#madis artwork

i definitely cried during the press conference. several times. but when christina spoke, i had to pause it so i could well and truly sob.

we are all on a pale, blue dot, inconsequential to the universe around us, yet we have the extraordinary task of being the universe's expression of self understanding.

what a beautiful thing.

anyway, here's the reference image and the process video 💕

CAN I GET A HEY-YO FROM THE SOUNDOP STANS IN THE AUDIENCE?!?

sooooooo this is unfortunately destined to be a forever WIP. there are several things that need to be fixed, and all of them would require me to start from the sketch. given that the linework and flats are done, it's just not worth it to me!

but i still do really love this WIP. as ive said before, drawing tfp is so hard, and yet it is the continuity i draw the most LMAO. i just LOVE the character designs and how fluid they are. so many times with transformers, we get the same blocky shapes, but TFP really pushed the limits of what can be considered mechanical but also beautiful.

i love the greebling in tfp and i really hope i captured it with optimus' neck and chest in this. i mean, why is that man's upper chest so exposed!! my guy!!! you need to cover that shit up, they could kill you!!!!! its ok, im not slutshaming, i love the look, i'm just worried about the fact that you constantly go head to head with megatron and you have your internals exposed like that.

also, can we talk about how PRETTY soundwave is??? like for real, they didn't need to make it so hot. but they did, and i love them for that. thank you tfp artists and animators, yall did so much for the robotfucker community.

ANYWAY, BACK TO SOUNDOP

Fun fact, ive read almost every single english soundop fic on ao3. they are my roman empire. i think about them all the time. i think about the fact that both of them are archivists (in one capacity or another) and were forced into war. i mean soundwave chose to go to war (and i dont blame it, kaon was ROUGH), but at the end of the day i do truly believe that soundwave just wants a simple life.

i WAS going to link some soundop fics you should check out, but tumblr is being STUPID and wont LET me, therefore here is a list:

Living in a Lightless World - Darksidekelz

Duty, Nothing More - anonymous author

Rotten Work - cassette (Crescent_Blues)

Autobot Fool - LostCybertronian

Damned Autobot - LostCybertronian

the kiss by gustav klimt but megasound. i locked tf in and did this in two days. they are everything to me forever and ever.

TFP SOUNDWAVE!!!!!!!

straight up, i love soundwave's design in tfp. it's so creature!! the digitgrade legs. the long skinny arms. the visor. the three dual knuckle fingers and a thumb.

i just love staring at its design and seeing the way everything fits together so perfectly. they really and truly cooked with this one. i do think soundwave is one of the best designs in the show, along with shockwave. they pushed "alien robots" so hard with those two designs and honestly, i think we should bring that vibe back.

while i do love my humanoid esque robots, i think we should make more room for Fuckin Creatures. give me more mechs that can be described as "no normal cybertronian, inside Or out."

which, by the way, can we talk about how fucked up the autobots treat soundwave and laserbeak?? like okay. i know that theyre at war, and i know that they're enemies. but they give fuckin megatron more dignity and respect than they do soundwave and laserbeak.

ratchet straight up suggests doing unconsensual brain surgery on soundwave. ratchet, wheeljack and raf plant a fake bomb inside laserbeak and corrupt her coding with a virus. like. guys, those things are war crimes. and the show never addresses that!! like?? what are you saying? its okay to commit war crimes against your enemies??? aren't the autobots supposed to be taking the moral high ground??

and again, i do get it from an objective standpoint. millions of years of war will do that to you. will push you. will change you. will break you. so i get it.

but i just think its very interesting how the show depicts laserbeak and soundwave's autonomy as something that is debatable! laserbeak is described as a drone and the autobots use it/its pronouns for her him, while the decepticons at least use he/him pronouns. ratchet uses the excuse of "well soundwave isn't normal" to further his agenda of cracking soundwave open! soundwave's alt-mode is a predator drone! its alt mode is the only UMV in the entire show!

RAAAAAAAHHHHHHH ITS FINALLY DONE ITS DONE ITS DONE!!!!!!

This was a pain in the ass tbh. Not because it was not my usual, but because I literally lost the file at 30 hours, and had to work on top of a jpeg with some pretty major artifacting. I tried my best to fix it up, but alas.

Given the challenge of not having any original layers to work with, I think I managed pretty well. When I lost the file I was at the shading stage, so it wasn’t too bad. But even then there was still stuff I wanted to go back and fix.

This piece taught me a lot in terms of dynamic posing and how even the simplest change in angle can provide a completely different perspective. I had a bunch of side quests that I worked on during the creation of this, which I think helped me figure out just how I like doing things. It’s too bad I didn’t get to implement a lot of the ideas and techniques.

HELLO? BLASTWAVE FANS, CAN YOU HEAR ME???

okay, i know i said that soundop was my roman empire. but these two are ALSO my roman empire. and to be fair there were like. three roman empires. so i think i can have multiple ones okay?

ANYWAY! I FUCKING LOVE BLASTER AND SOUNDWAVE!!!!!!

theyre rivals and nemesises but frankly they are both deployers, therefore they should KISS! make out SLOPPY STYLE! eternal yapper vs eternal listener! unstoppable force vs immovable object! the yin to his yang! they were MADE FOR EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!!!