I'm Loving That Skybound Thundercracker Just Wanted Some Progress And In Comes Shockwave With The Most

MORE KOBD MERMAIDS AAAAAAAHHH

POV: You encounter KOBD merformers in the sea.

BD: Ugh! Human!

KO: Hello, little one. Do you wanna play with us?

I drew them againnn!!! 🧜‍♂️🪸🫧

Transformers and Female Body Types (Rant/Essay)

(I wanted more images in this, but tumblr has a limit and it was a lot of pictures anyway)

Anyone who complains about female transformers having “robot boobs” needs to shut up. Unless it’s a case of critiquing a design that’s genuinely caricatured, this complaint only serves to protest against robots looking too feminine, as if all robots by default should have broad, masculine shoulders and flat chests instead. The problem is that people look at a masculine transformer and say, “Ah yes, an anthropomorphised robot.” But the moment it’s one of the female transformers, it’s “why do robots need boobs?” as if a male-looking body type is anthropomorphizing, but a female-looking body time is suddenly “too human” or “too much.” As if all humanoid robot aliens should look male by default.

That being said, for a long time transformers did have a glaring issue of their female transformers having a generic, Barbie-doll like body type. This especially became problematic as male characters appeared with several different and varying heights and builds, while female characters all looked the same.

This eventually improved with newer media. I’m going to go through different transformers series, giving my opinions on various female Cybertronians designs.

Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime are the cases where we see the very few female characters that there are being designed with this more Barbie doll look, especially in comparison to the male cast, who each have strikingly different silhouettes. I maintain that there’s nothing wrong with having this stereotypically feminine figure as long as it’s not caricatured or designed to sxualize the character (in TFA’s case, Black Airachnid was extremely sexualized, but Arcee wasn’t at least) it’s just the lack of variety that makes it painful. If all female characters were designed with a stocky, square body type, it would be just as bad; the problem is the lack of diversity in representing how each woman is different.

I think Arcee from Transformers Prime gets some of the most comments about how she has breasts and hips and is most often faced with the question “why should robots have boobs?” In response to this question, I propose: why shouldn’t they? The shape of their chassis really doesn’t matter in the end. I like Arcee’s design and acting like she’s inherently caricatured for looking like a woman is just a way of alienating femininity.

TFP Arcee is also unfortunately sexualized a lot by the fandom. Primus forbid a woman exist in peace.

The problem with these ‘Barbie doll’ designs isn’t that they are oversexualized— while this may have been a problem with Black Airachnia, the true problem, as seen especially with the treatment of TFP Arcee, is the concept that any female body traits are inherently sexual, which both creators and fandom spaces feed into.

It’s not as prominent, but I’ve also seen a trend of attempting to give female transformers more diverse body types by giving them… male body types.

In Transformers Cyberverse, the Seekers all have the same body type, whether they are male, female, or genderfluid, the only differences being that the female models have lips and the male ones have facial-hair like chin stubs (and Acid Storm switches back and forth). However I would hardly call this progress, because the body type is more male-leaning, not truly gender neutral.

Often to make something appear gender neutral, people will just remove anything too obviously feminine. This treats masculine traits as the “default” and female traits as a deviance from this. A truly gender-neutral design would incorporate both masculine and feminine traits at the same time.

(What if we just made all the Seekers look like women and gave the dudes chins. What if we did that. Huh.)

Shadowstriker from Cyberverse is a better example of this, having a female body type but a chin stub and generally gender neutral face.

I like the look of Alpha Strike as well, she feels actually gender neutral and isn’t too exaggerated like most muscular (and especially muscular female) characters are.

For example, Clobber’s design is good, but I do think her lips were strangely exaggerated.

Once the IDW run of the Transformers comics actually introduced female characters, they eventually gained a large cast with a variety of different body types. Take Windblade, Nautica, Pyra Magna, the Mistress of Flame, and Aileron.

These aren’t all examples, but IDW certainly had a unique design for each of their female characters, with different heights, width, mixing and matching the proportions of their bodies and displaying diverse body types. Aileron is also a stand-out character design for me, as one of the few heavy-set transformers to be designed in a way that looks more rounded than bulky, implying weight over muscle. We need more weighted transformers in general.

I have many positive feelings about Transformers Earthspark’s choice of character design for their female characters.

Earthspark has the most consistently diverse character design for its female characters.

And it shows that the key to designing actually good female Cybertronians isn’t necessarily to make them not feminine, but to show diverse depictions of femininity. All of the female characters in this show are pretty feminine, but they all look different. Twitch is small and slight, Hashtag is tall and boxy. Each one has different proportions and are easy to tell apart by body type alone. Even better, they each have drastically different facial structures. Twitch has large eyes, Hashtag has a strong chin, Elita-1 has a straight nose and pronounced lips, Arcee has small eyes and a very slight nose, et cetera. Earthspark is definitely a win in this department.

My point with all of this is to say that femininity isn’t a one-size fits all. Every woman is different and everyone should get to express their gender in whatever way they see fit. Transformers gradually diversifying the look of their female characters represents this, and I hope they continue improving as the franchise continues.

Awake ＆ Forged

Some Transformers Ships I like! Which should I draw next?

Ships: Starscream x Skyfire, Optimus/Orion Pax x Megatron/D-16, Optimus x Elita, Knockout x Breakdown, Tailgate x Cyclonus, Megatron x Minimus, Windblade x Slipstream, Ironhide x Chromia, Soundwave x Shockwave, Chromedome x Rewind

also feel free to specify series- I showed TFONE megOp but I could Earthspark instead, either way

WHICH ONE SHOULD I DRAW AHH!!! :D

"She's hot enough to replace you whenever i choose!" - Megatron in the G1 "Enter the Nightbird" Ep

It would've been soo fun if Nightbird was part of the main deception cast in G1. Like, if they actually made her fully sentient y'know?

Like she would've just been vibin' the whole show. And the one sided beef starscream would have with her omg.

i think it would be funny if she actually liked starscream, like she would assume she was his friend because she like, rarely interacts casually with anyone else. (I know they're canon dynamic would've just been her ignoring him so she could work, but this is funnier to me)

he's seething whenever she gets close to him. "she's probably thinking about ways to usurp me as second in command!!" and she's just like "hanging out with the bestie :3"

Doctor who episode was rlly good Lux is best boy

Two old men on a spaceship

THIS IS AMAZING LOL SO IN CHARACTER

Currently working on a band AU and this pretty much sums up Starscream lol

Lord Megatron has stepped on a Lego block, now I , Starscream, am the new leader of the Decepticons!

I animated Megatron and Starscream from my transformers fan continuity to How the World Works by Bo Burnham

Content warning for Starscream getting beat up

Sorry to contribute to more Starscream suffering in the world, I promise if I ever draw the full au that he’ll get a happy ending

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Transformers: Sparksong [intro/master post]

This is the introduction post for my transformers fanverse, which I’ll be posting on this blog, bit by bit! Above is the first cover I’ve dr