WinkWonk and the Cling Clongs - A TF Thread

It's a really nice wiki! I sometimes go there just to read about things I mostly already know, just because it's such a pleasant way to be sure there aren't holes in my knowledge. And sometimes characters get minor naming tweaks between (or within) canons, and this silly cast is so huge that the wiki is PRICELESS for sorting it all out.

The secret is that the shoulder are ALWAYS wider than you think they are -_- But it is good practice! I've gotten much better at it since I got started.

Sadly, I haven't seen much Lockdown content at all :C Which is a shame, because he's ridiculous and fantastic, but most of what I've seen with him is either by Herzspalter, or drawn by Larrydraws for Herzspalter. Of course, I haven't had the energy to go actually digging into the depths of the fandom to see what's out there, but not much has popped up in my circle of tumblr.

The chin thingies pop up here and there! Some artists draw pretty much everyone with at least the outline of a chin thing (on a normal chin shape), which ends up working pretty well. But... yeah, those teeth. Those sure are some teeth. There is one artist on mtmte who I think goes too far the other way sometimes, and doesn't show teeth when they maybe should (the artist who drew Rodimus shaking his booty in the thigh discussion), but I infinitely prefer that to this. There was one artist, and I think they only did spotlight: trailcutter, who detailed the teeth differently, which... wasn't bad, but it sure was different.



And I think individual artists get a decent amount of leeway, because like, here's Bumblebee, who is a main character and a pretty classic design, so you'd think that if they were trying to keep anyone consistent, it would be this dude. But... not so much (sorry for the resolution)



I think things are definitely more consistent now, but MAN was it annoying when someone made a cool-looking change and somebody came along behind them and made it less-cool again.

I do like misery, but this definitely went into frustrating land for me :P But I'm torn, because even in the frustrating parts, they set up a L O T of future character stuff that mostly doesn't pay off until phase two. There's things happening with the Constructicons and Prowl especially that are important later, and Rodimus and Bumblebee get to do important things for their personal character arcs. And Thundercracker too. As of, uh... last month (in Till All Are One), I've finally learned to love the Combaticons (Swindle is one of them, in the continuities with larger casts), so I need to backtrack and reread what Swindle and his buddies were all doing on earth, see how it relates to future events.

Also....... just check out these dorks

To give very, very, very slight credit to that artist, this is what Arcee looked like in the original cartoon.



On the other hand, that's no excuse for the weird boob cutlet armor, and even the low-budget eighties cartoon is considerably more aesthetically appealing than this 2000s comic book for a major, major franchise. I'm SO glad better artists came along and did her design right.

And energon is generally pink, but I think they just needed some good contrast for that cover. Somebody in the main tf thread once brought up the point that in tfp, arcee is blue, but energon is also blue there, so in pretty much every canon, arcee is blood-colored. I approve.

Isn't it the worst???????? HE LOOKS SO SWEET, I HATE IT. And like, that picture of Optimus he has there, I wouldn't object to having that on my wall! It could be less textured, sure, but it looks big and epic. He can do some cool stuff, but I think he struggles when it comes to visually interesting storytelling.

There aren't terribly strict rules, but just little things like having a shape to your bouquet and using your biggest, prettiest flowers to draw attention to the focal points, or having the colors of the flowers tie together. I accidentally did decently with the color thing, except that the red carnations don't tie to anything else :P I could have fixed it if I'd done carnations that only shaded to red on the edges of their petals, which are actually my favorite kind of carnations and I used them soooo many times in that class. But... I wanted red carnations. The meaning was for the red ones :C I'll do better on grouping next time now that I know what I'm doing! It's going to be fun. I already have a whirl picture and 1-2 starscream pictures all planned out, I just need references and time!

ACTUALLY OKAY IT'S FUNNY YOU SAY THAT because okay, I have a delightful assortment of plant allergies and also a cat allergy and also asthma. None of my allergies especially trigger the sneezing thing, but by god do I get wheezy. My friend and I once jokingly talked through allergy-induced breathplay, which kind of sounds hilarious (especially if someone is being cruel to me by forcing, forcing me to pet a cat! oh nooooo how will I ever take it?), but also the breathing thing would make physical exertion tricky, and it would last a long time past the scene, which would be annoying :P I have mixed feelings about breathplay, because on the one hand, mmmmmmmm, suffocation, but on the other hand, wait, I know what it feels like to suffocate and not be able to do anything to fix the situation, do I actually want to deal with this?

