For the Represent Zine on @allsparkzines, I was given the honor of creating one of their stretch goal goodies, and I’m proud to reveal this piece featuring Praveen Satvinder/Perceptor and Sun Byeong-Ho/Brainstorm to that end!
You can pry these magazine covers from my cold, dead hands, and you can get this piece as a 5x7 print if we reach the goal of 75 physical copies ordered, so go go go, don’t let these science lads down! (PERCEPTOR ESPECIALLY they had to bribe him to get him away from his research—Brainstorm JUMPED at the chance).
Featuring also my personal designs for Turbofoxes!
This is part of a series!
First Edition: Optimus Prime & Megatron (TIME Magazine)
First of all I definitely have to thank @elfdragon12 for selling me on the G1 humans and the potential they have for good storytelling!
So here are Spartacus 'Spike' Witwicki, Carlita 'Carly' Castellano and Charles 'Chip' Chase as they appear in TTB!
Spike mainly works off-base with his father Stanislaw 'Sparkplug' Witwicki as mechanics on Autobot missions, while Carly and Chip are mainly on-base working in R&D and tech respectively.
Witwicky is a name that exists IRL, and it's specifically an Americanised version of Witwicki, which is Polish, so Spike is a second-generation immigrant to the US with Polish---specifically as a member of the Lipka Tatar minority---ties through Stanislaw, and Turkish ties through his mother.
Lipka Tatars are predominantly also Muslims who usually keep to a Polish naming convention/don't usually sport Arabic names, so Spike here also joins the the rising ranks of Muslims on the Autobot side!
Mexican-Italian Carly is a bottle blond who goes back to her original brown tresses near the end of the war.
She runs on coffee and Monster Energy, and is what one might call a Type A personality. And for good reason—she’s a scholarship kid from an impoverished barrio, the first to ever get into MIT, and she’s determined to make a name for herself to bring back support and funding for her community so other kids like her have that opportunity too. She was a student in Dr. Harding’s lecture classes, and interned under Harding before graduation—the two still keep in contact with each other across the Atlantic.
And Chip. We gotta talk about Chip (and the other two) under the cut.
Chip got the bad end of the deal here and his background is as messed up as his general health is on any given day.
Energon hotspots exist in TTB and they’re still being studied and often irradiate local wildlife and extremely unlucky scientists conducting field research; one of them was Chip’s mother, while she was very early into her pregnancy (she believed she was properly kitted out, but this hotspot was more potent than the others).
He grew up sickly, but still relatively active and as Spike’s childhood friend, would still be able to play football with Spike.
Spike and Chip’s relationship was extremely tight when they were children (Spike protected Chip from bullies and played with him since other boys avoided involving him in their games as he had problems keeping up due to his health issues, while Chip would help Spike with schoolwork and stood up for him if someone decided it’s pick-on-the-immigrant-kid day).
It was to the point that, when Sparkplug was imprisoned for a short stint after being charged with inciting a riot (he was spearheading a workers' protest), Chip's residence was a second home to Spike, while his mother picked up extra shifts to make ends meet.
However, when Chip was around 10, the radiation flared up/became aggressive in both him and his mother, and while his mother's condition deteriorated faster than his, it still wreaked havoc on his body and caused paraplegia through spinal metastasis.
When his mother died, he had no blood family willing to take him in (as a child born out of wedlock who was piling up medical bills and was not expected to see his 18th birthday).
The Witwickis, who saw him as family now, wanted to adopt him but could not pay for the care he needed as lower class blue collar immigrants.... at which point Zeta Prime stepped in as a benefactor who wanted to sponsor the child prodigy.
This however, meant Chip had to be moved to New York, ostensibly for better treatment, and he and Spike last saw each other as children when they were 12.
They’d promise to write to each other, but Spike never received anything from Chip no matter how many letters he sent (Zeta had been intercepting them since he wanted Chip to be fully dependent on him/cut all ties to his past, and to focus on his tutelage under Dr Alcazar)
The two reunited as adults when Spike and Sparkplug were enlisted as part of the team working on a top secret government project (Metroplex) on which Chip was the lead programmer and Carly was head of the R&D division.
Chip however, started having doubts about Zeta Prime's motives for Metroplex's creation, and feeling both helpless and terrified for what he'd gotten himself into, confided his concerns to Spike that what they were building was not a space research titan, but a weapon and the US' largest mobile base capable of levelling small countries--which is exactly what Zeta plans to do with it.
Carly eavesdrops, and is drawn into the situation.
All three of them struggled with breaking off their relationship with Zeta Prime, whose project brought the, together:
Chip knows that going against Zeta means he likely loses all access to the medical aid and experimental treatments keeping him alive. (He is lucky that he kept notes and an extensive medical record of himself, and that them fleeing across the Atlantic brought them right to Ratchet and Co.),
Spike knows going against Zeta means burning the olive branch of government acceptance Zeta held out to his father and their diaspora after their lifelong struggle to get the same compensation for their work as native-born workers, and better/safer projects.,
Carly knows going against Zeta means a stain on her record as a ‘model minority’ , and it will destroy Zeta’s promise of a scholarship fund for her community as well as government goodwill for them.
All three decide that they have to take a stand against him regardless, and they managed to sabotage Zeta’s control over Metroplex and allowed Metro to escape into the Pacific.
Fleeing Zeta’s wrath across the Atlantic put them on the collision course with the Autobots via an SOS signal from Prowl which Chip decoded and answered, and this set have been stalwart allies since
Chip still has a close relationship with Prowl here over many similar aspects of their life, quiet companionship and a love for strategy games. He is also rebuilding the relationship he had with Spike and Sparkplug, and Spike and Chip see each other more as brothers than friends these days.
