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).
• Only Pony, mixes of Transformers and My Little Pony. I might make this a separate page later.

• 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.
• Ultra Magnus rifle design: A sketch for an idea to make a better rifle/hammer weapon for TF:Prime's Ultra Magnus. December 9, 2012.

• 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 - Winner of the November 2008 AllSpark Art Challenge!
• Howlback in "Kitten with a Whip": The challenge in January 2009 was to reinterpret a movie poster using a Transformers character or characters. I took the Metals Jaguar design and made it female as an update of the G1 Ravage redeo Howlback, starring in this poster. 1/6/09.
• Elite Guard Lockdown: The April/May 2009 challenge was to create an Autobot Elite Guard character along the lines of the BotCon '09 exclusive toys, which meant a more or less G1 design motif. I took Big Daddy's mold and heavily "Romita-ized" it while also changing a few details to create a pre-bounty-hunting identity for Lockdown. 4/16/09.
• Animated Sky-Byte: The February 2010 challenge is sort of an inverse of the one above, to take a character who didn't get an Animated toy and make one for them. Winner of the challenge. 2/1/10.
• Animated Sky-Byte Shark Mode: The May 2010 challenge was to draw Sky-Byte (in honor of the BotCon toy of him), so I decided to do the beast mode. The haiku (well, senryu) comes from the AllSpark Almanac vol 1, which canonically establishes that some version of Sky-Byte exists in Animated. Winner of the challenge. 5/15/10.
• Drill Dasher Silhouette: The April 2010 challenge was to take a canonical character released in 1985 and draw them in some way. I picked Drill Dasher, one of the mailaway Powerdashers, and started from a Gurren Lagann sort of pose before toning it down a bit. Drawn on yellow cardstock and then colored in with black Sharpie. The hill and Sun part was then cut out and glued onto a piece of red cardstock. Because my scanner does poorly with black fill, I had to adjust contrast and this has caused some artifacting. 4/2/10.
• TF:A Windy: The June 2010 challenge was to have a Transformer "rocking out" in some way. I decided to revisit Windy (see the Serious Interpretations section at the top) but redo her in a Transformers Animated style and see if I could manage a better pose. I messed up the antennae and had to paint over the area around the head to fix it, but otherwise this is marker and pencil. 6/13/10. Winner of the challenge!
• Metrotank walker: The July 2011 challenge (yeah, most of my entries since June 2010 were kitbashes) was to do something with a companion of a city-former. Poking through the possibilities, I realized that Slammer/Metrotank looked like he should be the legs of a Duo-bot/con, but to be goofy I went and just turned Metrotank into a walker on his own. Colored all in markers this time, no pencil shading. 7/16/11.
• TF:Avengers: The September 2011 challenge was to depict a team of the Avengers using canonical Autobots. I was inspired to base mine on the cover of Avengers #1, although the different proportions of several characters forced tweaks to the framing (i.e. Loki's head is in shot, but Megatron's wouldn't fit). Prismacolor marker and white gel pen. Rough pencils, inked picture. 9/6/11. (The date is chopped off the drawing because the piece is wider than my scanner plate.) This won the challenge, but only due to a lack of other entries. :/
• Sky-Bryte: Sky-Byte from Robots in Disguise reimagined as a pegasus pony. The design sketch lacked wings. October 2011 entry. 10/15/11.
• Dani Burns: One of the humans from Transformers Rescue Bots, drawn borrowing a jetpack from one of the non-show toy characters. "Inked" with various Bic Marks-a-Lot and ultra-fine Sharpie markers. 12/18/11.
• Rescue Bots Diver: The February 2012 challenge was "Leap Year" and mandated a canonical frog Transformer in some way. So I drew Diver (most awesome of the frogs) in Rescue Bot style. 2/9/12. (It won!)
• Kirby-Style Ravage: The April 2012 challenge was some interpretation of Ravage. I decided to go with a Kirby style, swiping the pose from a cover of New Gods and inking in Sharpie. 3/29/12 (yes, the challenge was announced a little before the month started)
• Fall of Cybertron Snapper: The September 2012 challenge was to take a Beast-era character and work out their Fall of Cybertron appearance. I picked Snapper, the flying turtle, who is really neat. 9/28/12 (got in just under the wire)
• Destron Jr. Halloween: Cancer and Bullhorn decorate Wilder's transtector for Halloween. Done for the October 2012 challenge. 10/26/12.
• "Fly Me To The Moon": Cosmos and Pathfinder on a romantic moonlit night. Paper cutouts and gel pen. Done for the November 2012 challenge. 11/30/12.

