Top 10 Transformers Artists

I can't believe that I live in an age where I can actually do this.  It was unfathomable during the Marvel runs that I could even conceive of ten different artists working on the Transformers in an official capacity.  Thankfully Transformers have proven to be so popular that a lot of people have worked on them.  Just to get this out of the way, this is my list based on those who have officially worked on the Transformers, whether through Marvel, Dreamwave, IDW, or Fun Publications.  There are many great artists out there who have done Transformers art, such as Benjamin Galley, or GrungeWerX, or Blitz-Wing, to name a few, but they haven't worked on anything in an official capacity.  Here, then, I present to you my list of the top ten artists.

10.  Hidetsugu Yoshioka
I'm a relative newcomer to this artist.  I first discovered this art on the E-Hobby "Solar Requiem" comic that came with the Shattered Glass Soundwave VS Blaster set. His art, while it does bear a Derek Yaniger influence, is expressive and fluid. 

Picture from TFWiki

Since I'm not too familiar with everything Yoshioka has done, I'm eager to find more.  I know that he's been working on Transformers related things for Takara since the 80's, so I'm sure that there is more out there.  He doesn't have a deviantart page that I can find, so for now, if you'd like to read up more about him, check out his TFWiki profile here.

9.  Josh Burcham
I was first introduced to Josh Burcham on the old Dreamwave message board.  At the time, he was primarily a fan artist, but he eventually found his way to being employed by Dreamwave as a colorist.  As a matter of fact, most of his official work has been as a colorist.  He's colored for IDW and Fun Publications.  However, he did provide actual art for the latest Botcon comic "Termination".

Picture from www.tfw2005.com

As you can see, Burcham's art is a mixture of Skottie Young and Geoff Senior.  It's hyperkinetic, and stylized.  I really like it.  Burcham is someone that I wish would do more penciling duty from IDW, but so far that hasn't materialized.  You can check out his deviatart page here.

8.  Makoto Ono
Another great artist who hasn't done a lot of official work, his art is still amazing.  I first found out about him thanks to this picture:

It's an amazing piece of work.  It's what I imagine the G1 cartoon would look like if it was done in the comics.  This is the kind of fluidity and detail I wish the cartoon had.  Makoto Ono is just brilliant.  It's his lack of official work that keeps him from going up higher on the list.

As far as official work goes, Ono (also known as Makotron) has done work mainly for 3H and Fun Publications.  He did do some art for the Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye profile series that Dreamwave put out, but his style was sublimated a bit to conform to Pat Lee's house style.

Picture from tfwiki.net

On a personal note, Makoto Ono did the picture that I use of Optimal Omega as my avatar.  It was a great commission that he did for me almost a decade ago.  As it stands now, it's the only thing I've ever paid someone to do for me.  If you'd like to see more of his great art, and I suggest you do, check out his deviantart page here.

7. William Johnson
Some of you may be scratching your head over this one.  Maybe some of you don't know who he is.  Maybe this will jog your memory:

This was the first Transformers comic I read as a kid.  Back in the day, you could buy multipacks of comics at store like Hills or Roses.  The art in this issue had a lasting impression on me, especially as I was later exposed to the art of Jose Delbo for so long when I started buying comics on a regular basis.  Johnson only penciled two issues of this comic, issues #7 and #8, but they were beautiful to look at.

Picture from tfwiki.net

A lot of the early Marvel Transformers artist get dismissed, and rightfully so.  The artwork for the early issues seemed to be done by staff artists on the downturn of their careers.  But something about Johnson's work spoke to me.  It was lively and actually good!  Sure, there may have been an error here or there, but it looked much better than this:

Picture from tfwiki.net

I can't find any kind of page for William Johnson, but I did find a page where you can look at and maybe purchase his art.


6.  Alex Milne
If I had written this list 8 years ago, Alex Milne would not have been anywhere on this list.  He would have maybe been on my list of the worst Transformers artists of all time.  That just goes to show two things: 1) how pervasive and horrible the enforced Dreamwave house style was and 2) how much Milne has rid himself of this and become his own artist.

Dreamwave influenced puffy art.  Pic from tfwiki.net

Alex Milne is and will probably always be inexorably linked to Pat Lee and not just because of the house style that Lee enforced.  For those who aren't aware, not only does Lee owe Milne a few thousand dollars, he also owes him credit for the penciling all of those pages of the Cyberforce comic that Lee took credit and money for.

I was genuinely shocked and dismayed whenever IDW announced that Milne would be handling art chores for the Megatron Origin comic.  When I read it, the Lee puffiness was gone, but it still didn't look that great.  Imagine my surprise when he kept getting work from IDW for the live action comics (which in all fairness, I haven't read).  I think that his speed had one thing to do with it.

