Dave's Gallery of Robot Art
TF Canon Characters

    This page has drawings I've done of "Official" Transformers characters, although often with my own interpretation. Images are copyright Dave Van Domelen on the date of drawing, but are generally trademarks of Hasbro.

• "Straight" drawings, no significant changes. I don't do a lot of these, I'd rather change things around.
• AllSpark Art Challenges, drawings done because of an Art Challenge on the AllSpark webboard.
• Intermezzos. A design done for one of my Fanfics.
• Serious Redesigns. More or less serious, anyway.
• Silly Designs (from slightly to very).
• "Only Human", TFs in human bodies (not the same as humans in TF armor, which can be mostly found in Silly Designs).

• Ironworks: A shirt I made for myself back in fall of 1994, it's faded somewhat.
• Soundwave: Another shirt design, you may have seen it in the BotCon photo galleries or on me at BotCon. Too wide to fit on the scanner without clipping, unfortunately.
• Minerva: The female Headmaster Jr. from the Japanese Masterforce series, rescuing a cat from a tree. The cat's saying "Nee!", which is one of the Japanese cat sounds (along with Nya). 12/4/97
• Windy!: From the recent recolored re-release of the Sixtrain team, her bio described her as a wannabe idol singer. So I took it from there. Done in response to a request on the Mecha Babes Yahoo Group. I crudely redid the background digitally in black. 8/1/05.

