CHARACTERS

TARANTULAS (ROBOT MODE)

3D MODELING

I am still buzzing with excitement that I got to work on this. I got into 3D animation because of a little cartoon from 1996 called "Beast Wars" that I am still obsessed with to this day. To get to work on the only main cast Beast Wars character appearing in Earthspark this season meant everything. So fellow nerds, rest assured, we put every effort into making this thing awesome and true for the Beast Wars fans.

For most transformer characters, usually we work together with a fellow modeler, one for each mode. Team Tarantulas was Crystal Rhodes and myself. Crystal modeled the Spider Alt-mode (Beast Mode) and I modeled the Robot mode (which also used Chrystal's Spider legs). Crystal also did the texture for the whole character. Highlighted below is my modeling contribution to this character. Not a standard character so everything was built from scratch. Sometimes the designer will leave some room for us to improvise. The mouth under the pedipalps was one of those blank canvas areas that I got to make some decisions about. If anyone had the old Transmetal Tarantulas toy, you might recognize that grill.

I love that the design combined Nick Roche’s Monstrous, Sins of the Wreckers design with the Transmetal Tarantulas from my childhood. It was so exciting to see. It had a very gruesome organic feel that I really wanted to make sure I captured in the shape. Really exciting to get to bring that amazing design to 3D.

By far my favorite model I've ever gotten to work on for a TV series

 G1 BUMBLEBEE

3D MODELING (ROBOT MODE) /TEXTURE

Just a guest appearance for a couple of flashback sequences, but man was this cool.

So for this character I modeled the robot mode while fellow modeler Daniel Rieger, modeled the vehicle Alt-mode. Highlighted below are the parts of the character that I modeled from scratch. The wheels, license plate, and trunk handle come from the Alt mode car by Daniel Rieger. The face, hands, hip and shoulder joints come from the original Bumblebee by Peter Chen.

I also got to texture both the Bot and Alt-mode for G1 Bumblebee.

THE DWELLER

3D MODELING

The Dweller. The massive Transformer-eating Carrot-bot. What a great design. This was such a fun model.

It's been a very long time since I watched G1 season 3, so I didn't even remember it was a creature from the old cartoon. Very cool that the writers and designers were pulling from that deep in the franchise. I was just picturing more of the mole drones from Beast Machines when I was building this thing. I like Beast Machines way better anyway. Beast Machines rules, don't even start.

Modeling by me. Texture by Barbara Lopez. Eye Shader by Zoya Matheos-Fairey.

SHARKTICONS

3D MODELING

Street-Sharkticons? Jawesome! The final bot character models for me on Earthspark. But it was a pretty big deal. Getting to build the whole species of Sharkticons... well, at least Blitzwave and Razorfin. Perhaps they'll serve as the base for other future Sharkticons.

So my job on this character was the modeling. This one was neat because it's one of the few bots made completely from scratch and the only bot that actually transformed into the Alt-mode in the same model. Granted, their Alt-modes are just them standing up, but there was a lot that went into the mechanics of the "transformation", the head rotation, and the weaponry. I'm really happy with how these turned out, still goofy classic Sharkticons but also way more terrifying and ominous with the blank bulging eyes and permanent toothy smile. Working on how the mouth would function was a huge part of getting this character to work. I love that mechanical thinking stuff. It was great because the design left some room for improvising with the inside of the mouth. We knew that he needed to shoot missiles and have a portal in his mouth, so I wanted to add this very James Bond looking turret. very happy that made it in. Obviously the base of the mouth is built on a sphere, but I also had to work out a paneling system so it could close and open all the ways they had asked for in the design.

Modeling by me. Texture by Roozbeh Edjbari.