After not seeing his work for a few years after Megatron Origin, I was pleasantly surprised to open up issue #2 of The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye and, after reading and checking the credits, realizing that Milne had done the art.  The line work was much tighter, and it was pleasant to the eye.  I truly enjoy his art now so much that I'm disappointed when he doesn't pencil and issue of MTME.  His art has progressed to the point that Hasbro are basing figures from his designs, such as the upcoming Skids release in the Generations line.

Milne's real style

 If you'd like to see more of his work, check out The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye and his deviantart page.

5.  Geoff Senior

Here's the thing about reading the Transformers comics in the 1980's: you couldn't read it for the art.  Sure, William Johnson did two great issues, but that was about it.  That changed with issue #61, for in that issue, we were treated to Geoff Senior.  His art was stylized, blocky, powerful, and robotic.  In short, it was awesome.

I know it's not from issue #61, but it's still from tfwiki.net

If you lived in the UK, then you were already familiar with his art.  Senior had already done a fair amount of work on the Marvel UK Transformers comics, but I had never heard of him until issue #61.  Senior's art, coupled with Simon Furman's scripts, made the Transformers comics the first comic I read when I got my comics each month.  Unfortunately, Senior only did a handful of US issues before pursuing other things.  He did briefly return for some issues of the Generation 2 series.  He's also done some covers for the Regeneration One comic and provided a couple of pages of art for 0 issue.  How great is Geoff Senior?  When I think of Unicron, I picture this:

tfwiki.net

Yeah, that's the stuff.  Geoff Senior has a webpage here.

4.  E.J. Su

My introduction to E.J. Su came with the "-tion" comics from IDW, but he had done some Transformers work for Devil's Due for their G.I. Joe vs Transfomers comics.  When I read Infiltration, I was blown away by the art.  The robots were detailed, yet still a little cartoony and the humans looked like humans!  This had been a problem during the Dreamwave issues.  The humans all looked weird for some reason.  Su had done some redesigns on a lot of the characters in the arc and they looked fantastic.  It was certainly a breath of fresh air.

E.J. Su cover art

That's some great stuff, right there.  What really pushed Su up the charts was his work on the Revelation series.  He did all of the connecting covers and inked and colored them himself.  He also provided art for issues #1 and #4.  When he inks and colors his own work, it looks painted.  And this painted quality it fabulous.

I can see this on a canvas.  Click to see the full size.

Sadly, the end of the "-tion" series of comics, coupled with IDW's soft reboot, pretty much spelled the end of Su's work on the Transformers.  Around this time, Su's wife gave birth and he pretty much retired from freelance work to get a corporate gig as an industrial designer in his homeland of Taiwan.  He's popped up a couple of times providing some art or a cover, but I don't see him coming back full-time, which is sad.  I believe that he still updates his deviantart account, which you can check out here.

3.  Nick Roche

As sad as it was to see E.J. Su leave, it paved the way for another great artist to come aboard - Nick Roche.  Roche basically broke into comics by landing work on Spotlight: Shockwave.  His art is very stylized and on first glance, you know it's him.

There's no way that image above could have been drawn by anyone else.  Roche's art style is adaptable to any given script, which is a bonus.  His art has grown in leaps and bounds, as well.  Compare the Cyclonus image above with this one from Last Stand of the Wreckers:

Beefy

The characters all have their own distinct personalities that you can discern just from looking at how Roche drew them.  Just look at how solemn Perceptor is, how bulky and in charge Springer looks; it's just amazing how he's able to pull this off.

You know the other great thing about Roche?  He's a writer as well!  He has written some of the better received issues of the IDW comics.  Spotlight: Kup?  Spotlight: Megatron?  Last Stand of the Wreckers?  They were all written and drawn by Nick Roche.  The man's influence in this continuity is strong.  Because of this, he was approached by Hasbro to design Sandstorm, and in turn Springer for the Generations line, two of the most hotly anticipated and beloved figures released this year.

His output for IDW is surprisingly limited, but considering that he needed extra artists to finish Last Stand of the Wreckers and he only penciled the first issue of The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, I wonder if it's because of deadline issues?  Who knows.  I do know that he will be working for Marvel on their Death's Head II series, so I'll be picking that up for sure.

2.  Don Figueroa

The DON.  His influence has permeated the Transformers brand for a decade now.  Don't believe me?  Have any Titanium or Classics figures?  How about the new Generations Megatron?  Guess what?  They were designed by Don Figueroa.  Well, he didn't design all of the Classics figures, but he either outright designed or helped to design a big chunk of them.

