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Post by Pinwig on May 18, 2015 20:06:20 GMT
Spun off from Transformers Universe Collected EditionThe home of the Transmasters UK project to add missing pages to the Marvel Comics Transformers Universe. Please PM me with a Gmail address for access to the Google Drive with resources and access to the finished pages. |
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 18, 2015 20:47:11 GMT
Sounds to me like there's scope here for a fan produced definitive version using an electronic copy as a start point. Where does the dreamwave version fit into this? Mine is boxed up somewhere. Did that use the Budiansky bios? I don't remember. It didn't from what I recall. New ones that attempt to explain away certain problems with the tech specs. |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 18, 2015 20:58:15 GMT
Sounds to me like there's scope here for a fan produced definitive version using an electronic copy as a start point. Where does the dreamwave version fit into this? Mine is boxed up somewhere. Did that use the Budiansky bios? I don't remember. No it has pretty limited text from the then main writers. Pretty piss poor. Andy |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 18, 2015 20:59:34 GMT
Sounds to me like there's scope here for a fan produced definitive version using an electronic copy as a start point. Where does the dreamwave version fit into this? Mine is boxed up somewhere. Did that use the Budiansky bios? I don't remember. Well there are plenty of characters to do. Post July I'd be up for putting that together and doing a wee bit of art as well. |
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Post by Pinwig on May 18, 2015 21:20:23 GMT
I'd be happy to help. I know something like that treads on the toes of copyright infringement, but I'm very much a fan of things wot are complete and correctly ordered. I'm pretty good with design and layout, not so hot on actual art.
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Post by The Doctor on May 19, 2015 11:41:26 GMT
The Dreamwave profiles books were written to work for a strange mismash of Sunbow and their own continuity.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 19, 2015 14:20:20 GMT
With no known weaknesses.
Andy
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Post by inflatabledalek on May 19, 2015 14:46:58 GMT
The Beast Wars profile book was probably the worst attempt to do one of these, "Let's not do a profile, let's just summarise what they did in the cartoon. Unless they're a Japanese character who is funny as there's no room in this franchise that did an episode about deadly farts for silliness so we'll just make something up for them that basically makes the book useless as a guide to the characters!".
Obviously I'm not going to encourage all illegal activity, so if anyone wants high quality scans of the original trade to use for this re-ordering project so those entries at least won't suffering from colouring and resolution problems they shouldn't send me a quiet sneaky PM.
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Post by The Doctor on May 19, 2015 19:02:52 GMT
I was very good and managed not to buy the Dreamwave Armada profile issues recently. Never read them but I suspect the quality is not great.
I have grown as a person.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 19, 2015 19:11:23 GMT
I will let you read them when you next visit. They aren't the worst thing Dreamwave did.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 19, 2015 19:12:37 GMT
I will let you read them when you next visit. They aren't the worst thing Dreamwave did. What holds that honour? Andy |
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 19, 2015 19:22:05 GMT
Is it your belief that there's something worse than Micromasters out there?
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Post by Fortmax2020 on May 19, 2015 21:40:12 GMT
With no known weaknesses. Andy I found them all above average. |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 19, 2015 22:33:55 GMT
I'd be happy to help. I know something like that treads on the toes of copyright infringement, but I'm very much a fan of things wot are complete and correctly ordered. I'm pretty good with design and layout, not so hot on actual art. Splendid. Well I already have the Grimlock and Optimus Prime robot modes for their Action Master updates done. |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 19, 2015 22:34:22 GMT
Is it your belief that there's something worse than Micromasters out there? Oh that is my personal pick for Dreamwave's poorest TF comic, but I wasn't sure if you shared that opinion. Andy |
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Post by inflatabledalek on May 21, 2015 23:13:06 GMT
So, mainly to test my new camera, I've made one of my epic YouTube videos talking about this trade. It basically just repeats what I said in the above posts, but with more length. Still, a more impressive picture: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jYbwkVnK-o |
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Post by Pinwig on Jun 1, 2015 22:00:26 GMT
I spent a bit of time yesterday looking at this idea of completing the Universe book in the Universe style. This started out with me unzipping the CBZ of the digital version and renaming all the files to be the actual character using the format year-faction-subtype-NAME because the page numbers were doing my head in. That became a spreadsheet, which got slightly reordered, and then I added in all the toys which are missing. I note that although there is a page in the book which lists which 84-88 toys are missing, that list in itself is missing Wingspan. So far for this I have done 84-88 because obviously after 88 every toy is missing. Note I'm using the term toy because I think if this was opened up to every fictional character you're into a real can of worms as to how far you take that, and whether you go Sunbow, Marvel or both. I've also added in the prominent mail-aways (Powerdashers/Omnibots/Reflector) which is again a debatable inclusion. What does that tell us? well it tells us there are 49 toys missing from that period (plus the mail-aways), Omega Supreme and Divebomb have no art for their alt modes, and the Targetmaster partners for the Movie characters are missing. All of which you probably knew already, but I tend to work these things out the long way to get them to stick in my head. Questions the experts here may know the answers to: 1. Is it true that if a toy is not included in this book, Budiansky didn't write an extended bio for it and the only official bio data contemporary to the G1 era is the tech spec card on the toy's box? 2. Is there any other source of bio information that isn't a tech spec, apart from deriving it from actions characters take in the fictions? 3. Is all the character art for these bios based on the Sunbow animation models? I was thinking about the layout too, because there isn't one - apart from roughly equal column widths for the text. There isn't even consistency in the font use as the scaling and size changes at random. It wouldn't be hard to match the font, but I wish there was an electronic version of the text that would allow for it to be reformatted and made consistent. Although that would take ages. The other thing that troubles me is how to order the pages. Alphabetical makes sense, but you could easily do that with an index at the back and page number references to something more easily browsable, like grouping all the subtypes together, or organising it by year of release. This is where having this as an online database driven website would make so much more sense (something I'm experienced in coding) as you could display the same data in any number of different ways and make it searchable to boot. However it being we're dealing with copyright material here, that wouldn't work. So I think it would need a sensible and usable order for the pages, then a series of indices to list the figures in orders you may actually look at them in. I think my personal choice for a page order would be a bit too eclectic for others. I would do it in eras: start up to special teams, all scramble city, movie, headmasters-powermasters, pretenders, micromasters, action masters; then inside those brackets order by sub-type. Then at least you'd get all the same kind of toy from the various eras grouped together, it'd just be the combiners that don't quite fit in their respective times. Anyway, this is just me thinking aloud about how this could be done and whether it's feasible/worth the effort in terms of the need for additional new material. To keep it official for the missing figures you could just use their tech spec bio if there isn't anything else, but the time investment would be in generating the new art. I will have a go at that and see how it turns out, but it's been a good while since I wielded a pencil in anger. Attached below is the spreadsheet I did with the info in for the 84-88 names. Transformers Universe Index.xls (56 KB) |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 1, 2015 22:07:55 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Jun 1, 2015 22:24:46 GMT
Awesome! That's a good place to start then. Maybe I'll have a go at doing some universe style art for Hubcap and do a try out page for him.
