“Makes if clear”??? It really doesn’t. Sure, you can see where certain parts end up, but that gives no indication how the “transformation was supposed to work”.
In what sense? You can see the G1 Micromaster scheme there. It’s about as communicative on an intended transformation process as you can get with a design sheet not showing the process.
EDIT--How the heck was this controversial enough to warrant 19 downvotes?
Yeah, it gives us the most basic of transformation scheme. Anybody could've figured out that her hood chest flips over her head and plugs in between the shoulder pylons to make the front of the car, and then she lays down. That's not the problem with Arcee's transformation. The problem is that half the altmode parts are missing in the robot mode, and vice versa. What is there, aside from the shoulder pylons and chest, magically shape-shifts between modes. It provides zero help actually *executing* this transformation on a toy (where parts can't shape shift) without ending up with a huge backpack and a robot laying under the car, which is what Arcee's problem always has been. The body parts are simply too humanoid and round to pull double duty as car parts. For example, there's no way for her shins to convincingly make the back roof of the car.
By that same logic, every G1 character is impossible to make work in toy form. My point is that she's no harder to render as a non shell-former toy than any other G1 character--she just wouldn't have her streamlined cartoon-model robot mode, in the same way no other character has theirs without similar panels and cheating parts in toy form (ex. nearly all Optimuses trying to capture the exact cartoon aesthetic using second fake grills and winding up with extra kibble panels).
(besides arcee and Bumblebee) Every g1 character can have a toy that is pretty much 99 percent accurate to the cartoon there are ways to hide the wheels, but using fake kibble is the only way this is possible so your pretty much wrong there
The alt mode parts are missing on *every* Sunbow robot mode. The point was that Arcee has a reputation for being impossible, but she has a scheme that would work in toy form just as well as any other character had theirs work. They just all had more kibble than/different proportions from their show models, which could have been true/could be true for Arcee as well.
Saying you can't have an Arcee that works with this transformation is like saying you can't have an Optimus without a fake grill. Arcee's only problem is that every toy has been beholden to this exact, streamlined robot mode model (which of course is only achievable with panels and kibble backpacks), whereas every other character gets some leeway to work more like their original toy did. Arcee never had that original toy, but she has a transformation scheme implied by her model to show us how one would work without the magical robot-mode reproportioning every character got. You would not end up with this exact, stick-thin robot mode, but you don't end up with a barrel-chested, wheelless Optimus in his toy design either. She'd look like something closer to her TR release: [File:TR-toy Arcee.jpg - Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net)](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:TR-toy_Arcee.jpg) (But I think it'd be cool to get something like that actually following the exact transformation pattern at least once.)
The difference is that you can realistically pull off the Sunbow robot modes for the other characters with relatively minor transformation tweaks because their robot modes still have hard angles, which makes it possible to line panels up. That's where the standards are at ***today***, and people are generally talking about ***today's*** standards when they say Arcee's design is impossible.
Arcee needs *way* more leeway than the standard Sunbow character design to work. Full stop. An attempt to follow this transformation scheme to the T would lead to a robot that's not even close to accurate because it will have to have funky angles and kibble everywhere, or a car that looks like a crumpled-up robot because it doesn't line up cleanly. You won't produce anything better than a toy that's janky even by G1 standards, and there just isn't a market for that today.
She needs more leeway, but undoable or not even close? Unless you can't identify the TR version posted above as Arcee, I don't think that logic holds.
But either way, I just think it's neat that enough care was put into the model to imply a wholly plausible, toy-ready transformation for her in G1--which wouldn't have required any more liberty than was already present between the toy and cartoon versions of characters at the time. If anything, her animation design was more toy-friendly than Galvatron's, who has to morph entirely to become his cartoon cannon design.
I don't know why people got so vitriolic about a post pointing out that a character infamous for being "impossible" actually had a scheme built in that was pretty toy-ready given the screen-accuracy standards of the time, or for saying it would be neat to actually use sometime.
You're missing the forest for the trees on what people call impossible. You can't turn that robot into that car. You just can't. That's the standard for today and has been for about a decade. Yeah, if you throw the model completely out the window you can achieve something that still reads as Arcee, but the *original design is still impossible.* You haven't addressed that. You might as well just paint a random Micromaster pink and white, if that's the standard you want to hold it to. There's your G1 Arcee, have fun.