Tying hands to wings is definitely something that's come up!! I'd have to see about what to do, because Starscream has wings that look like they'd be tricky, but Whirl has some sticky-out bits that look like they might work really well. I've also cheated by, okay. So I read this one fic where a guy had rings all around his valve (including one right through his clit), and at the beginning of the fic, he's basically trapped in a chastity device that goes through these rings. I went off on like a five-fic piercing binge (I still have more ideas I want to write) and one of them, I had Starscream with quiet little studs up and down his thighs. And when he went to play, his partner swapped out the studs for rings and corset laced his legs together. I had SO MUCH FUN with that one. And I wrote another fic where a character deliberately asks to be put in a triggery situation, panics mid-scene, and tries to transform and run. But his hands were cuffed together and he wrenched something loose in his shoulder instead, and his dom was able to defuse the scene in a healthier way.

Have you ever heard of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines? Because there's a character in there who designs prosthetics and



#life goals

In this case, Fort Max not having arms is going to be part of the punchline, so my laziness is totally justified and it wasn't even laziness at all, just really awesome forward planning skills >_> But I'm feeling surprisingly good about this comic. I'm either going to work on that tonight, or get the start on another flower bondage picture. Or now that I've said that, I will probably do neither of these things, because my brain is not a team player!! But I will be doing something fun tonight, because it's my first overtime-free week in like a month and a half.

 

One! One panel! Ah ah ah

 

Oh, thank you!! I did have problems with them blending into his frame, until I scribbled on the darker edges, so that was a lucky saving throw on my part :P I like the average color scheme I had, I just wish I'd had a flower with red and either white or yellow to tie the flowers together a little more closely. But that's an easy thing to fix next time! I dove into this with pretty much zero planning, and it came out better than I expected, so I'm all fired to to keep playing with the idea more :D

 

OKAY WOW NEVER MIND, apparently posting that one panel was entirely unnecessary, because somehow I found the focus skills that have been missing in action for the last few months? Comic is comicked, and I couldn't be more pleased with myself.

Spoiler: robogore, also large images

 

OH MAN, YES. Her swinlock and bumbleblitz art was pretty much THE thing that persuaded me to give TFA a try, and those are still my two favorite ships for the series! One of my favorite favorite favorite things is when you've got two assholes making out with each other and being jerks and sometimes accidentally being emotionally intimate with each other. SO good. Bumblebee and Blitzwing scratch my immature asshole itch, and then Swindle and Lockdown are more cool and effective, and just. SO GOOD.

I can definitely see it!! I really like the art in that spotlight a lot, but that's the only thing I'm aware of that this artist has drawn :C I'm hoping that maybe they'll at least do some spotlights or something in the future, but I haven't seen any more of their work, which is a shame. Actually, now that I think of it, the spotlight: hoist issue (it's paired with spotlight: trailcutter, and they take place at literally the same time) also had an interesting artist who I don't think has done anything else for the series. Huh. I wonder how that worked out. (I will say that this artist doesn't draw Sunstreaker NEARLY as handsome as he deserves to be, but that's okay, I can deal with it)

I definitely agree!! And I think he's got a tricky design to work with, though I can't pin down why. Of the main characters in the original eighties series, he's got pretty much my least favorite design. He's just so... blocky. I'm not opposed to blocky, but he just... ehhhhhhhhhhhhh........ I don't think there's anything about his original design that I actually like, period :P So at least most things are something of an improvement, I guess, but adding racing stripes is my favorite way to jazz up his color scheme.



I will say there's one part in IDW phase two where he's got a ton of blue added to his color scheme, and it's one heck of a mindscrew trying to remember that ohhh right this is bumblebee.

Ahhh, I found a thing! I'd been trying to track this down before, without luck, but this was one of the first pieces of arcee art I found where it was like yesssssssssssssss. I love love love her so much.

Oh my gosh, it worked out SO COOL. It was such a unique set of restrictions on what Starscream could actually do, and it honestly made him even more helpless than I was expecting? He was dependent on Wheeljack for almost every little way, because it's actually really hard to move keeping your legs perfectly together, and I wrote the piercings as relatively tender and delicate :3c I had a good amount of Starscream freaking out over how vulnerable he was (because IDW Starscream has been abused in a pretty major way and has some Issues) and trying to figure out if he could get away with transforming and flying away, and how bad the piercings would tear up his legs if he did that, and it was so much fun. And I wrote Wheeljack being as gentle and careful as he could possibly manage, and I loved working on that fic so much. I actually kind of wonder if maybe I could get away with returning to the idea sometime. I wrote lllllike 3k before, and rehashing that longer from scratch doesn't sound so fun, but maybe if I played the dynamic a little more established and relaxed. Half the fun of writing Starscream is writing all the tension and anxiety, but this might still be a fun thing to do if my life ever settles out again!

