Bot a Day: Daily Drawings

Finishing off the month of January with the scariest techno-organic flying squirrel this side of Cybertron, Dark Scream. In Japan, he was released as Guildo, but renamed Dark Scream for his American release as part of Robots in Disguise Predacons . His design is a reuse of Nightglider , a 1999 Beast Wars Transmetal 2 toy. 

Beginning a run of Predacon enemies -- Robots in Disguise had the distinction of two bad guy factions, the Decepticons and the Predacons, with the latter having animalistic alt-modes. Bruticus is a gnarly looking monstrosity of a robot with three faces, that turns into a three-headed hound, like the mythological Cerberus. In fact, Bruticus was intended to be part of the Beast Machines line and named Cerberus, but that line ended before he could be produced.

Doing a bit of a shortcut today simply because I didn't want to use up three days doing a multi-part character design I've drawn twice before. The Fortress Maximus design from Generation One (1987) was redeco'ed for the Car Robots Japanese line to become Brave Maximus in 2000 (the design had been redeco'ed before as a Japanese exclusive, 1988's Grand Maximus ).  This version has the same multi-tiered Headmaster gimmick where a small human-sized figure (Spike, or Grand) turns into the head of a mid-sized figure (Cerebros) and then becomes the head of Maximus. In this incarnation, the smallest figure is Cerebros (but also known as Plasma), who becomes the head of a nameless robot known as the Emissary (though sometimes known as Brave), who then becomes the head of Brave Maximus. It's a bit confusing. Adding to the confusion is that the Brave Maximus toy never made it into the Robots in Disguise line because it failed updated safety standards for a North American...

Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime were built to be combiners, and this is the end result: Omega Prime. In Japan, the math goes Super Fire Convoy + God Magnus = God Fire Convoy. Adding a bit of drama to the mix is that in this storyline, Ultra Magnus kinda hates Prime and covets his power. 

This incarnation of Optimus Prime turns into a fire truck, a first for the Autobot leader but certainly not the last time for the heroic figure. Prime's cab turns into a basic robot (Fire Convoy, in Japan) which can combine with the trailer to form a larger sized robot (Super Fire Convoy). I drew the smaller bot as a sign-off to the last year of daily drawings, 2021, here.  

The Robots in Disguise incarnation of Ultra Magnus is not so much the stoic warrior and loyal follower of Optimus Prime portrayed by Robert Stack in Transformers: The Movie. This version is Optimus Prime's petulant brother who never quite got over living in his sibling's shadow. Like the earlier version of this character, Ultra Magnus turns into a huge car carrier truck. In Japan, he was named God Magnus when released there in 2000. He was available in the 2001 launch of Robots in Disguise. 

The JRX Store called -- they're running out of bullet trains. JRX was the Japanese name for this combined form of Team Bullet Train. In North America, he was known as Rail Racer. The three members of team (Midnight Express, Rapid Run and Railspike) could link up in train modes (though they're all engines), or connect as a larger 'bot. This helps explain while Midnight Express had such large legs; they're scaled to work as a third of a larger robot.