Like everyone else, I was first introduced to Don Figueroa's work through his Macromasters online comic.  For those who haven't read it, you can check it out here.  Not only was the art top-notch, but Don even created custom figures from scratch based on these designs.  This lead him to Pat Lee's doorstep and he was eventually hired to pencil their The War Within miniseries.  This led him to being hired by Hasbro, and essentially becoming Dreamwave's go-to guy for Transformers, which suited everyone fine because then we didn't have to look at Pat Lee's work anymore.

Macromasters

After Dreamwave folded, Don worked for Devil's Due where he kept trying to get them to let him write a G.I. Joe/Transformers crossover.  For some reason, they kept balking at it.  Their loss, but I'd still like to see it published one day.  From there, he went to IDW and penciled quite a bit for them, including the Transformers: Ongoing series where we were introduced to this:

MY EYES!  tfwiki.net

Yes, Bay movie inspired designs.  Eww.  At any rate, Don tired of doing Transformers and took a break.  Now he's working on a project called Armarauders which looks fantastic.

Don's art has quite a few traits that never seem to change.  The eyes are wide, teeth are present, the characters all seem to be broad shouldered and look impossibly strong.  Don's Transformers are detailed, but not overly so.  The most telling characteristic?  The vents on the hands.

Vents

You can check out Don's deviantart page here.

1.  Andrew Wildman

And here we are, at number 1!  Why, you ask, did I pick Andrew Wildman as the greatest Transformers artist ever?  Simple: his work is super expressive.

Andrew Wildman has caught a lot of flak for his art in the past.  There are those who have thought that his Transformers aren't really robotic.  They looked cartoonish.  They had teeth!  None of that matters to me.  His art is what I think about when I think of the Transformers.  Wildman's ability capture emotion with giant robots helped to sell Simon Furman's scripts.  Sure they always seemed to be wet for some reason, but that's fine.  Even though I had no idea who Andrew Wildman was, or where he was from, his Transformers always looked British to me.  I can't really explain why, but when I was 13 years old, I took one look at his art and said "I guess the Transformers are from Britan."  I had never read a British comic in my entire life.

Seeing Megatron fused with Ratchet in issue 70 made me pee my pants a little.  That's the effect that Andrew Wildman had on me.  His ability to make Optimus Prime look sad and Kup so angry just floored me.  Notice how Prime has parts just falling off?  That's another thing that I love about Wildman's art - the little details.  These Transformers weren't always in tip-top condition; it looked like they were always in need of repair.

Optimus Prime, dry for once during Wildman's run

When Optimus Prime dies in issue #76, Wildman hit a homerun.

And he's wet again.

After the Marvel Transformers comics ended, Wildman worked on G.I. Joe, Spider-Man, and a few other things for Marvel.  He then kind of disappeared before reappearing providing art for The War Within: The Dark Ages for Dreamwave.  He's popped back up at IDW, first providing some alternate covers for the Infiltration and the Ongoing series.  Wildman jumped back into the interiors game with Regeneration One.  Sadly, he's since left that series, but I understand that he'll be returning to finish off the series.  Seeing his art on these newer issues, I can tell that he hasn't lost a step.

Well, there you have it.  All 10 of my favorite artists of all time.  Agree?  Disagree?  Let's talk about it in the comments section!

MP-17 Prowl

I don't know if any of you are aware of this, but a new Masterpiece figure has just been released.  His name?  Prowl.  I just got him, so I'd thought I'd do a nice little review of the figure.

Growing up, Prowl wasn't a very big deal to me.  He was a one of the Datsun Brothers - who I've always called the Twisty Brothers because they, you know, twist at the waist, but that's about it.  As far as I can tell, Prowl only did two things of note in The Transformers. The first is stand in formation while Prime yelled "Autobots, transform and roll out!"

Loyal soldier, wearer of wedges.  Pic from tfwiki.net

The second and most interesting thing that Prowl did?  He died.  Prowl died a fiery, senseless death.  And in the process he gave me my favorite hair metal song.

Tool of a power play?  tfwiki.net

Prowl didn't fare much better in the comics.  He was essentially a background guy (again), and then he died (again).  Looks like the comics took a page from the animated stuff.  Then a wonderful thing happened - Simon Furman came to Marvel U.S. and injected life into the brand.  What's more, he resurrected Prowl (Who had a new toy anyway) and gave him a personality!  Prowl was now a jerk!  He was the foil to Grimlock's hotheaded leadership.  He was glorious.

