#transformers x

So I did another one of the “certain versions of a Transformer but in my X AU style” things, this time with Arcee. Not really sure why, or why I spent all day making it, other than I had an urge to do so last night

Though to be honest, I think it might suffer from the fact that I basically made all of this in close succession. I think the first two, Earthspark and Prime, turned out really well, but with Animated and RotB the quality started to suffer. And I really don’t like how Arcee/Arcana Magnus turned out, which is a shame because she’s the most relevant one here

But I think by the end of things, I still like 3-4 out of 5 (I’m unsure if I like Animated or not), so that’s pretty good

While making this, I was hoping I could make the anatomy look closer to the Mega Man X style proper, like what I did with the Mega Man art style thing (that I still haven’t finished), but for the most part it looks like the X AU last did, which is a bit disappointing. Maybe I should do more MMX art style study/practice

Well, I’ve finally finished them all, these Optimi in my X AU style, or at least on some level

I’m glad I was finally able to power through it all (though maybe it felt particularly long just because I drew most of this over the weekend when I was busy with work), though admittedly I’m mixed on the results

I’m just gonna quickly rank the quality of each of these, at least in my own interpretation. Bayverse is shockingly my favorite, Prime I found pretty good at least sketch wise, though by the end One finds itself in a similar spot, Animated and Earthspark are alright (and specifically in that order), and Armada is, tragically, in dead last

And now I’m gonna talk about my opinions on each design, because I don’t really have much to say otherwise

Maybe I'll put them under the cut because I know how I like to ramble

I drew this today

Sorry if I don’t sound enthused, I’m not in the best mood right now. I know I liked this art before, but I don’t really like my drawing of Jazz, and it’s bringing me down, along with all the schoolwork I have to do tonight and tomorrow

Anyways, so I wasn’t sure what to draw today, so I looked at some of my pose references I have saved and drew characters with it. These are the photos I got them from, I don’t feel like cropping to show which ones specifically

The anatomy’s wonky in parts of each, but whatever

The one with Optimus and Megatron is probably my favorite, even if the anatomy is bothering me

I don’t really have much to say on the characters in terms of lore, I can only really comment on the designs

Sentinel has gotten a slight redesign (by the way you’re supposed to be seeing his back here, in case you couldn’t tell), and I think it’s a bit better? But more work still needs to be done

Then with the megop, I’ve given Optimus a bit of an actual redesign now. But I haven’t figured out much of it really, outside of the head (and even then)

Megatron is just based on that recent redesign I made of him, but this also made me realize, I don’t really like this design of his. Like I thought I did before, but I think I liked aspects of his older designs more now that I’m drawing him

And then with Jazz I pretty much just took that more recent head design and his older design and mashed them together. I don’t think it came out super well

So basically, everyone still needs work

Only real other thing of note here is that I tried out one of the new Procreate brushes here, Alpine, for the lineart, and I really liked it. Now I think I need to find a good sketch brush too, since I was using my old ones

God I wish I had a good caption for this, but I do not. Best I can think of is “I depend on you”, but it also has nothing to do with the blue and yellow drawing at all

But in any case, this is a thing I drew today

I was trying and failing at giving Lux a good alt mode design, and that paired with other things was making me really discouraged, and I sort of ended up just starting to draw this, and then I ended up liking where it was going, which brought up my mood today, so that’s good

As such, I don’t actually have much context for what this scene is

It’s also featuring some more 3D elements in the design, since attempting to draw Transformers One again has put that back in my head, though since I still don’t know exactly how the forearms/hands work, it’s a bit less effective than I would have liked. But I’m slightly less sloppy with the anatomy I think, yay

I’m also now noticing Megatron looks a bit off, but I think part of that is that his arm is obscured by Optimus’, and while it made sense in the sketch, it looks a bit weird now

I also had to slightly change Optimus’ expression from sketch to lineart since the correct placement for his eyebrows would have made it so you don’t see his full expression, so I had to bring them down. It sounds minuscule but his eyebrows higher up did change the expression (it had more shock than the current more quiet concern)

I think I’m realizing that the sketch might have looked better than the final version, at least to me. Oh well

I also may or may not have went ham on lighting and shading, probably to an unnecessary degree. It’s just that this was the only image on the canvas and I really liked it, so I wanted to spiff it up, make it more nice looking

This is a version with significantly less of it, and also a white border because I was considering that before I realized it made it look a bit too sticker like. But I just think the flat colors on their own have merit too

Anyways, like I said, I don’t really have much context for this image, since it was just something I made to make something

Best I can come up with is this interaction happening sometime after Kiloton’s death, with Megatron still not over it and coming to Optimus for comfort. Optimus is a bit shocked at first (not to mention he’s got his own currently unrequited feelings for Megatron that he really doesn’t want to act on right now when Megs is emotionally vulnerable), but he chooses to comfort his friend anyways