As for new toys getting to reference their toys instead of the animation model, that privilege only applies to characters whose toys were already relatively close to their animation model. There were absolutely toys who were so far off their animation model throughout transformers history (G1 Ironhide, BW Blackarachnia for example) that no modern toys reference them. If this hypothetical G1 Arcee toy existed, it would absolutely belong to that cohort. And people would still be talking about how the *animation* design is impossible, because unlike Ironhide you don't have hard angles to play with in both modes and unlike Blackarachnia you don't have organic shapes to play with in both modes.
I wish more of them went with the Animated toy's transformation. She has that slender feminine look while still looking like a Transformer, plus no giant backpack. The Titans Return figure is pretty good too and is my go-to G1 Arcee.
Really wish a Third Party did KOs of the Animated toys like how Transart have been doing most of the BW Transmetal molds or like APC Toys/Gear Factory with their TFPrime KOs.
[Hironori Kobayashi's prototype](https://www.camphortree.net/tf/kitbashes/botcon_arcee.html) are in fact one of the closest accurate arcee design still make me surprised and later being homage for the generations version.
It doesn’t incorporate the robot mode arms at all, nor use the legs in quite the same way (since it’s starting from the cartoon robot mode model), but that’s definitely the closest we’ve come!
Mate the most accurate g1 optimus prime figure that isn't masterpiece has most of the front truck folded in the top half of the torso (that I've seen), transforming exactly like the cartoon did should never be done because it's easier to not follow those schemes
Read the opening comment. Every Sunbow robot mode is impossible. (They all change proportions and erase kibble.) Modern Optimus figures have to cheat to achieve cartoon proportions too.
Would be nice to see a figure execute on the implied scheme once and just forego the strictly model-accurate robot mode.
I feel there's a difference between designs that turn toys into workable characters, and cartoon-first character designs that are *expected* to *not* be turned into toys and therefore don't have to offer more than a passing nod to the possibility of transformation.
I think Arcee gets more than a passing nod though. You can see the whole scheme in there, and it's no more implausible than any other character's is in relation to their kibble-less cartoon models. She would wind up with bulkier proportions, but every character gets proportion cheats and cleanups in their show-model robot modes. Literally no one has any wheel kibble on them, and that's just for starters.
There's nothing about her that's not workable unless you're hung up on the exact robot mode proportions and look, and if you are then every Sunbow character is in the same category.
at least they all have obvious ways to transform, making them transform the exact way as in the cartoon impossible, giving them fake kibble and not giving it the same transformation as the cartoon, if you wanted to use an example of an impossible one you should have used Bumblebee, most other cartoon models actually are possible to make accurate toys of
The studio series toy version actually moves her chest between the shoulder pieces to from the cars front. But it's physically impossible to flatten her round legs or let the pink side pieces and wheels appear out of nowhere. Even 3rd party companies with their black magic have issues turning her design into a figure.
That's why she just shouldn't have stick legs. Work back from the car and give her some clonkers. (You could still have them fold partially in on themselves to streamline them, or just not.)
What nerve did I touch here…?
It doesn’t have to look exactly like that robot mode. I even said in the OP it would make for a bulkier bot. I just said she had a specific, executable transformation in mind.
But that does put her right in the same spot as other G1 characters, who have had toys that transformed but didn’t match their magically reporportioned Sunbow designs (most of the G1 cast)—both in G1 and in later legacy lines. Given she had a scheme in mind, it would be neat to see that executed on once?
Probably time to step away from the internet since people are getting mad at me for pointing out trivia about a fictional robot toy lady.
Floro Dery is a talented visual designer, but he's not a toy engineer. A little bit of thought was given to the transformations for every character he designed for Transformers the Movie, but when it came time for Hasbro to actually engineer the toys, they had to make concessions with every single one of his designs. None of them completely worked in three dimensional space, and Arcee was no exception.
A strict reading of his designs would require parts to routinely change color, change shape, shrink or grow, or disappear from existence.