Thankfully, through each iteration of a Transformers comic, this personality has pretty much been kept.  He's calculating, analytical and doesn't have any kind of a sense of humor.  It's funny, it's as though Furman read his tech spec and all other writers agreed.  Kind of odd how that all worked out.

Prowl has received his fair share of Generation 1 figures, including an Action Master, Binaltech, Alternator, and a Classics figure.  Not bad for someone that the mainstream audience probably best remembers for dying from Scavenger's shot.  While the original Prowl figure is incredibly awesome, every other release thereafter has been something of a disappointment.  Action Master Prowl doesn't even have his distinctive door wings!  Classics Prowl's doors seem to fall off when you look at them and let's not even get into the head sculpt on that thing.  But now, now we have TakaraTomy's seventeenth entry in the Masterpiece line.

Man, that looks like it was ripped straight from the cartoon.  Look at those side mirrors!

Prowl is extremely faithful to the original release as well.  The only detail, other than size, that differs from the original is that Prowl is now a Nissan Fairlady 280Z instead of a Datsun Fairlady 280Z.  This change is courtesy of Nissan who eventually phased out the Datsun brand name.  That is unless you live in an underdeveloped country.  I have to say that this logo change has RUINED MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FOREVER!!!!!  Seriously, it doesn't matter to me.  This thing could've sported a Tesla logo and I'd still love it.  Prowl is just mesmerizing in this mode.

I love the little details that TakaraTomy has given Prowl.  The headlights aren't just holes where the shoulder posts are connected.  They actually put some frosted plastic in the holes to give him actual headlights.  The Highway Patrol Police deco remains on the doors, just as in the original iteration.  The wheels are plastic, just as the Lamborghini trio.  One little extra that didn't exist in either the original figure or the cartoon is this little feature:

"I said pull over!  Now!"

  Just as the Sideswipe mold had a feature where his rifle could be mounted on the roof, so does Prowl.  And just as I do with the Sideswipe mold, I don't think I'll ever put the gun on the roof again.  Once for the pictures is enough.  Here's MP-17 with my Takara Collection Prowl.
 

That's enough of the car mode, outstanding as it is.  Let's look at robot mode.

Will you just look at that?  The door wings are actually angled up!  Prowl's transformation is pretty close to a combination of the G1 and Classics figures.  Most importantly - there's actual waist twisting involved as part of his transformation scheme!  Overall, he's pretty faithful to his animation model, right down to the head sculpt.

Devastator's future head

Look at the crests!  I was kind of hoping for an Autobot insignia that was more to the right on his chest, but it still looks great.  Notice how Prowl doesn't have his shoulder cannons?  It wasn't until MP-17 was announced that I realized that Prowl never had the shoulder cannons in the cartoon!  As such, Prowl doesn't have them for this release.  Psyche.  The cannons store in the back just like the Classics version and can be deployed if you so choose.

 The cannons are based off of Bluestreak's cannons from the show and not from the toy.  If you're really into having chromed, missile tip cannons, you can always order the Amazon Japan exclusive version which comes with one cannon.  You can get another when you get their exclusive release of Streak later this month.  Hopefully a full set of two cannons will be available to order from BBTS or another online retailer.

One thing that was very important to me was Prowl's feet.  Maybe that's two important things.  At any rate, I was concerned that the rear wheels were going to fold under the feet or be obscured in some fashion.  Any pictures that I saw online never really showed if this was the case or not.  Thankfully, the wheels are there, where they should be.  I'm not sure why this was of such great concern to me, but I'm glad to have them there.

As you can see, Prowl is fairly poseable.  His feet are able to assume a few different angles to accommodate these poses and allow for stability. 


Prowl is a stunning figure.  His adherence to his animated model, blended with a transformation scheme that is reminiscent of his original and newer transformation schemes makes for a must have figure.  I find myself unable to wait out the next few weeks when MP-18, Bluestreak is released.  This is going to feel like an eternity.  To tide you over, why don't you check out these extra pictures below.

"Roll out!"

Scale reference

Autobot Cars

Everyone is in scale in this shot

Prowls on the prowl.  Zing!

Wheeljack's Brigade?

Thanks to my one post a week strategy, I have a month's worth of posts in the can.  They've been written for about a month.  Since I'm so far ahead, I've decided to up the ante a little bit try for two postings a week.  No, I haven't upped the rate of acquisitions, I've just decided to start writing a few articles based on some thoughts I've been having.  Some of these articles may be short, or they may be extremely long.  Here for your reading pleasure (displeasure?) is my first article.

Have you ever really taken a look at Brawn, Gears, and Huffer?

Yes, they're minibots.  Yes, they were imported from Takara's Microchange line, but so were Cliffjumper and Windcharger.  What makes these guys so special?  Let's take a closer look at Huffer over there.