• Transmetal Retrax: "Make a Transmetal mode for a toy that had not gotten one." I decided that making Retrax into a flying eyeball would only enhance his freakiness. 1/18/02
• Transmetal Break: Another entry on the Transmetal challenge. Break from BW Neo given Transmetalization...and wings that work. 1/25/02
• Armada Arcee with Boost: I initiated an art challenge to do a hovercraft Arcee for Armada, and this was my entry. The Mini-Con gimmick is that the hoverfans spin when Boost is plugged into the hardpoint in the hoverfan hex and pushed down. 8/15/02
• Armada Arcee with Rodimus Minor: And here's another idea for a hovercraft Arcee, this time more of a combat car sort with a dragonfly motif and Rodimus Minor as the Mini-Con. 8/22/02
• Kirby-Style Optimus Prime: "What if Jack Kirby had designed a Transformer from scratch?" Here's one possibility. On this one, you can also see my raw pencils and inked version. Ignore the date on the picture, it's really 10/14/02.
• Super Optimus Prime: "Superhero Transformers." A cross between Optimus Prime and Superman. Mostly Prime's physical model (with mods to chest and boots) and Superman's colors (with a bit of Prime's in the chest). The hands are gray because they're the same color as Prime's faceplate, just as Superman's hands are bare. 4/6/03
• WWII Seaspray: "Find a WWII mode for a character not already redesigned for the Transformers/GIJoe series." So I made Seaspray over as a DUKW "Duck". Guess he got work at the Wisconsin Dells after the war. 7/10/03.
• Kickback Cricket: "Transformers playing sports." Was looking to do well in the voting, but then the board went down for a month and the challenge was called off. 12/2/03.
• Sentinel Prime: Dead Autobot leader who preceded Optimus Prime, revived for a "TF: Universe" art challenge. His vehicle mode is the combined form of a Micromaster combiner team. 4/3/04
• Beast Mirage: "Re-envision G1 characters as Beast Wars/Beast Machines reformats." Here is G1 Mirage as a Transmetal Turbofox, showing that Primus has a sense of irony. 9/5/04
• Liokaiser vs. Victory Leo: "Feature a combiner team." The lack of inks on Liokaiser is intended to be an invisibility effect. Test sketch. 10/5/04
• Nightbeat as Kokopelli: "Do a Transformer in some non-standard style." I picked the style of the Kokopelli figure from Southwestern American art. 1/15/05
• Painted Arcee: Femmebot challenge. My first fully painted 2-D art since high school in the mid 80s. Topless on a hillside on some giant TF-scaled planet (because I wanted her lying in grass and flowers, not tiny trees), drinking Energon on a hot summer day. Safe for work. 2/6/05
• SD Prime: "Chibi-style." It's chibi Optimus Prime! The inks came out horribly and I almost abandoned the piece, but I decided to use paint markers to reclaim it. Picfic using my reference materials. 4/9/05.
• Electro PSA: "Public Service Announcement with a non-G1 character." I printed out the text in B&W and colored it after gluing it to the page. 5/3/05. (Came in second in the voting, I won the first place with this piece.)
• Backpack the Henchbot: AKA Scattorshot in the U.S., the gray outline is that of Nodwick, from the comic of the same name. "Draw a Cybertron/Galaxy Force character." 7/8/05.
• Soundwave vs. Scrounge: "Make two characters fight." This is Soundwave in his lamppost form (suuuuure, "communication tower", riiiight) with some details added from the PVC versus Scrounge (TF G1 #17). Sort of. Sky colored with pencil. 8/18/05.
• Brawn of the Dead: "Halloween Theme." Painted on canvas board. After all the paper curling I got on my painted Arcee, I decided to get a proper board for this one. Not sure I like the texture, though...I may do future painted works on slats of wood or something. 10/21/05.
• Speedian Buzzsaw: "Reformat a Cybertron character for another Planet." Cybertron Buzzsaw reformatted as a Speed Planet road vehicle, a reverse trike. I colored it in part with a highlighter, then found that yellow highlighter scans as light brown. So I took a digital photo. The first photo, taken indoors, wasn't bright enough even with egregious level tweaking. So I ended up having to take a photo in direct sunlight. I also scanned in-progress inks of the vehicle mode only and the full pic. 1/7/06
• Metals Rattor painting: "Beast Mode." On a dare, I used the Pikachu-ish Metals Rattor (Transmetal Rattrap) seen in the BW Metals manga. I tweaked a few details and gave him Hamtaro eyes (and energon sunflower seed), but otherwise convey the horror that is the manga Metals Rattor. Chuuu. 2/17/06.
• Paradron Barmaid: "St. Patrick's Day, partying green Transformer." Like the green Arcee recolor Paradron Medic, but more fun. 3/11/06
• Trapper: "Pre-BW modes of BW characters." Rattrap as the son of Wheelie. 5/9/06.
• Scylla Kiss-Play: "Kiss-Play, But Keep It Clean" challenge. Scylla from BWII finding a cute Emo-boy to slobber over. With cheap background colors added. "Jinchokon" is actually a term from Japanese Godmasters, but it has been adopted by some Kiss-Play fanfics to refer to the power gained from humans. 10/7/06
• "Boxing Day": "Transformers celebrate a winter holiday." Shortround shows Starscream how to celebrate Boxing Day (inspired by "Insecticomics" by Wayward). Rough pencils. 12/9/06
• Jumpstarters Z: "Crossover between Transformers and some other series." The Jumpstarters (and Devastator) meet Mazinger Z. Topspin Z and Boss Twist face Devos T8. Has an associated fanfic. Design sketches for Boss Twist, Topspin Z and the preliminary pencils for the final piece. 3/2/07
• Sky High Mix: "Blend two or more characters with the same name." Sky High the Pretender helicopter crossed with Sky High the Micromaster SST. 8/10/07
• Sibo: "Draw your pet as a Transformer, or a Transformer as a pet." As I own no pets, I drew BW Silverbolt as an Aibo. I goofed on making the tail lupine instead of avian, though. Design sketch. 11/9/07. Winner of the November 2007 challenge!
• "Cleanup": "Draw existing canon characters in Animated style." Accompanied by a Fanfic, making this also an Intermezzo piece. 1/9/08
  • Ironworks Design - Changed for the final pic.
  • Greasepit Design
  • Pencils of final drawing
• Luke Grimwalker: "Draw a Transformer dressed up for Halloween." Grimlock as Luke Skywalker. Before drawing on the costume, I drew a "bare" Grimlock heavily referenced from The Ark vol 1. 10/11/08 - Winner of the October 2008 AllSpark Art Challenge!
• Cancer: No Cure for Denis Leary: "Draw a human/humanoid from the canon." So I picked Cancer, the Destron Headmaster Junior from Transformers: Masterforce, and put him in a parody of the album cover of Denis Leary's "No Cure for Cancer". 11/10/08

• Sky Lynx Intermezzo: I wrote a vignette about what happened to Sky Lynx after the Great War (it's on my BW page), and decided to draw the body he was put into. The pose is taken from Swan Lake, and the androgyny is intentional. 9/23/98
• Athena Prime: What if Minerva from Masterforce and Victory got the Matrix of Leadership? Her vehicle mode is a sort of RV/Ambulance six-wheeler. 12/24/01
• Athena Prime Vehicle Mode: Her altmode and a closeup of her face. 12/25/01
• Note: Jumpstarters Z above in AllSpark Art Contests has an Intermezzo, but started as the drawing, not the fanfic.