(also in that other fic where the guy tried to transform and run, he's got built-in weaponry, and part of the story was him fighting the rising panic and warning his dom about the ways he's still able to hurt him, and that was one of my earliest transformers fics and I could have drawn it out better, but I still love the whole concept of that one so much, goddamn)

Ahhh, thank you!!!! :DDDD That silly comic was so fun, and I've never had so much fun with Overlord before! It's so funny, because I want to write the heck out of him being canon-compliant levels of terrifying and dangerous, and all I want to do is draw him being, well... this. I did make a brieffff effort to try redrawing him in the pirate captain kate beaton comic with the necklace as a follow-up to this, or the jules verne/edgar allan poe but it was like two in the morning and I couldn't get my style sketchy enough and I gave up because thbbpppttt I already have six panels of comic. But! These two comics are in my Overlord/Fortress Maximus redraw plans for the future

 

OH, I FORGOT, one fic thing I really, really badly want to write for Overlord, that I think you'll appreciate: Basically, Overlord/Trepan (the lobotomy dude), where Overlord is like 'teach me mnemosurgery or else' and Trepan's like 'fuck u, there's like a 99% chance you're going to kill me no matter what I do, so let's just go balls to the wall here.' And he's like 'the only way to really teach you is to SHOW you. Let me in your brain.' And Overlord is like 'fuq da police, let's do it, but if I feel you messing around with anything important, I will literally rip your head off.'

SO, Trepan's got his needles through Overlord's eyes (for easy brain access) and is like 'lol I'm going to fuck around with his arousal centers and maybe it'll make him uncomfortable enough to make him let me go.' But nope, Overlord is equal parts amused and totally super into it. The writing will be considerably better than that, but it's an excuse to get Overlord on his knees, Trepan only barely taller than him while he's standing up, Trepan's needles through his eyes, turning him on from the inside of his brain, Overlord having fun toying with Trepan's bits in the old-fashioned way, probably Trepan stepping on Overlord's dick at some point, neither of them able to move very freely because of the needles in Overlord's eyes, and two awful people doing awfully sexy things to each other. It's going to be a tricky one to write, and I've had the idea forever and haven't done anything with it, which is frustrating. But! It's right near the top of my writing queue.

 

OH ALSO, as a homestuck+overlord fan, you are a human in a position to appreciate this beautiful picture I made. I don't know why I even bother drawing anymore when honestly, I've already reached the pinnacle of artistic achievement

 

I hope your time in the hospital isn't too hard on you, and I'm glad I could help!! I definitely look forward to seeing what you think about this series :D It's probably good that you've had the chance to watch a couple animated series, so you'll have a little idea about who some of the main cast members are, haha. The characters in the sweet bro and hella jeff mashup are overlord and fortress maximus again (sweet max and hella overlord?), and even though those panels are from last stand of the wreckers, both of those characters get a good amount of screen time in the books you have, so you'll get some context for them!

Oh, also! As a reader I tend to sprint through things and miss all sorts of details, but this is honestly the best-written comic series I've ever seen and has unbelievable reread value. The writing is tight as anything, and the art tends to have lots of amazing background details, especially when Alex Milne is drawing (he doesn't do the first issue, but he does the second and lots of the others). When I went back to double check when he came into the series, even now I noticed a couple artistic touches that I'd never spotted before.

Good luck with your hospital stay!! And if you're busy, no need to stress yourself about answering the other things I posted, I'm sure you've got plenty to take care of before you head off. I hope things go well for you!!

 

Oh, and one last thing! Both of the trade paperbacks you have should have a cast page in the back of the book, which might help keeping track of everyone as you read, since they introduce a lot of people very fast. I think it's one page of headshots in the first book, two pages in the second. I only learned that about an hour ago, which tells you something about how little love I've been able to give my irl books lately, hahaha

 

SO! In my other robot-related adventures, I came across a panel that I'd read many times, but somehow never processed, of what is a flying hammerhead shark robot (presumably), and I mean, what ELSE was I supposed to do but share it here?



And once I got this, I remembered that OH HEY, there is totally a shark robot who is also an actual character. He shows up in several continuities (even TFA, though only in a season four script that was never animated and read aloud at a convention), and has a speaking role in the IDW comics, mainly in the exRiD line. His name is Sky-Byte (yes really) and he turns into a flying shark and writes poetry and sometimes reads poetry at bars with musical accompaniment from Jazz and sometimes he even sings karaoke duets with Waspinator at parties







Best robot, or best robot

 

Triple posting from the fiber arts and main tf threads, so apologies to anyone else who is tracking all of these conversations. But! Remember that cross-stitch Starscream wip I showed you a while back? Guess who's finished :3c



There are 75 colors in this thing, because I'm a sucker for pain :V But it also means that this is the PRETTIEST, subtlest rainbow when you see it irl, and I love it so, so much. Now I just have to keep on covering my apartment walls with all of my most problematic faves. I've got Whirl (x2), Tarn, and Megatron already, plus plans for Prowl and Overlord, so I'm doing pretty well!