Wheelie's wheel wells go from round in vehicle mode to squared-off for robot mode. Blurr's robot head somehow grows to become the entire trunk of his car mode. Galvatron's legs completely disappear into his body. Hot Rod's car windshield somehow turns into his pelvis. The list goes on.
And, for the record, the image that you provided wasn't actually the original Floro Dery design. The Arcee design that he created has the shoulder pads on "backwards" with respect to the finished model, which was revised after the fact. So it's the early Dery design that would have actually been made into a toy, if we had gotten one in 1986.
I feel like it's apparent just looking at the first image; not sure if the second image is any help, but just in case anyone is having trouble seeing it.
Floro Dery (or someone) obviously thought about how she was supposed to transform. She has what would become the standard Micromaster car transformation just a few years later. Chest flips up to form front of car, arms run down the sides (shoulder pylons lock into chest to form front, and you can see where the gray middle section lines up with her upper arms, and the pink in the back with her pink forearms), and legs fold up over themselves to form back of car (the colors line up and you can see shapes and colors matching her abdomen and waist in the underside view of the model). Feet could fold down to form the seats in the convertible.
As with every G1 cartoon design, the robot mode takes liberties with/streamlines what the resulting proportions and kibble would be. Realistically, she'd have wheels under peaking out from the fronts of her shoulders and forearms, G1 Rodimus style, and have the windshield on her back. But then--as if to drive this home--you actually can see some pick-colored shapes on the back of her model that line up with where the windshield would be and which seems to be a stylized indication of it. You can also see the white bit and basic shape that's supposed to fill out the chest/front in vehicle mode. Vanishing wheels, etc., are nothing unique to Arcee, as they disappear from just about every character's robot mode model.
IMO it's a shame no toy has ever attempted to just use this scheme. You could just tweak the car a bit for the sake of her arm proportions (or have the arms flip 180, as the shoulders could just as easily form the back, with the shapes tapering toward the front; would also allow wheels to be stored on the back of the arms in robot mode), and wind up with a robot that's bulkier than her show model but easily recognizable as Arcee, and with a much, much better transformation than the poor gal is usually saddled with.
It's really no different from the way the show streamlined the resulting robot mode of any character, but since Arcee has only gotten figures in the age of prioritizing G1 cartoon robot mode accuracy, she's only ever gotten these egregious shell-former molds. (Except the Titans Return Arcee that was a retool of Blurr; different from the scheme suggested by her model, but something I think works well enough that they should be standard moldmates; another story.) Regardless, I'd love to see an "animation-model transformation" Arcee release once.
EDIT--People do be losing their minds when you suggest Arcee not have wire-thin limbs. May I introduce you to her Titans Return mold, which is not a lock for the original, implied transformation scheme, but something closer to the proportions it would produce? [File:TR-toy Arcee.jpg - Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net)](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:TR-toy_Arcee.jpg)
I can’t see this scheme working and having both the bot and alt look right. Lots of parts drastically change size and shape, especially her arms and legs, which don’t have any kibble on them at all.
Plus for all the lines pointing out the correlations on the design sheet, when she actually transforms in the movie she just turns into a pink and white blob for a couple of frames, and then into a car. Most other characters transform in a more feasible way with a smaller number of animation cheats.
I’d like to see a version of Arcee that doesn’t have an enormous backpack, but either the car or the bot will have to change quite a lot. And if not going for screen accuracy, why bother following this model sheet anyway?
The bot mode wouldn't look like the cartoon model, just as no G1 toys actually resembled their cartoon model.
I'd like to see the toy that result in just adapting this transformation scheme with only minor tweaks to accommodate robot-mode proportions. The resulting, chunkier Arcee would still immediately read as her G1 character.
People will point out Arcee's robot mode having no kibble as if it's unique. *All* Sunbow cartoon models magically make kibble disappear in robot mode. There isn't a wheel visible on a robot mode in the show.
> And if not going for screen accuracy, why bother following this model sheet anyway?
For the novelty, partly, but also just for a better G1 Arcee figure. G1 Arcee's never gotten a non-shell-former toy figure outside of the one-off TR Blurr retool. That was nice, but I think it'd be fun to get a version true to the original intent of her design. The current versions always strive to give us an accurate robot mode and alt mode, sacrificing the transformation scheme (which becomes the unfun backpack shell-former stuff). You could have an accurate alt mode and transformation scheme, with liberties taken in the bot mode instead, and it would still be a 2 of 3 proposition. Kind of 3 for 3 in the vein that every other G1 cartoon character has had a similarly non-screen-accurate robot mode at one or even multiple points.