In which Spartacus ‘Spike’ Witwicki and Charles ‘Chip’ Chase have been best friends since they were old enough to argue with their parents what the definition of ‘brother’ is, until fate in the form of metastasizing energon radiation rears its ugly head from dormancy.
Finally finished this Lightbright magazine cover after the brain goblin went “we are not sleeping until this is 95% done” last night shhdjdjff
Nona (term for ‘Lady’) is a very popular women’s magazine in Malaysia!
Lightbright/Laila here is part of the Minang people in Malaysia.
The text above her name at the bottom (‘Tunku’ denotes someone of standing. Think of it like a duchess or a marquess) translates to “The beauty with the soul of an explorer of the cosmos”.
This is part of a series!
First Edition: Optimus Prime & Megatron (TIME Magazine)
Raced to the finish line for this piece but I HAD to squeeze in a Pride piece before July 1, so Alisa Ivanova/Elita-1 and Fionne Stark/Firestar (Munirah Reza/Moonracer jumped in as an ally) took the baton from Mirage/Hound and Sunstreaker this year!
Happy Pride from Space Dommy Mommy and her Hype Goblins Right and Left Hand girlies!
(The Captain of Starship Carcer’s type is “Duel me and pledge allegiance to my band of space marine rebels”)
It’s the 30th so I can finally post my labour of love for this year’s edition of the Represent Zine hosted on @allsparkzines!
I really wanted to explore Drift in this version, so I decided on a piece that mirrors the man he is now versus the man he was because they are two parts of a whole—a dark past he has to learn to live with, and a present he can mold as a better man.
The Zine will be taking a hiatus after this, but it was such an honor to be given a chance to work with it and be a part of the mod teams!
My previous entries for the Zine:
Represent Zine Volume 1
The Caminus Valkyries (Windblade, Lightbright & Chromia)
Prowling the Warzone (Prowl, Jazz, OP, Ratchet and First Aid)
Ai Xia/Arcee has actually appeared in some of my work before this though mostly conceptual, so I’m always happy to introduce her as the Autobots’ terrifying war veteran Bosozoku Baba/Biker Granny who came out of retirement to gorge on bakkwa and kick ass and wouldn’t you know it she done run out of her favorite bakkwa.
She’s an honorary Wrecker in that like them, she’s only ever deployed in a code red situation and you understand and accept that by doing so, she sees no issue dropping bodies to see her objective through.
The chain, like Sunstreaker’s, is not for show, and she’s armed with an energy guan dao when she goes from nosy Chinese Aunty to War Granny.
She sees the Autobots as honorary kids and grandkids, but pays particular attention to Sideswipe, Prowl and Blaster.
Sylas (Sterling) is the baby of the Saverio-Armstrong clan, and his twin big sisters Solaris (SolarStorm) and Selestine (Solitaire) have (lovingly) never let him forget it.
He's basically Assigned Swordsman At Birth, much to former swordsman Sidewipe's DELIGHT as Solaris is a brawler at heart like her uncle Sunstreaker, and Solitaire has never met a target practice session she didn't absolutely demolish.
Sylas' special interest is swordplay and by extension, Swashbuckler movies (catch him doing a V for Vendetta and quoting The Count Of Monte Cristo from start to end, and he might throw fists if you have a bad word to say about The Princess Bride) and he practically vibrates at the idea of seeing his dad, Windblade, Drift and Starscream in a Mexican Standoff for old times' sake during their annual get-togethers.
He's also different compared to his sisters, who're lovable troublemakers hanging around Mafia Stag Thunderhoof, in that he's more of a straight arrow Mama's boy---he'd rather follow the great Optimus Prime around (he was born in a period where the adventures of the Autobots were complied and starting to become popular stories) like a little duckling instead.
His kufiya is a gift from OP (whose donning of the one worn by his own father---hung for 'sedition'---as the Autobot leader means it's seen often as a sign of resistance), who in praising his prodigious skill with the sword (he has a stuttering problem but can rattle off the entire fencing glossary to you and differentiate styles at a young age, watching people train at Sideswipe's school), also wants him to remember what it is for in the first place (only to defend people).
So Sylas likes to wear it so he never forgets that in his quest to be the best little Stabby McJustice the world has ever seen.
He's not exactly the biggest kid on the playground and is seen as a weird, skinny little odd-eyed nerd (OUR NERD his sisters will proclaim ONLY WE GET TO JOKE ABOUT HIM), though that doesn't stop him from jumping at every bully on the playground like a feral little Vengeance Goblin if Solaris (who is more adept at fisticuffs than him) doesn't get them first.
That's where his chipped tooth comes from, and Sideswipe comes into the teacher's meeting about the first ever scuffle he gets into at school torn between "Oh god oh shit baby boy is seventy pounds soaking wet holding a brick mio amore is going to flip" and "OH HE LIKE ME FR FR".
Thunderhoof thinks he's a riot, even if he's mistrustful of Shady Stag Uncle (he has a black and white view of the world which he's slowly processing), which Hoof respects! He has his dad's judge of character and isn't afraid to stand his ground! Stutter and bent spectacles be damned!
Also BONUS EDITION I was playing around with robot helm designs, so you get faces of they Cybertronian versions of Sideswipe and Strongarm's children! (Their eyes are all blue here in keeping with canon, as opposed to TTB where Sideswipe has red eyes).
Solarstorm takes some of her looks from her uncle Sunstreaker (my idea being that as twins/brothers, Sideswipe likely has recessive coding for those headfins which became dominant when introduced to her mother's coding).