Or alternatively, this is Megatron feeling overwhelmed about his whole lie about his infection and the terrible questions the truth brings, and again, going to Optimus to feel better. Optimus does the same in this scenario, it’s just that he doesn’t really know what’s bothering Megatron, since he refuses to tell him the truth. But he’ll be there for him regardless, hoping one day he feels comfortable enough to tell him

So I finally went and drew something proper, and it’s more X stuff

I was having a lot of trouble coming up with anything to draw yesterday, and eventually I just settled on some AU drawings since At least I can draw them easily. But I wasn’t able to fully get around to it yesterday so I pretty much just ended up drawing it today

It’s pretty much just various Megatrons, that I later on ended up tying with his smiles (and the blue text which is Optimus’ opinions on them)

Honestly I don’t think the drawings are half bad, outside of maybe Optimus. When I drew him, I wasn’t really sure what to draw after making the first two, so I went with something related to the things I was making

I haven’t really made much new content on this AU because I really don’t know what to do for it. After I made my PowerPoint and saw how much I was missing, I just sort of stopped because I didn’t know how to fix the issues, and just making more characters wasn’t going to fix it

With this, I have some new ideas, but they’re really just expansions on Megatron’s character and relationships with Optimus and a bit on Kiloton too, not much lore wise

But okay, let's start. I ended up putting the opinions in the art itself, so I don't really need to reiterate them here, but these thoughts from Optimus are just supposed to show some more of how he sees Megatron, particularly in his smiles

If you were to ask Optimus what his favorite smile of Megatron's is, and you assured him Megatron would not hear any of this, he'd probably admit that he finds his crazed heat of battle smile really hot. Like it does something to him the others don't. But he also very much enjoys his softer smiles, because he likes seeing Megatron genuinely happy. So, while it is not the one that does the most for him, his soft smile is probably his favorite for the reason that it's Megatron's favorite

Moving onto Megatron, I think I mentioned something in his bio about him being aggressive off field, which I'm kind of keeping as true, but not as in a mean sort of aggressive, he's just very...okay I don't actually know what the words I'm looking for are. But in my mind, he channels a lot of Earthspark Megs, albeit not nearly as old and with significantly less war crimes

He very much enjoys sparring and fights in general, they do excite him. But he also gets self-conscious about his passion in the battlefield, because he doesn't want to be reminded of his old violent self or potentially bring it back to the surface more than he already does. That's why his smiles of genuine happiness outside of the battlefield are his favorite, because they prove to himself that he is more than a war machine pretending to be something he isn't

Also, while in the process of thinking about what to draw while out today, I was able to come up with more about Megatron and Kiloton, and specifically more surrounding the events that led to Kiloton's death

I'm thinking that Kiloton, while being a caring bot and wanting to see the best in people, had a deep hatred for the Destron Virus (oh by the way, it has a name now. I don't know if I told you before) for tearing Cybertron and its people apart by forcing bots to turn against each other. And while he doesn't necessarily blame the infected bots so much, he knows they can't help it, he despises whoever created and first spread the virus and wants them dead, as well as non-infected bots who use this solely for their own personal gain

If he was part of the Autobots, it was solely because Megatron wanted to join and because Kilo wanted to help keep him safe

And then around the time of his death, during some big mission or other, he somehow (idk how) finds himself faced with the Decepticon leader (though he might not know at the time), who reveals to him that the one who caused this virus was none other than Megatron. Now Kilo is most likely not given the full situation, namely that Megatron himself doesn't know this information or that he isn't the true root of it all, this was more likely done to get Kiloton at odds with Megatron so that they would fight, since Kilo and Megatron were very close. But Kiloton is absolutely furious at this, once he gets it confirmed that this is indeed the truth, feeling utterly betrayed by the bot he loved. He was also probably infected with the virus at this point, making his anger even more pronounced

And then the confrontation between Megatron and Kiloton happened, with Kiloton wanting Megatron dead for what he's done, and Megatron not understanding, but realizing Kilo is infected and that he'll have to fight him to protect himself, but only wanting to knock him out and detain him. Megatron also thinks this secret Kiloton is so angry at him for is that he lied about being infected, which he admits is true, though he doesn't say specifically that this was what he was admitting, and Kilo thus thinks he's admitting to his involvement with the spread of the virus

Then during the ensuing fight, in a moment of pure instinct and complete accident, Megatron shoots Kiloton fatally, leading to his death, and in Kilo's final moments, he still hates Megatron for what he did. Also in these moments, some of Kilo's final words implies to Megatron that what he was mad at him for wasn't his infection but something else, but by the time he realized, Kilo was already dead