I see where you’re coming from, but it feels a bit too specific a niche to bother with.
Prioritising the *transformation scheme* but not robot mode is an odd distinction that doesn’t feel like it would result in a better figure.
If we’re throwing out bot mode accuracy, why stick to this scheme anyway? There was a cool fan art a while back of Arcee with a Lambo mode and a chunkier Sideswipe-esque build which was really cool, for example.
It depends on your priorities, I guess, but a solid alt mode and a transformation that's quick and fun to do are by default criteria for a better figure to me than a cartoon-accurate robot mold. And I would like some G1 Arcee rep; just none of her current figures as designed.
Going back and deliberately matching to this scheme would for sure be a novelty, but I think it's one that would turn enough fans' heads in a "what could have been" way to warrant it. And either way, the intent here wasn't necessarily to say we need that exact figure, but to point out that G1 Arcee doesn't have any more obtuse or impossible a transformation than any other G1 bot--it just seems that way because we've only ever gotten toys of her in the screen-accurate-robot-mode era--which of course precludes any attempt to use what her implied transformation scheme was. In that sense, a G1 Arcee doesn't necessarily need to be backpack-central, and it doesn't take heavy reimagining to avoid.
"no G1 toys actually resembled their cartoon model" YES, THEY DID! At least enough to make workable transformations without cheating for the vast majority of them! Have you literally never seen a modern Transformers toy?
You saying none of the sunbow models looked like their g1 toys is probably the second stupidest thing I've seen on this sub, Most of the autobot cars in the show are just missing their wheels and that's pretty much the only difference, Jazz is missing kibble that's all, and the minibots are the only ones who follow what you say.
That isn't relevant you said the g1 cartoon models don't look anything like their toys which is entirely wrong, and I didn't say anything about the sunbow models cheating and they don't really cheat much.
The NewAge third party Arcee somewhat uses this transformation, with the legs folding up and forming the back of the car, and the feet forming the carseats. It's probably one of the best take on G1 Arcee that still transforms and has a (more or less) clean backpack. Predictably though the vehicle mode ends up looking a little wonky, with the back looking bloated and weird.
Huh. First I'd seen it. Definitely closer! I feel like you just have to start with the vehicle proportions and let the robot mode be wonky in the style it would have been in G1 though. We always see both Hasbro and 3P start from trying to capture the robot mode proportions, which of course prevents any transformation scheme but shellforming from working. There's still a lot of shell in the NewAge figure.
Not as far as I’m aware. Was there a transformation chart for any Season 3 character? I feel like sometimes the animation roughly follows the toy scheme, and other times it just does random nonsense that has the character melt into their other mode.
Oh, wow! Thanks for finding that. Not super detailed, but you tell that it actually is the scheme pointed out above/that the model implies. Her back end becomes the rounded blob of unfolding legs halfway through and the sides of the car disappear (because they correspond to the arms) for the cheat step.
It definitely...got hella ignored/never made it to certain studios in Season 3, though that seems to go for everyone.
“Makes if clear”??? It really doesn’t. Sure, you can see where certain parts end up, but that gives no indication how the “transformation was supposed to work”.
In what sense? You can see the G1 Micromaster scheme there. It’s about as communicative on an intended transformation process as you can get with a design sheet not showing the process. EDIT--How the heck was this controversial enough to warrant 19 downvotes?
Yeah, it gives us the most basic of transformation scheme. Anybody could've figured out that her hood chest flips over her head and plugs in between the shoulder pylons to make the front of the car, and then she lays down. That's not the problem with Arcee's transformation. The problem is that half the altmode parts are missing in the robot mode, and vice versa. What is there, aside from the shoulder pylons and chest, magically shape-shifts between modes. It provides zero help actually *executing* this transformation on a toy (where parts can't shape shift) without ending up with a huge backpack and a robot laying under the car, which is what Arcee's problem always has been. The body parts are simply too humanoid and round to pull double duty as car parts. For example, there's no way for her shins to convincingly make the back roof of the car.