Is that an "M" on the side of Huffer's cab?  I've always wondered what it meant.  As a kid, I just assumed that it meant that they were all-terrain vehicles.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  The "M" looks a lot like a mountain range, after all.  Seems legit, right?  Try telling that to kid I new named Bobby when I was eight.

"M" is for mountain and that's good enough for me

When I was eight, I was on a Tiger Cruise with my dad.  A Tiger Cruise is something the Navy does from time to time where kids or family members get to ride on a Navy ship with their parent.  On this cruise, I rode from Hawaii back to San Francisco.  All in all, it took seven days.  Seven days at sea with a bunch of other kids looking for ways to kill time.  Besides playing video games and eating ice cream, that is.  Luckily, I had brought a few Transformers with me, including Brawn.  This proved to be a good thing, as it led to an interesting discussion.

Not known for stimulating conversation

While playing with the other kids, Bobby picked up Brawn and commented on how Brawn was part of Wheeljack's Special Teams.  I literally had no idea what this kid was talking about, so I asked him.  Then, he blew my mind:

The "M" was now a "W"!  According to Bobby, the "W" signified their allegiance to Wheeljack!  I still argued with the kid.  There's no way that it was a "W", it had to be an "M" for "Mountain".  It turns out that I was the only person who thought that on the ship.  The other kids soon joined in and backed Bobby up on his assertions.  These guys all hung out with Wheeljack and together they were a special missions squad, they argued.  I was fighting a losing battle, so I just gave up.

To this day, I think about it and snicker.  The Transformers had only been out a year and I had already run across my first personal canon.  The Transformers are full of such things.  I'm sure now that I could argue that the "W" could signify that they are part of the Wreckers.  Still it's an interesting footnote in my history of collecting and being part of the fandom.

Thrilling 30 Bumblebee

Not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but Bumblebee is a tricky character for me nowadays.  Being a 36 year-old collector means that I grew up with a Bumblebee that was a Volkswagen Bug.  Sometimes he's a variation of a small, compact car, but Bumblebee was always a small car of some sort.  His personality has always been that he's affable and eager to prove his worth to the larger Autobots.  Good ol' 'Bee.

Fast forward to 2007 and Bumblebee is now a Camaro, the complete opposite of a small car and he's ready to fight at the drop of a hat.  Look, I'm not a G1 purist, but that isn't Bumblebee.  As such, I've pretty much refrained from purchasing any of the post-movie 'Bees unless they've been in the Generations line.  Then Hasbro went and put a Camaro Bumblebee in the Generations line.  Then again, it could be a Dodge Challenger.  I'm not a car guy.

I'll be honest, I would have skipped this figure if I hadn't decided to just order the entire wave from BigBadToystore.  It wound up being cheaper to order the entire wave than just ordering everybody separately minus Bumblebee.  As it it, I now have my first Camaro 'Bee.  This Bumblebee isn't the same character from the movies, rather he's from the IDW Transformers comic.  He was a Camaro for about an issue during the Police State storyline, if I remember correctly.  To be honest, I really don't remember, and I don't want to re-read all of those Mike Costa issues because I can't stand them.  Then he went back to his regular body, which suited me fine.

Taking my lack of interest in a Bumblebee that isn't a nice, small car into account, this was initially going to be a figure that I had, but wouldn't cover.  Or I was going to give him to my son.  Then I opened him up and fiddled with him a bit.  He's actually better than I had thought he could be.  The car mode is kind of sleek, for starters.

Transformation is extremely simple on this figure.  It almost has a G-1 simplicity in the transformation scheme.  Once you get him into robot mode, he looks like this.

If you're looking for a short, compact 'Bee, this is not the figure for you.  This Bumblebee, while the same size as the War for Cybertron Bumblebee, the Thrilling 30 version is leaner than bulkier War For Cybertron figure.

The twin blasters that are mounted to Bumblebee's car mode combine to form a larger gun in robot mode.  I actually kind of like the gun when it's combined.

One of the main drawbacks to this figure, to me, are the shoulder pads.  The shoulder pads make it difficult to do any kind of great poses.  Most of Bumblebee's poseability seems to be located in the arms and legs.

Dynamic?

Lack of posing options aside, I'm really digging the head sculpt.  It's perhaps the best sculpt of Bumblebee I've ever seen.

I just dig that head sculpt.  It's pretty much the main reason why I like this figure.  Now I'm left wondering if Hasbro is going to release Cliffjumper as a redeco of this figure.  Cliffjumper gets no love nowadays.  It's all about Bumblebee.