• 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
• "Mikonerva": Miko from Transformers: Prime in a Prime-ish version of Minerva's Headmaster Jr. armor. This makes Bulkhead justifiably nervous. 2/16/12.
• Sailor Strongarm: Hey, if Windblade got a Magical Girl Power Up, why not Strongarm? Of course, she wouldn't get all willowy, she'd become an armored SWAT vehicle, based on the Classics Onslaught mold. Early pencils, Later pencils. July 3, 2017.

   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.
• Frankie Z and Ron Bull: Frenzy and Rumble (animation colors) as mob legbreakers. Suggested by Diosoth, drawn in a more TF:Animated style. 11/27/08.
• Josh Boyfriend: Thundercracker's self-insert character in his movie scripts, my interpretation. March 22, 2014.
• Human Strongarm: I forget if I gave her a name, but this is Strongarm as a human of Mohawk descent, working as a futuristic riot cop. February 22, 2015.

   Okay, I've mixed these two properties enough to give it its own section. This doesn't include my Pony TF kitbashes. And I left Marissoo up in silly, because she wasn't intended to be a My Little Pony unicorn.

• My Little Mach Kick: What if Thoroughbred Courier Mach Kick had to make a delivery to Equestria? Inked mostly with a gray finepoint marker. Also available in toy form. 11/21/10.
• Derpia: Derpy Hooves with a Transformers: Animated style robot mode. My first "Pony as TF" crossover drawing, done only a few weeks after I got into the show. 12/10/10
• Channel: My main fan character reimagined as a pony. His eyeglint is the AllSpark board's logo. 2/19/11
• My Little Drift: Canonical "Gary Stu" uberkewl charcter Drift as a pegasus pony who reallllly thinks he's cooler than he actually is. Awkward pose intentional. :) His cutie mark is a cloud, he was originally named Drift because he liked floating around on clouds. 5/11/12.
• Headmaster Ponies: After watching a bunch of the Japanese Headmasters, I was struck by how appropriate the Cybertron Headmasters' super move "Head Formation of Friendship" would be to Equestria. One thing led to another, and I ended up drawing the Mane Six as Masterjin/Nebulans over the summer of 2012.
  • Transformation design: The idea was to work out a toyetic design, then twist it to animated sensibilities. After finishing this, I decided that on the toy the mane back would be detachable and in the show the mane would be generated as energy constructs by panels on the forearm armor. July 2012.
  • Rarity: Her Element is set on the right side of her chest, a motif I'd continue for all but Twilight Sparkle. I decided that I'd work up a basic toy-design helmet for each of the three kinds of pony, then warp the design for the drawings. So the unicorns get a sort of spartan helmet with crest, which I stretched out to be long and elegant for Rarity. 7/31/12.
  • Twilight Sparkle: The Velma to Rarity's Daphne, I made her a bit squatter and more awkward. I also created a distinct belt piece at the waist, a design piece that I used on some of the later ponies, but not all. Purple continues to be a big problem for me with markers, so I ended up coloring this in Prismacolor markers and then going over almost everything in Prismacolor pencils. 8/1/12.
  • Pinkie Pie: More of a block helmet for the Earth ponies. I decided here that they could create other energy shapes besides just their manes, so Pinkie is making bubbles. Why is she bending her leg at toy-only joints that don't even appear in the animation design? Because Pinkie. Her left chest details are a Simon pad (the 80s electronic game) and a Gameboy pad. Just ask before playing. 8/5/12.
  • Applejack: I warped the block helmet to look more like a cowboy hat, and took the energon constructs thing a step farther. The three buttons on her chest are meant to evoke the freckles of her pony face (which are covered up by her left arm). 8/6/12.
  • Rainbow Dash: Took me a while to figure out a helmet design I liked for pegasi, and I took a lot from Minerva's Headmaster Junior armor helmet. It needed to be something I could make look shy and demure for Fluttershy, and the visor ended up being the key. The pose is taken from a classic Superman drawing, and her chest controls are a more direct nod to the Headmaster chest stats. 8/9/12.
  • Fluttershy: Getting the legs right was hard, but I like the generally shy pose I got here. Given her role in MLP as veterinarian, I gave her a medical monitor on her chest, she's the medic of the team (more Minerva, less Ratchet...unless you draw her ire, in which case she makes Ratchet look fluffy). 8/20/12.
  • I might do a Head Formation of Friendship drawing too.