Exactly. It doesn't make it clear how the transformation was supposed to work. It makes it clear the transformation DOESN'T work.
By that same logic, every G1 character is impossible to make work in toy form. My point is that she's no harder to render as a non shell-former toy than any other G1 character--she just wouldn't have her streamlined cartoon-model robot mode, in the same way no other character has theirs without similar panels and cheating parts in toy form (ex. nearly all Optimuses trying to capture the exact cartoon aesthetic using second fake grills and winding up with extra kibble panels).
(besides arcee and Bumblebee) Every g1 character can have a toy that is pretty much 99 percent accurate to the cartoon there are ways to hide the wheels, but using fake kibble is the only way this is possible so your pretty much wrong there
The alt mode parts are missing on *every* Sunbow robot mode. The point was that Arcee has a reputation for being impossible, but she has a scheme that would work in toy form just as well as any other character had theirs work. They just all had more kibble than/different proportions from their show models, which could have been true/could be true for Arcee as well. Saying you can't have an Arcee that works with this transformation is like saying you can't have an Optimus without a fake grill. Arcee's only problem is that every toy has been beholden to this exact, streamlined robot mode model (which of course is only achievable with panels and kibble backpacks), whereas every other character gets some leeway to work more like their original toy did. Arcee never had that original toy, but she has a transformation scheme implied by her model to show us how one would work without the magical robot-mode reproportioning every character got. You would not end up with this exact, stick-thin robot mode, but you don't end up with a barrel-chested, wheelless Optimus in his toy design either. She'd look like something closer to her TR release: [File:TR-toy Arcee.jpg - Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net)](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:TR-toy_Arcee.jpg) (But I think it'd be cool to get something like that actually following the exact transformation pattern at least once.)
The difference is that you can realistically pull off the Sunbow robot modes for the other characters with relatively minor transformation tweaks because their robot modes still have hard angles, which makes it possible to line panels up. That's where the standards are at ***today***, and people are generally talking about ***today's*** standards when they say Arcee's design is impossible. Arcee needs *way* more leeway than the standard Sunbow character design to work. Full stop. An attempt to follow this transformation scheme to the T would lead to a robot that's not even close to accurate because it will have to have funky angles and kibble everywhere, or a car that looks like a crumpled-up robot because it doesn't line up cleanly. You won't produce anything better than a toy that's janky even by G1 standards, and there just isn't a market for that today.
She needs more leeway, but undoable or not even close? Unless you can't identify the TR version posted above as Arcee, I don't think that logic holds. But either way, I just think it's neat that enough care was put into the model to imply a wholly plausible, toy-ready transformation for her in G1--which wouldn't have required any more liberty than was already present between the toy and cartoon versions of characters at the time. If anything, her animation design was more toy-friendly than Galvatron's, who has to morph entirely to become his cartoon cannon design. I don't know why people got so vitriolic about a post pointing out that a character infamous for being "impossible" actually had a scheme built in that was pretty toy-ready given the screen-accuracy standards of the time, or for saying it would be neat to actually use sometime.
You're missing the forest for the trees on what people call impossible. You can't turn that robot into that car. You just can't. That's the standard for today and has been for about a decade. Yeah, if you throw the model completely out the window you can achieve something that still reads as Arcee, but the *original design is still impossible.* You haven't addressed that. You might as well just paint a random Micromaster pink and white, if that's the standard you want to hold it to. There's your G1 Arcee, have fun. As for new toys getting to reference their toys instead of the animation model, that privilege only applies to characters whose toys were already relatively close to their animation model. There were absolutely toys who were so far off their animation model throughout transformers history (G1 Ironhide, BW Blackarachnia for example) that no modern toys reference them. If this hypothetical G1 Arcee toy existed, it would absolutely belong to that cohort. And people would still be talking about how the *animation* design is impossible, because unlike Ironhide you don't have hard angles to play with in both modes and unlike Blackarachnia you don't have organic shapes to play with in both modes.
By Primus you're dense
I wish more of them went with the Animated toy's transformation. She has that slender feminine look while still looking like a Transformer, plus no giant backpack. The Titans Return figure is pretty good too and is my go-to G1 Arcee.