Megatron feels horrible about his death for a multitude of reasons. First off, the obvious point of him killing his lover, that's going to put a damper on things. But it's also because Kiloton's death was entirely unnecessary; while he put up way more of a fight than anyone would have expected from him, he was not dangerous enough that death was the only option, he very easily could have just been detained. But Megatron killed him anyways. And even if it was an accident and he never meant to kill him, it made him more scared of his old self, thinking that maybe it's just in his nature to destroy, as it was his battle instincts that led to him shooting Kiloton, thus reinforcing that idea in his mind that he is nothing more than a killing machine. And on top of all that, he'll never know what it was that made Kiloton so angry with him in that battle, because he knows now that it wasn't his infection. But Kiloton's dead, so he'll never know (well he will find out the truth later, but this is his perspective after the fact)

While in current day he and Optimus are together, it took a long time and a lot of comforting and reassurance, a good chunk of it from Optimus himself, for him to get over what happened and to try and move on from Kiloton

And also with this I realize I need to expand more on Megatron and Optimus' relationship and what it means to them and why they're together

I can at least say that I don't think, provided Kiloton had lived or the circumstances around his death had never happened, that Kilton and Megatron's relationship would have lasted the way Optimus and Megatron's is supposed to

It's not that they didn't love and cherish each other, but it's the fact of the virus and Megatron's involvement in it. In the scenario where Kiloton had lived and said what he knew to the other Autobots, while he would have found out that Megatron legitimately didn't know about it, and thought he was admitting to something far lesser, he still wouldn't have entirely forgiven him for his involvement in this mess, and would probably still feel hurt at the betrayal of Megatron not telling him about his infection as well, even if it is the lesser of things. And Megatron would have been soul crushed by the revelation of his involvement as well, probably also because the bot he loves and the first to show him kindness now resents him for it all. And even if none of that happened and the truth came out to everyone at the intended time it's supposed to, Kilo would still have some resentment for Megatron in this instance. And even if Kilo eventually forgave Megatron because he genuinely didn't know and it wasn't really his fault, their relationship would never be what it once was after this

Meanwhile with Optimus, when this information gets learned, he's supposed to be there with Megatron when he finds out, knowing the entire time that Megatron didn't know. And while he'd still be hurt that Megatron didn't trust him with the knowledge of his infection, it wouldn't be relationship breaking because he knows Megatron has felt guilty about this, and he's admitted to Optimus that he has a secret that he's scared to tell Optimus of, this being it. And it kind of pales in comparison to the bombshell that just dropped on Megatron at this moment. Optimus is actually the one to try and get Megatron out of the meltdown this leads to, by assuring him that this was never his fault, and he knows that Megatron wants to be a good person and is not defined by his origins

And with that, I'm not sure I have much else I've come up with. Like I said, I need more on Megatron and Optimus, but I do at least have some things here

And I think that about wraps up all the relevant stuff I have here. Not sure what I'll draw next, hopefully AU related

I do have two sort of ideas, namely drawing them with hair because the Mega Man characters have hair and I just want to, and also making a megop kid here because it's been an idea in my head, and I want to. Granted that latter option might still need to wait until later, I think I need to make more before I get ahead of myself. So probably the hair thing then

But I want to name them Convoy, since you know, that name isn't really being used here and I can

Okay, I’ve been working on this throughout the week, in between work and exam studying; just some more X AU sketches

The first drawing was just me trying to make something easy, and while looking through some of my pose references to use (once again by @mellon-soup), I found one reference and wanted to use it for Megatron and Gigatron (a previous attempt was something with Megatron and Kiloton, but I couldn’t get it to look good)

I also think I started drawing for the ZX AU, but it shifted into the X AU instead, and I spent a good while trying to make them match that style. I think by the end, it looks pretty good

Also I have an alternate version with Gigatron’s normal colors, or an approximation of them

It was just supposed to be these two originally, but I put it on a larger canvas because I feel like I make too many one-offs, so I decided to just make some more sketches and design ideas for the X AU

Also like I said in the page, none of these designs are final, they’re either first attempts or me not trying super hard. Best are Elita-1 and Soundwave, but they’re still prone to change

First was drawing Blackarachnia again, but her helmet was giving me so much trouble, I decided to just shelve her. I might have just been over complicating things or being too stubborn. I’ll show you her main two helmet options, if that helps anything

Afterwards I moved on to try and change Optimus’ helmet, since I had said that I had found a better reference for how to draw it

Didn’t work out super well, I think the proportions are all off, but oh well, it’s a start at least

Then the last thing I drew was a new Elita-1 design, I think because I was trying to figure out how I’d draw female bots; in Mega Man X, the women have breasts, so I was trying to see if I wanted to or was able to do that myself. It ultimately didn’t work out, but that’s fine. She’s at least got a decent first design, one that hopefully won’t give me so much trouble

