Bot a Day: Daily Drawings

Finishing off July with Buzzclaw, a Predacon Fuzor whose beast mode is a bizarre praying mantis / lizard hybrid. His bio lists him as the Predacon saboteur and quick-attack specialist. His toy's paint job and plastic texture gives him the appearance of a bunch of bell peppers. He was available in 1998. 

As much as my own design preference favors the blocky look of Generation One toys, there are some designs from Beast Wars that are just so bonkers that they're a delight to draw. Case in point: Injector. A Predacon Fuzor, he is an ungodly chimera of lionfish and hornet. His robot mode involves wearing a lionfish as a head, with his robot face extruding from the lionfish's mouth. Just wild. Injector had a late name change such that the TV commercial for his toy called him by an earlier name, Aquasting. He was available in 1998.

The next Predacon is a gruesome reptilian warrior named Sky Shadow, a camouflage expert, according to his bio. As a Predacon Fuzor, his beast mode is a nasty hybrid -- a dragonfly with the head of an iguana. He was available in 1998. 

The next Fuzor in the Predacon ranks from 1998 is Terragator, a swamp warrior. As a Fuzor, he turns into a hybrid alligator and snapping turtle, with an armored shell that makes him look a bit like a dinosaur. The shell becomes a shield in robot mode, while his gator tail becomes a rifle. 

Beginning a run of Predacon Fuzors, their main gimmick being that their beast mode is a ghastly chimera of two unrelated animals. Quickstrike turns into a hybrid scorpion and cobra -- basically a scorpion whose tail has been replaced with a hooded cobra head. The toy cobra head has a water bladder for simulated venom-squirting. Quickstrike appeared in the animated Beast Wars series with a triggerhappy cowboy persona. 

The mighty Megatron underwent the Transmetal upgrade in 1998, turning his organic Tyrannosaurus Rex shell into a mechanical one worthy of tussling with the Dinobots of old. As with the other Transmetal toys, Megatron has a third "vehicular" mode, but in this case it involved the T-Rex popping out roller blades for feet and turbine engines from his hips.   

The Predacon ninja warrior and mad scientist Tarantulas gets a Transmetal upgrade in 1998, with a much more menacing form. In addition to his robot and mechanical spider mode, he also pops out wheels to become a high-speed spider vehicle.  

The ever put-upon buzzing Predacon Waspinator has survived long enough to get upgraded into a new Transmetal form in 1998. This incarnation has chromed parts and three modes: robot, a mechanical wasp, and a fighter jet. 

Another of the original Predacons upgraded to a Transmetal toy, Terrorsaur still turns into a pteranodon, but now a mechanical one. It also turns into a third vehicular mode, a VTOL attack jet. Never quite realized until drawing this how much the live action aesthetic matches the Beast Wars aesthetic. This toy was available in 1998.   

Spittor is back in 1998. The Predacon is branded as a Transmetal toy, but he doesn't quite live up to that promise, what without the chromed pieces or vehicular mode. Instead, he's a redeco of his non-Transmetal form, except his poison dart coloring has more of a tech look than naturalistic splotches. This version of the character was released only in Europe and packed with a VHS videocasseette of an animated Beast Wars adventure, much like a similar repaint of Claw Jaw was made available.  

Scavenger is another Generation One-era name repurposed for a different character in the Beast Wars era. In this case, Scavenger is a Predacon infantry commander. A spindly Transmetal robot, he turns into a mechanical ant. He also has a vehicular mode that resembles a twin-drilled boring machine. Scavenger was available in 1998.   

A massive toy that helped fill out the Predacon ranks, this mighty warlord named Rampage turns into a mechanical crab, and is part of the chromed Transmetal line. Rampage's articulation in both robot and crab mode is impressive, with many poseable limbs making him appear suitably creepy and aggressive. As is standard in the Transmetal line, he also has a vehicular mode, a really alien looking tank. He was available in 1998.   

This incarnation of Blackarachnia, which even with a heavy embellishment in the illustration to make her more presentable, hardly does the character justice. But, those are the limitations of Happy Meal toys. She turns into what is ostensibly a spider, but looks more like a mechanical mite. Branded Transmetal, her finish is mechanical rather than organic, but she doesn't have the chromed parts the rest of the line does. She was available through a McDonald's promotion in 1998.   

Flipping over to the Predacon side of 1998, we'll start with the Transmetal toys included in McDonald's Happy Meals. By necessity, these low-priced toys have very simple designs and transformations, and do not have the vacuum-metalized finishes of the higher price-point toys. Here is Skorponok, who turns into a scorpion.  

A truly massive incarnation of the Maximal leader, this Transmetal version of Optimus Primal is fittingly named Optimal Optimus. Packed with play features and electronics, this toy has four distinct modes: robot, mechanical ape, starship, and high tech armored dragster. The massive shoulders in robot mode become the elongated ape arms, the steering forks in car mode, and the scramjet boosters in jet mode. Optimal Optimus was available in 1998.

Unique to the Japanese incarnation of Beast Wars is the character of Lio Convoy. In Japan, Optimus Prime was known as Convoy, inheriting a name from his pre-Transformers incarnation as a Diaclone truck toy with that name. This very Optimus Prime-looking Maximal continues that tradition, even though the truck based "Convoy" name has no application. In the Beast Wars II animated series which only aired in Japan, Lio Convoy was hand selected by Optimus Primal to lead the Maximals in his stead. Fittingly heroic, Lio Convoy turns into a white lion with a golden mane. He was available in Japan in 1998.  

