Hullo~

When it comes to drawing canon characters, it’s just a lot of references. A LOT of them xD The amount of IDW Megatron and Ravage refs I had for my small comic was staggering but very useful.

I also keep in mind that, while the bots are fairly humanoid in appearance and build, their anatomy is “broken”. Usually, when you draw a fleshy humanoid character, be it a human or a furry, you have baselines and shapes that are generally the same for most characters, like where the shoulders and clavicle are. The proportions of the body parts are also pretty normal.

When it comes to bots (outside of the Transformers Animated series), those baselines and shapes are somewhat different, especially when the bot has an alt mode with various (clunky) parts like wheels. Shoulder joints are suddenly further away from what we are used to with humans. There is no clavicle. The shoulder and hip joints barely align. Chests can be absolutely massive while the head is tiny. Arms can be so long, their hands go past their knees.

So you have to throw some logic out of the window there to add all those boxy shapes or vehicle parts.

And heck, sometimes a bot design, or at least parts of it, doesn’t make much sense either when you compare it to their alt mode, and that is okay! You have to take liberties sometimes. And never forget….

That said, I’ve drawn a lot of bots in the past. It was nearly two decades ago but they were my bread and butter, so to speak. I have some experience with them, so please don’t think I worked a miracle with my latest round of TF art x’D They are still as tough as nails to draw (even more so to render, IMO!) but they don’t need to be perfect. Heck, I am still adjusting Starflare’s design and that’s okay.

So take your time, find your preferred style and method by trying things out, and go with what looks good to yourself.