Almost all of her colors come from Alia, and honestly I think you can really tell. I need to work on that

I think there’s definitely things to work on though. I think her chest diamond thing looks too large, and I was trying to incorporate Elita’s skirt things, but I don’t think they worked out well so I might drop them, and her arms need more work too. Hopefully a full design can help her, it’s just a matter of whenever I get around to doing that

I don’t know much about her place in the lore though, and tbh she might be the reason I want to shift over to the ZX AU, because I don’t want to figure out if she’s like her previous X AU self, if she’s based off of a MMX character and who, or if she’s something else entirely. At least with ZX I have a clean slate

And then we have Soundwave, who was from a previous page of potential designs, but he was the only one I finished and I don’t know if I’ll finish the rest, so I ended up putting him here. I really like his design (though it’s still subject to tweaks), probably the best one

I also actually made him with some character ideas in mind (which may account for why I think he’s the best quality). As I recall, he’s more of the assassin type, and probably does plenty of infiltration and information gathering too. He also doesn’t have a dock because he interacts with Minicons as most others do, though he has a number of them and is really skilled in utilizing them. Minicons turn into weapons and/or armor for other bots to use. Also they’re all animals, so he’s got at least Ravage and Lazerbeak, but not Rumble and Frenzy, unless they’re animals too

Also his scarf was inspired by Gray in ZX Advent, and I imagine he uses it to jack into data centers, since they actually are cables, they aren’t just decorative

And that about wraps things up? I really don’t have much to say other than design things, since none of these designs are final. Also I have an exam soon, so I’m streamlining this a bit

So I was able to actually get this finished today, so here is the newly redesigned Transformers X Optimus Prime

Though he’s definitely liable to tweaks in the future, given this is my first time drawing him like this. Probably in parts of the legs and chest (mainly the orb), and maybe also his antennae. Also maybe his eyes, because I’m not so sure how easy his pupils are to see

But for the most part, this is his new design, and here are the old ones for reference

I took much heavier inspiration from the Mega Man X designs this time, particularly X, Zero, and a bit of Alia. I haven’t gotten things exactly down yet, but there’s definitely more of it than before

I will note though that I forgot that the side circles you see here are the Classic style, not X style. But I’ve drawn them this way for so long, so oh well

I’d say the most notable change here is the colors. I was trying to keep more to the MMX colors as part of my mimicry, and I ended up achieving that by basically just color picking from X and Zero, and where need be, tweaking some of the colors. But it probably looks a lot closer to the source now

I also took the Multiply colors from those designs, but with some different hues in certain areas, because blue does not look good on every color

But overall, I think this turned out pretty well, and hopefully with more practice, this style will look even better

Now as for lore, how are things in the X AU now?

Well to be perfectly honest, I still don’t have the most fleshed out of ideas for Optimus. I’ve thought of multiple potential ideas for what Optimus could be like, and I had trouble choosing. But the one thing I did have was that Optimus would eventually become an accomplished leader, but he doesn’t start out as one, and right now, that’s what I’m rolling with

Oh right, probably worth mentioning, but much of the basic X AU setup has remained. The Decepticons are a group of Transformers who have been infected with something called the Destron Virus that makes them unstable and destructive, and the Autobots are a government funded coalition formed in order to deal with these Decepticons. Optimus and Megatron are both Autobots who work together as field partners

This Optimus is from those younger days, when he’s not super experienced. He’s got promise, but he’s still rough around the edges. Megatron has a sort of mentor role with him, being somewhat older and more experienced, like X and Zero in MMX1

Speaking of which, I don’t know if he and Megatron will get together in this new version of the X AU either. They might be slightly too far apart in story lines. But they at least end up very close friends

As for Optimus’ origins? Again, haven’t plotted it all out yet. I’ve planned for Megatron to yet again follow Zero pretty closely, so I feel like Optimus should follow X somewhat closely as well. So by that logic, I’d imagine Optimus was built by Alpha Trion some time ago, and he was eventually awakened, and he has some traits that make him unique compared to most other Transformers. But many of the circumstances of his origin are unknown, even to him

That’s what I have following that idea, but I don’t know if I’ll 100% stick to it, especially since Megatron’s backstory is very similar, only Optimus was made for benevolent reasons and Megatron for malevolent. That could be a point of comparison, but it could also be a point of redundancy, I’m not sure

But that’s what I have so far for Optimus. It’s not much, and to be perfectly honest, it’s not that different from where things were before, but it’s something at least, I’ve started the changes proper now

Megatron’s the next character I plan to draw, but I’m not sure where things will go after that. We’ll see though

Oh and one last thing, I had debated giving Optimus orange (or yellow) eyes instead, though I ultimately decided to stick with the blue. But I’ll show you what I made at least, if you think it looks better