#quadracon

I WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION BUT LET ME FREAK OUT ABOUT THAT ART REALLY QUICK BECAUSE I HAD TO SIT DOWN AND PROCESS IT FOR A FULL 30 SECONDS BEDORE I COULD EVEN BEGIN FORMULATING A RESPONSE. I KEEP SCROLLING BACK UP WHILE TYPING JUST TO STARE AT IT

THAT IS TERRIFYING. HE IS ALL TEETH!! THERE IS NOTHING BUT TEETH IN THERE!!! THERE IS TOO MANY TEETH FOR ANYONE TO RIGHTFULLY HAVE WHICH IS EXACTLY THE AMOUNT OF TEETH EX!JACKIE SHOULD HAVE!!!

ALSO THE CIRCULAR SCRAPLET TEETH FAINTLY VISIBLE AT THE BACK OF HIS THROAT?? OH MY GOD?? I HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PORTRAY THAT FOR SO LONG I AM LOSING MY MIND. I AM STICKING MY HEAD IN THERE

OH AND THE ADDED DETAIL OF THE PLACES WHERE HIS JAWS CONNECT ADDS SO MUCH. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT BUT IT LOOKS SO MUCH MORE RAW AND MONSTROUS AND NOT CYBERTRONIAN AND EGHFGRHGFHSGDHFHBDGRFRGRGRGGRR

Ok I will move on to my explanation now but thank you so much!! This is so gorgeous and I love it so much!! This is the sort of thing that would make someone hide their face for centuries and give their teammates nightmares if they were looking it dead in the face (looking at you Ratchet). This is exactly the level of terrifying that I was going for when I originally started writing this fic. It encapsulates it perfectly! He is an absolute nightmare in the best way possible

I have been having a lot of trouble figuring out how his facial mods would work, and that’s mainly because I haven’t been using any references LOL. When I first tried doodling his face wayyyy back in the first post about this AU I used a few screenshots of Terrorcon Breakdown, but I only used it loosely. I absolutely LOVE the insect references for his jaws, it really helps clarify the structure and when I opened the ask and saw them (particularly the mantis) I went “huh that’s actually really close to what I had in mind!” And the got completely blown away by the concept at the bottom LMAO

I originally based his facial mods (or at least how they unhinge) a lot on Predaking. His jaw splits down the middle and at the sides to create two halves (I THINK), and I thought it looked really cool so I wanted to do something like that. But especially now that I’ve been playing with how his jaw works again, I’ve been thinking that it would be better if it splits into three parts like how you drew it. It is more visually cohesive, and it also just makes more sense looking at it! It allows his lower jaw to drop down much further and his mouth to open much wider and just in general isn’t as awkward. I may have downloaded your art both to keep it forever and also to draw a few diagrams, I hope you don’t mind^^

(I had to take a screenshot of your art bc Tumblr won’t let me download it until I post this, so sorry for nuking the quality LMAO)

While I do like the Predaking jaw, I think it works on Predaking but not on Wheeljack because Predaking’s face is so long and his is so flat. So if his jaw were to split into only two parts it would be very awkward, you can see all the lines in the drawing on the left where I kept redrawing his jaw because conceptually it didn’t make sense. Like I mentioned before it also doesn’t really allow his jaw to unhinge, which is a very important part of his design lol.

On the right however, it splits a lot more cleanly! It just all around looks more natural and less awkward and has a lot more maneuverability. I also love the addition of the teeth on the walls/sides of his mouth!! I added a few in my references bc it looked better and made his jaw come together a bit more in it’s horrifying-ness, but the addition of even MORE teeth just amplifies that. It also implies that when he latches on to something, all of the teeth dig in and make it extremely difficult to pull away, allowing him to just drag it into his mouth and shred it to pieces. If he bites down on someone, even if they’re strong enough to pull away they’re not getting their limb back in one piece. The way the teeth are curved in will ensure that they have to rip through their own plating to get away. He looks like a living iron maiden and I am OBSESSEDD

Plus the way his jaw splits is so much more extreme in a way that is so. LOOK AT HIM. When he opens his mouth it’s like a giant tear separates the upper half of his face from the lower half. Horrifying to behold and also looks like it would be painful even though it isn’t, which is exactly the vibe I was going for. He just doesn’t look Cybertronian. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Anyway sorry for the long rant, his jaws have been on my mind a lot because I’ve been struggling with the concept so I kind of just dumped all of the thoughts I’ve been having for 2+ weeks plus all of the thoughts I had when seeing your references and art. If you don’t mind I may be borrowing the references because they really do help illustrate how a split jaw would work. And also if you don’t mind this may be the canon design from now on, just because IT’S SO COOL!! And it makes so much sense conceptually, I actually cannot put into words how much I love this. It fits right in with the worldbuilding!