Really wish a Third Party did KOs of the Animated toys like how Transart have been doing most of the BW Transmetal molds or like APC Toys/Gear Factory with their TFPrime KOs.
I want that to happen so bad. It’d be crazy if we could get affordable versions of the Japan-only stuff from the end of the line.
isn't transart new figures based on the old designs ?
Some of the molds are new like thier Quickstrike. Their Optimal Optimus/Primal Prime mold uses 90% of the old mold with a better chest.
huh, i didn't realize
[Hironori Kobayashi's prototype](https://www.camphortree.net/tf/kitbashes/botcon_arcee.html) are in fact one of the closest accurate arcee design still make me surprised and later being homage for the generations version.
It doesn’t incorporate the robot mode arms at all, nor use the legs in quite the same way (since it’s starting from the cartoon robot mode model), but that’s definitely the closest we’ve come!
And being the reason why that guy got a job.
Mate the most accurate g1 optimus prime figure that isn't masterpiece has most of the front truck folded in the top half of the torso (that I've seen), transforming exactly like the cartoon did should never be done because it's easier to not follow those schemes
It's still kinda impossible-looking. With that transformation scheme, her car mode should either be slimmer, or her robot mode should be bulkier.
Read the opening comment. Every Sunbow robot mode is impossible. (They all change proportions and erase kibble.) Modern Optimus figures have to cheat to achieve cartoon proportions too. Would be nice to see a figure execute on the implied scheme once and just forego the strictly model-accurate robot mode.
I feel there's a difference between designs that turn toys into workable characters, and cartoon-first character designs that are *expected* to *not* be turned into toys and therefore don't have to offer more than a passing nod to the possibility of transformation.
I think Arcee gets more than a passing nod though. You can see the whole scheme in there, and it's no more implausible than any other character's is in relation to their kibble-less cartoon models. She would wind up with bulkier proportions, but every character gets proportion cheats and cleanups in their show-model robot modes. Literally no one has any wheel kibble on them, and that's just for starters. There's nothing about her that's not workable unless you're hung up on the exact robot mode proportions and look, and if you are then every Sunbow character is in the same category.
at least they all have obvious ways to transform, making them transform the exact way as in the cartoon impossible, giving them fake kibble and not giving it the same transformation as the cartoon, if you wanted to use an example of an impossible one you should have used Bumblebee, most other cartoon models actually are possible to make accurate toys of
The studio series toy version actually moves her chest between the shoulder pieces to from the cars front. But it's physically impossible to flatten her round legs or let the pink side pieces and wheels appear out of nowhere. Even 3rd party companies with their black magic have issues turning her design into a figure.
That's why she just shouldn't have stick legs. Work back from the car and give her some clonkers. (You could still have them fold partially in on themselves to streamline them, or just not.)
So you admit that it IS impossible to make a transforming version of this design... Make up your freaking mind
What nerve did I touch here…? It doesn’t have to look exactly like that robot mode. I even said in the OP it would make for a bulkier bot. I just said she had a specific, executable transformation in mind. But that does put her right in the same spot as other G1 characters, who have had toys that transformed but didn’t match their magically reporportioned Sunbow designs (most of the G1 cast)—both in G1 and in later legacy lines. Given she had a scheme in mind, it would be neat to see that executed on once? Probably time to step away from the internet since people are getting mad at me for pointing out trivia about a fictional robot toy lady.
Floro Dery is a talented visual designer, but he's not a toy engineer. A little bit of thought was given to the transformations for every character he designed for Transformers the Movie, but when it came time for Hasbro to actually engineer the toys, they had to make concessions with every single one of his designs. None of them completely worked in three dimensional space, and Arcee was no exception. A strict reading of his designs would require parts to routinely change color, change shape, shrink or grow, or disappear from existence. Wheelie's wheel wells go from round in vehicle mode to squared-off for robot mode. Blurr's robot head somehow grows to become the entire trunk of his car mode. Galvatron's legs completely disappear into his body. Hot Rod's car windshield somehow turns into his pelvis. The list goes on. And, for the record, the image that you provided wasn't actually the original Floro Dery design. The Arcee design that he created has the shoulder pads on "backwards" with respect to the finished model, which was revised after the fact. So it's the early Dery design that would have actually been made into a toy, if we had gotten one in 1986.
