Steam

An updated version of the Sodor Monsterverse Edward evolution sheet from 2025, now with size stat info and some additional iterations covering the character in each illustrator's style of the RWS, as well as the new 2026 incarnation.

Renders

also i was wondering what would the monster engines look like when they move their boilers, can you set an example by drawing it please?

I’ve been wanting to figure that sort of thing out for a few years now - enabling some extent of free mobility to a degree but not forgetting that it’s a heavy metal creature. I like to think of it as sort of akin to the articulation of an action figure, but it's weighted in certain areas and there's a limit to how much the joints can bend and swivel until they might screw loose or break off.

The smokebox in a sense is usually the "head piece" that influences the rest of the boiler, which develops an appearance resembling "segmented" pieces as the engine evolves. Snakes and cats were used as references for their body language, in which arcing upward can mean curiosity or aggression, while sitting lower towards the chassis indicates being relaxed, frightened or tired. The running board tends to be divided into sections, so virtually the entire chassis has some semblance of articulation to a fault - although aspects like their funnels, splashers, and cabs (and just about everything below the running board) remain mostly inflexible.

I'm also trying to avoid the route where it's like say, All Engines Go, where the engines are so insanely mobile that they can skew and stretch their body proportions frequently and sometimes even turn their smokeboxes at uncannily sharp angles to look behind themselves (etc). I imagine that there exists locking mechanisms to prevent movement that extreme.

(2/2) Early 2026 Edward art batch

1) Based on a Tommy Stubbs depiction of Edward doing this pose out of the blue, in the pseudo-CGI promo style. It kind of looked like he was pulling a badass armfold somehow lol.

2) A predictive toy edit of what I believe the 2026 reboot Edward could look like. Heard a lot of criticisms about the way the reboot James’ face looked, which it definitely seemed to suit Edward more than him. I’m kind of hoping that maybe it’s just a funny case where their faces were swapped due to a communication error or something.

3) Small in-joke about how Edward can never seem to die (or at least not permanently) and always comes back in some fashion, giving the illusion of infinite lives

4) An experimental armored kaiju Edward design, with more emphasis on red, black and white than usual.

Story where Spencer somehow succeeds at turning (almost) all the original twelve engines into a hivemind but also ends up becoming a ticking time 💣

Full summary below. The “LoCOMotive” concept was technically something I made back in 2020, but for a long while I wasn’t sure where to fit it into my lore stuff thematic sense-wise until now.

The panorama piece in full

A simplistic diorama render made as a birthday gift for @xsoulfulwriterx, the creator of an old medieval-themed AU, Steam Swords Shields & Strongholds, which the basic premise is that the engines have to protect a medieval kingdom and additionally can use magic to morph into kaiju ("beast forms").

Normally I don't tend to showcase a whole lot of 3D work but for quite a bit now I've been trying to improve my hand with Blender, and from this point forward there will probably more posts of model projects like this along with the usual 2D art.

Story where Edward is ‘kicked out’ of his own branch line after it gets ransacked and weaponized against him. He finds Diesel abusing a machine cloning him + his colleagues, cooperates with the twins to stop him, and saves his home in the process

To clarify, the plot contains a gen-AI metaphor, but no AI was used to create any elements in it. I highly doubt that a bot would spit out a story so specific and absurd in nature anyway. Feel free to read some wild stuff conjured up by a human brain and a pen alone

I've seen a lot of versions of the upgrade as like a jacket or a full suit of armor even. For this AU, it's fashioned more like a protective casing for the back and upper torso (probably crafted by a team of humans to assist monsters).