• C.H.E.E.T.O.R.: Transmetal II Cheetor's basic design revised for use as a cybernetic powerarmor hero in Champions.
• Shocktrooper: Another cyborg based on a Transformer (like C.H.E.E.T.O.R. above), this one is based on Shockwave. I took most of the detailing from Actionmaster Shockwave, plus a few bits I recalled from painting half a dozen Shockwave decoys. And I know Shockers has a yellow eye in the cartoon, but I prefer red. 12/2/99
• Shockwave as a Limo: My idea for a vehicle mode Shockwave, as a badass six-wheeled stretch limousine. Proportions a little Romitized, and I mixed up which arm has the gun, oops. 10/21/00. Rescanned 9/1/01
• X-Big Daddy: Picture I drew of a kitbash I did of the Spychanger W.A.R.S. into a 57 Chevy. Scanned 9/9/01.
• Ironworks 2004: Ironworks redesigned for 2004. Now he's a cement mixer. 4/1/04
• Micromaster Firestar: Discharge from the SixTurbo team, minus heavy armor and given a new name. 4/10/04
• Energon Strika: Beast Machines' Strika redesigned for Energon with a somewhat more feminine body and the altmode of a Spanish light armored unit. Her turret is her energon weapon, becoming a hammer. 4/17/04
• Energon Camshaft: A blue PT Cruiser that turns into a robot suspiciously reminiscent of an entirely different G1 character (in homage to Energon Downshift looking like Wheeljack). 8/12/04
• Cybertron Thunderblast: Done with an alternate transformation, attempting to keep her feminine and retain the same vehicle mode without making her a total shellmaster. She mugged Nobel Gundam for the beam ribbon. 1/2/06
• Red Alert Animated: I read an interview stating that early in the planning stages, the team medic in Transformers Animated was going to be a female Red Alert. So I decided to take the Minerva design and mod it into TF:A style in this quick sketch. December 2007.
• Signal Lancer Animated: A background character from Transformers: Cybertron redesigned as the traffic signal that comes with Animated Prowl's toy. 6/7/08.

• Starscream 1/2: If you look at the Starscream toy, you'll notice it could easily have been made a female character. So, seized by a silly mood, I drew Screamer-chan in a pose borrowed from Ranma 1/2 #1. The red helmet is meant as an analogue to Ranma-chan's red hair. Oddly, even drawn as femininely as I could manage, it still looks like plain old Starscream. 3/18/98
• Rallnox: The Rally's Rhinox toy is possibly the lamest, worst-looking Transformer ever made. I tried to redeem the design a bit in this drawing. 11/8/01
• Safety Megatron: My attempt to create a version of Megatron that's not only a recognizable gun, but also conforms to all safety regulations (bright colors, cannot be repainted to look like a real gun, etc). 8/31/02 (Yes, long before Classics Megatron.)
• Energon Prime Girl: A subgenre of mecha art is that of the "Robot Girl", a lady wearing (generally skimpy) armor based on the design of a robot or mobile suit. This is my less-than-serious addition to the fad. Uncolored inks also available. 1/30/04
• Decepticon Alexis: A while before I drew this, someone drew Alexis as a sort of anti-Kicker, wearing really skimpy armor. I decided I needed to do a version with a little more clothing, VERY loosely based on Renais from GaoGaiGar Final. I got the Starscream sword right by the simple expedient of tracing the toy. 2/25/04
• Chibi BB: I didn't actually draw this, I got the template off Salt-Man Z's Go-Bots site. I colored Aerobot as BB from Beast Wars II. 5/7/04
• Hot Shot, the Nuclear Bot: A member of the Justice League of Autobots (along with Super Optimus Prime above), when he merges with his Mini-Con Jolt, Hot Shot gains vast nuclear powers! 7/23/04
• Order of the Spark Optimus Prime: Goofy quick draw program image of Optimus Prime a la the webcomic Order of the Stick. 8/31/07

   In March 2005, the AllSpark had an art challenge based on the "Only Human" episode of third season G1 Transformers, where four Autobots got put into human synthoid bodies. I did two for the contest, and have since done others as the mood took me.

• I. Ron Works: Isaac Ronald Works, crusty construction foreman. 3/1/05 (Art Challenge)
• Clarice Pitt: In the same setting as Ron above, Greasepit as a lady who is built like a brickhouse. She and Ron know each other and don't get along. 3/20/05. (Art Challenge)
• Terrell Baker: Hiking and mountain climbing buff, he seems to lead a charmed life as things that should have killed him just didn't quite hit him. Trailbreaker. 9/28/05.
• Bao Anh Gung: A Vietnamese Buddhist monk who's still working on the whole "nonviolent" thing (as well as the asceticism thing, as his potbelly demonstrates). Brawn, AKA "Gong" in Japan. I found out after picking the name that it means, roughly, "Precious Hero Ginger". Heh. 9/29/05.