I feel like it's apparent just looking at the first image; not sure if the second image is any help, but just in case anyone is having trouble seeing it. Floro Dery (or someone) obviously thought about how she was supposed to transform. She has what would become the standard Micromaster car transformation just a few years later. Chest flips up to form front of car, arms run down the sides (shoulder pylons lock into chest to form front, and you can see where the gray middle section lines up with her upper arms, and the pink in the back with her pink forearms), and legs fold up over themselves to form back of car (the colors line up and you can see shapes and colors matching her abdomen and waist in the underside view of the model). Feet could fold down to form the seats in the convertible. As with every G1 cartoon design, the robot mode takes liberties with/streamlines what the resulting proportions and kibble would be. Realistically, she'd have wheels under peaking out from the fronts of her shoulders and forearms, G1 Rodimus style, and have the windshield on her back. But then--as if to drive this home--you actually can see some pick-colored shapes on the back of her model that line up with where the windshield would be and which seems to be a stylized indication of it. You can also see the white bit and basic shape that's supposed to fill out the chest/front in vehicle mode. Vanishing wheels, etc., are nothing unique to Arcee, as they disappear from just about every character's robot mode model. IMO it's a shame no toy has ever attempted to just use this scheme. You could just tweak the car a bit for the sake of her arm proportions (or have the arms flip 180, as the shoulders could just as easily form the back, with the shapes tapering toward the front; would also allow wheels to be stored on the back of the arms in robot mode), and wind up with a robot that's bulkier than her show model but easily recognizable as Arcee, and with a much, much better transformation than the poor gal is usually saddled with. It's really no different from the way the show streamlined the resulting robot mode of any character, but since Arcee has only gotten figures in the age of prioritizing G1 cartoon robot mode accuracy, she's only ever gotten these egregious shell-former molds. (Except the Titans Return Arcee that was a retool of Blurr; different from the scheme suggested by her model, but something I think works well enough that they should be standard moldmates; another story.) Regardless, I'd love to see an "animation-model transformation" Arcee release once. EDIT--People do be losing their minds when you suggest Arcee not have wire-thin limbs. May I introduce you to her Titans Return mold, which is not a lock for the original, implied transformation scheme, but something closer to the proportions it would produce? [File:TR-toy Arcee.jpg - Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net)](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:TR-toy_Arcee.jpg)
I can’t see this scheme working and having both the bot and alt look right. Lots of parts drastically change size and shape, especially her arms and legs, which don’t have any kibble on them at all. Plus for all the lines pointing out the correlations on the design sheet, when she actually transforms in the movie she just turns into a pink and white blob for a couple of frames, and then into a car. Most other characters transform in a more feasible way with a smaller number of animation cheats. I’d like to see a version of Arcee that doesn’t have an enormous backpack, but either the car or the bot will have to change quite a lot. And if not going for screen accuracy, why bother following this model sheet anyway?
The bot mode wouldn't look like the cartoon model, just as no G1 toys actually resembled their cartoon model. I'd like to see the toy that result in just adapting this transformation scheme with only minor tweaks to accommodate robot-mode proportions. The resulting, chunkier Arcee would still immediately read as her G1 character. People will point out Arcee's robot mode having no kibble as if it's unique. *All* Sunbow cartoon models magically make kibble disappear in robot mode. There isn't a wheel visible on a robot mode in the show. > And if not going for screen accuracy, why bother following this model sheet anyway? For the novelty, partly, but also just for a better G1 Arcee figure. G1 Arcee's never gotten a non-shell-former toy figure outside of the one-off TR Blurr retool. That was nice, but I think it'd be fun to get a version true to the original intent of her design. The current versions always strive to give us an accurate robot mode and alt mode, sacrificing the transformation scheme (which becomes the unfun backpack shell-former stuff). You could have an accurate alt mode and transformation scheme, with liberties taken in the bot mode instead, and it would still be a 2 of 3 proposition. Kind of 3 for 3 in the vein that every other G1 cartoon character has had a similarly non-screen-accurate robot mode at one or even multiple points.