Another exclusive from Japan's 1998 Beast Wars line is Moon, a very cartoony looking robot that turns into a very cartoony looking robotic bunny rabbit. His toy featured a viewer gimmick in his chest that showcased imagery of fellow Beast Wars characters. 

The last of the Maximal Egg Beasts is Eggleo, who turns from a translucent yellow mechanical lion into an orb/keychain. He was available in 1998 in Japan.

Continuing a run of Egg Beasts from Japan comes the Maximal Eggbird, who turns into a mechanical orb that serves a keychain. Eggbird was available in Japan in 1998.

An odd addition to the Japanese Beast Wars line were a subset of transforming spheroid keychains cast in translucent plastic, that were dubbed the "Egg Beasts," though they weren't all that egg-shaped and not all of them were beasts. Eggbot turns into a translucent blue humanoid Maximal. The design dates back to pre-Transformers Takara Micro Change toys, where the sphere was meant to be a meteor mode. Eggbot was available in Japan in 1998.

An impressive playset exclusive to the Japan release of Beast Wars, the Tako Tank is a large mechanical octopus with a split-apart head with weapons systems and pilot station. Its tentacular limbs could be puppetted, and the tank featured a separate motorcycle. The pack-in pilot figure is Ikard, yet another repurposing of the Claw Jaw design that also gave us Transmetal Claw Jaw and Scuba . This playset was available in Japan in 1998.

Continuing the 1998 Japanese Beast Wars II repaints, we have Tasmania Kid, who unlike other redecos, is virtually identical to the US version of the toy, Snarl . He turns into a Tasmanian Devil of questionable zoological accuracy. Next to him is Diver, a Maximal incarnation of the Predacon poison dart frog, Spittor . Diver was available as part of Niagara Base playset, a molded tropical mountaintop with weapon accessories and a large plastic play mat. 

More redecos from the Japanese incarnation of Beast Wars, though in this case these are Maximals in both their domestic and international releases. Bighorn is a redeco of Bonecrusher , and transforms into a bison. Scuba is another redeco of Claw Jaw , though the differences are minimal, and turns into a squid. Both were available separately in Japan in 1998.  

Today's drawing adds a couple more Insectrons to the Maximal team, and like yesterday's update these were original Predacon designs. Here is Scissor Boy, who turns into an earwig (originally released in the US as Power Pinch ) and Powerhug, who turns into a pill bug (released domestically as Retrax ). These were released in Japan in 1998.   

In the US Beast Wars line, there was at first a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys. Good guys were mammals, while the often scary looking reptiles and insects were bad guys. In Japan, however, the toys seemed to favor giving kids as many good guys as possible, and that meant recasting some villains as heroes - or, at the very least as good guy oddballs. Enter the Insectrons, a subset of six insectoid Transformers that started off as Predacons in the US line but were available as Maximals in Japan. In this group drawing, you'll see their leader Bigmos (a mosquito, using Transquito's design ), Tonbot (a dragonfly, using Jetstorm's design ) and Mantis (a mantis, using Manterror's design ). They were available separately and grouped here merely to cut down on individual postings of redeco'ed characters. Yesterday's Drill Nuts was also part of the Insectron team. They were available in Japan in 1998.

Two more redecos from Japan's Beast Wars toys. The Predacon previously released as Drill Bit has been given a different paint scheme and been made a Maximal with name Drill Nuts. He turns into a boll weevil. The mandrill released in the US as B'Boom has had some slight recoloring to become Apache in Japan. Both of these were available separately in 1998.

The Japanese redecos of Santan, Skywarp and Lio Junior  and the Jointrons ( DJ, Gimlet and Motor Arm ) mean their combined forms are also redecos. So here is Magnaboss II on the left, which is only a subtle repaint of the original Magnaboss . Tripledacus is a greater departure from the original Tripedacus  in that, 1) it has a different name, 2) very different colors and 3) is a Maximal and not a Predacon. These were available separately in Japan in 1998. 

More 1998 Japanese repaints -- this time, this trio came boxed together as the Jointrons, a Maximal sub team. Included was DJ the cicada (based on Cicadacon ), Motor Arm the stag beetle (based on Ram Horn ) and Gimlet the lobster (based on Sea Clamp ). There's no indication of this on the toys, but in the Japanese only Beast Wars II animated series, these guys were depicted as a wildly offensive Mexican mariachi band for unfathomable reasons. Transformers, man. It gets weird. 

There are so many Japanese-only releases of Beast Wars figures that are basically redecos of the US toys that I have to make a choice here on the daily bot front. Do I draw all the repaints, even if the differences are minimal? Where do I draw the line? I haven't fully decided yet, but a good rule of thumb for now is if the redecos are supposed to be different characters, then it's worth doing another drawing. But I may combine some characters so I'm not spending too much time illustrating a difference that ends up being invisible in grayscale art anyway. That's a long way of saying, here are Lio Junior (a lion), Santon (an elephant) and Skywarp (a hawk); which you'll recognize as previously appearing here as Prowl , Ironhide and Silverbolt . These Japanese incarnations from 1998 were intended to be different characters than their US counterparts, though they look very much the same.   

From Japan's Botcon in 1998 comes this convention exclusive, a redeco of Polar Claw but as a new Maximal character named Grizzly-1. As his name implies, he's no longer a white polar bear, but rather a brown grizzly. A mix up in labeling caused his nickname, Barbearian, to be mistaken for his true name. He's got a little bat companion named Nightshriek. Only 600 units of Grizzly-1 were made for the show.   

Torca is the next Fuzor in the spotlight, another vicious looking 'bot that turns into an ungodly mix of orca and tusked elephant. His bio lists him as infantry general, and describes him as a well-respected and wise commander. He was available at retail in 1998.