I mentioned elsewhere that was I was thinking of doing a few retro designs for some of the more modern characters for the older franchises. I don't mind it when Windblade, Drift, Barricade and the other new guys are inserted into G1 stories... I just wish they'd adjust their looks to look a little more Floro Dery-like in design. Guido Guidi did a few of them with Drift and Barricade... And I thought it might be kinda fun to do it the Unicron Trilogy. What would they look like in that universe, design-wise. Well, someone decided to commission me for Windblade and it came a lot sooner than the others.
The thing to remember with Armada is that a lot of the cast members looked nothing like their previous incarnations. Wheeljack looked like Sideswipe. Cyclonus didn't have his bunny ears. Prime didn't have his window boobs. Megatron had antlers. And so on. It was not uncommon to see a character called something that looked nothing like what you expected. (Seriously, later on, the guy who looked exactly like Wheeljack was called Downshift.) I wanted to invoke a bit of that design motif, while retaining the colors scheme.
The concept idea here is that she transformed into a red and black SR-71. (Specifically the Cobra Night Raven.) And Scorchfire turned into the drone jet that hooked onto her. Powerlinked, Scorchfire would eject blades from Windblade's wing that she could attach to her arm. (Just the one wing, because Armada was find of asymmetrical action features.) Back story: She was Starscream's wing-girl back in the early days and they had a falling out of sorts.
And that's it! Hope you like it. (And I'm still taking commissions!)