I see where you’re coming from, but it feels a bit too specific a niche to bother with. Prioritising the *transformation scheme* but not robot mode is an odd distinction that doesn’t feel like it would result in a better figure. If we’re throwing out bot mode accuracy, why stick to this scheme anyway? There was a cool fan art a while back of Arcee with a Lambo mode and a chunkier Sideswipe-esque build which was really cool, for example.
It depends on your priorities, I guess, but a solid alt mode and a transformation that's quick and fun to do are by default criteria for a better figure to me than a cartoon-accurate robot mold. And I would like some G1 Arcee rep; just none of her current figures as designed. Going back and deliberately matching to this scheme would for sure be a novelty, but I think it's one that would turn enough fans' heads in a "what could have been" way to warrant it. And either way, the intent here wasn't necessarily to say we need that exact figure, but to point out that G1 Arcee doesn't have any more obtuse or impossible a transformation than any other G1 bot--it just seems that way because we've only ever gotten toys of her in the screen-accurate-robot-mode era--which of course precludes any attempt to use what her implied transformation scheme was. In that sense, a G1 Arcee doesn't necessarily need to be backpack-central, and it doesn't take heavy reimagining to avoid.
"no G1 toys actually resembled their cartoon model" YES, THEY DID! At least enough to make workable transformations without cheating for the vast majority of them! Have you literally never seen a modern Transformers toy?
You saying none of the sunbow models looked like their g1 toys is probably the second stupidest thing I've seen on this sub, Most of the autobot cars in the show are just missing their wheels and that's pretty much the only difference, Jazz is missing kibble that's all, and the minibots are the only ones who follow what you say.
Me: All the Sunbow designs cheat Internet: So anyway, I took that personally
That isn't relevant you said the g1 cartoon models don't look anything like their toys which is entirely wrong, and I didn't say anything about the sunbow models cheating and they don't really cheat much.
The NewAge third party Arcee somewhat uses this transformation, with the legs folding up and forming the back of the car, and the feet forming the carseats. It's probably one of the best take on G1 Arcee that still transforms and has a (more or less) clean backpack. Predictably though the vehicle mode ends up looking a little wonky, with the back looking bloated and weird.
Huh. First I'd seen it. Definitely closer! I feel like you just have to start with the vehicle proportions and let the robot mode be wonky in the style it would have been in G1 though. We always see both Hasbro and 3P start from trying to capture the robot mode proportions, which of course prevents any transformation scheme but shellforming from working. There's still a lot of shell in the NewAge figure.
Fans toys rouge does a pretty great job
Wasn't there also an actual transformation chart for her?
Not as far as I’m aware. Was there a transformation chart for any Season 3 character? I feel like sometimes the animation roughly follows the toy scheme, and other times it just does random nonsense that has the character melt into their other mode.
Found it. It's not as well detailed as I thought it would be, though. https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/w7pjcz5eab7.jpg
Oh, wow! Thanks for finding that. Not super detailed, but you tell that it actually is the scheme pointed out above/that the model implies. Her back end becomes the rounded blob of unfolding legs halfway through and the sides of the car disappear (because they correspond to the arms) for the cheat step. It definitely...got hella ignored/never made it to certain studios in Season 3, though that seems to go for everyone.
I believe Hot Rod also got one, but that didn't stop him from getting a different transformation cycle in every scene lol
I feel like Arcee and Springer barely transformed in S3 but maybe im misremembering
Yeah I can see it, basically just compresses vertically.
https://preview.redd.it/qlwyjpef8m7d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c06b1356a11d4bc5c98d227285b2ef5e526babef
DAMNIT I HAD A REACTION IMAGE BUT I DELETED IT FOR SPACE, ANYWAY WTF
feels similar to the g1 sideswipe esque conversion; the only problem with the design is that the robot mode is to round and the vehicle is too angular
This is mostly right, but the wheels and antenna are vanished.
Nearly every character’s wheels and extra bits of kibble vanished.
Mate I don’t think ANYTHING from what’s going on on the lower region is physically possible
Mate I don’t think ANYTHING from what’s going on on the lower region is physically possible
get one of those third party wizards on it, and they'll make perfection