, right there on the ground trying to beg for mercy that was not granted to him. He almost had him dead to rights for everything he has done since the moment he arrived on Griffin Rock, HIS HOME, HIS FAMILY, FOR EVERYTHING HE PUT HIS SPARK TOO THAT THIS NARCISSISTIC SELF ABSORBED ONE SIDED RIVAL TRIED TO DESTROY BY USING HIS FACE, HIS IDENTITY, HIS FRAGGING NAME, HIS NAME!

…And he would’ve done it. But for a split second he was finally able to make out faces again, voices. He could see the others, looking at him with ..fear? Not fear of him but fear for him, of his actions that were not truly his own. The Burns standing behind them, wondering who this stranger was wearing the face of the bot they thought they knew. And Charlie, calling out to him to stop, that this wasn’t him, he didn’t do this, he doesn’t do this. Chase looking back down seeing the smirking bloody face of Barricade, he was holding the con’s neck, slowly having crushed it during his break. He could see the eyes of his counterpart, digging him on to finish the job, to show he’s not as perfect as he was built to be.

…And he lets go. He just …let’s go of him and stands upright. Barricade was just yelling nonsense at him at that point but it didn’t really matter. He was idiot who couldn’t find pride and love in his own being, an idiot who really thought that Chase was perfect. The construction that was done to make his frame, sure you could call that the closest thing to perfection about him. …But all else that makes him, him, ..there’s nothing perfect about it.

…is because of how he tilted his hat

Heatwave and Charlie were the first ones to notice that Chase didn’t seem to act fully like himself. He’s always been an odd bot but this, …this feeling, like someone else was trying to play his part

They tell the others their suspicions but no one truly believes it, …until that hat tilt. Because there are very key things that make that something Chase would never do

One, I’m giving Chase a quirk where he has this stim of pulling his hat up a bit, whether in work or casual. He’s never pulled it down. He has no reason to ever cover his eyes, he can automatically bring down his visor, he doesn’t do a motion to have his hand go down. Even if it’s bright, he only just brings his visor down, never that motion

But you know who does need to do that motion to bring a visor down since it’s not built in but a part of their hat

chades sneak 👀👀

how u do facial hair? I’m struggling man all I want to do is draw my sillies and they look like poo 😭

ARE YOU TIRED OF DRAWING CHARACTERS WITH POO SMEARED ON THEIR FACE INSTEAD OF FLUFFY SCRUFFY BEARDS? WELL TODAY IS YOUR LUCKY DAY! WELCOME TO: HOW TO BEARD YOUR BLORBOS!

Step one: BALD

Complete your drawing of your blorbo!

Step two: COLOR AND BRUSHES

Be sure to select the darkest part of their hair (ideally should match the shade of the eyebrows) and select a texture brush of your choosing. Any will do, as long as grain is visible! An additional textured blending brush to buff out any hard lines is beneficial, but not necessary for a good beard. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT USE A SMOOTH BLENDING BRUSH! The goal is to maintain grain!

Step three: BEARD LAYOUT

DO use a reference image for this step! Draw out the general shape of where your blorbo's beard naturally grows, making sure to leave space around the chin under the lip where patches of hair are typically absent. Once you lay out the shape, turn the opacity down between 20-30%. I personally aim around 24%. This is a base layer, so don't go too dark!

Step four: SECOND LAYER

With the same brush and color, add additional layers ONLY in the areas that have the most hair (as circled in red) on your reference image. Mess around with the opacity until it gives you the look you want. The darker the color, the thicker the hair in that area will seem. NOTE: blond beards are typically much less noticeable than darker colors, typically because the hair has less contrast against the skin tone.

Step five (optional, depends on your style): HAIRS

Using the same brush as your line art with the opacity lowered to 60%, draw out lines along the same general shape as the beard using the same color you've been using. They should be slightly curved along the jaw like contour lines; this helps prevent the chin from feeling flat, but that's more of a personal preference/stylistic choice of mine. Don't think too hard on this step. The lines should be laid down quick and loose as beards are typically scruffy!