This does feel like an obvious project that must have been done before. Does anything like this actually exist?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 1, 2015 22:26:26 GMT
The issue with the art in the letters page is likely to be US 42, does anyone have a copy to check? tfwiki.net/wiki/People_Power!#Other_trivia |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 1, 2015 22:34:03 GMT
The thought occurs.....
The art in TFU is effectively that used for the character models, but redrawn.
Black and white versions of the character models are found in Transformers Generations
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Post by Pinwig on Jun 1, 2015 22:51:36 GMT
My US G1 issues are in a box at my parents' house. I can look when I'm next there.
I thought the art looked like the animation model reference pictures. What do you mean by generations? The Japanese books? If I had the IDW Ark books I'd be off and running, but I don't and the G1 volume is out of print and costs a bomb. Is it available digitally?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 1, 2015 23:37:42 GMT
Yup, Genertions, the first and still best Japanese toy book.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jun 2, 2015 5:50:45 GMT
There is already an online database of all the Transformers Universe entries here: www.ntfa.net/universe/english/index.php?act=intro&cat=ABThe character models in my copy of Generations are shrunk down so many fit on a single page. The IDW Ark books are better. They contain many alternative modes and angles and Nebulans missing from Marvel's TFU, including the transformations of Omega Supreme and Divebomb, and also Swerve (but not Hubcap). I asked Bob Budiansky if there were any unpublished profiles in existence given that the US comic finished before many 1988 characters like Scorponok and most of the Terrorcons could be featured. He said no, as far as he was concerned all that remained in existence was what was published. However, as Phil points out we do have the text of his missing profiles from Volume 1 - Hubcap, Swerve, Roadbuster, Whirl and the Deluxe Insecticons. Martin |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:45:00 GMT
I was very happy to get this for my tablet computer since my original copy of the book is so tatty now.
I have the AtoZ entries of characters such as the Pretender Beasts, Xaaron et al that Ed illustrated. It shouldn't be too tricky to reformat them into the "Universe" page layout and put together a wee PDF that complements the rest of the book.
-- Graham
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 2, 2015 13:58:56 GMT
I was very happy to get this for my tablet computer since my original copy of the book is so tatty now. I have the AtoZ entries of characters such as the Pretender Beasts, Xaaron et al that Ed illustrated. It shouldn't be too tricky to reformat them into the "Universe" page layout and put together a wee PDF that complements the rest of the book. -- Graham Wooo! And welcome back! Andy |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 17:07:00 GMT
 Here's a preview of Emirate Xaaron. Text by myself, with artwork by Ed Pirrie. But to file him under "E" or "X"? Can PDF files be uploaded to the forum? The font on the JPG here is a bit pixelated; the PDF is much sharper. -- Graham |
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Post by Pinwig on Jun 2, 2015 18:55:14 GMT
Aha, I thought someone somewhere would have done something along these lines. The art for Xaaron is great, is it based on anything or just drawn in the style of the originals? The bio fits the style too. That's exactly the sort of thing I was planning to have a go at. How many profiles do you have text/art for?
In terms of files and sizes I was intending to go for 1988x3056 high res jpegs, because they'd then fit the existing digital versions of classics volume 8.
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Post by Pinwig on Jun 2, 2015 18:59:42 GMT
That's cool, but it could be improved on with search functions. For example, there could be ways to show, say, just the seekers, or all toys released in 1985, or all toys pre-movie, or all characters who don't have a G1 toy - or any other combination of different search terms. Hmm. The Generations book seems to be available for a reasonable price, but volume one of the Ark books is astronomical even for second hand. I might get hold of the Generations book and go from there. Use the images as references to draw from. Is there stuff missing from the Generations book that the Ark vol 1 has? or is it just that the Generations stuff is smaller? |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 2, 2015 19:20:23 GMT
View AttachmentHere's a preview of Emirate Xaaron. Text by myself, with artwork by Ed Pirrie. But to file him under "E" or "X"? Can PDF files be uploaded to the forum? The font on the JPG here is a bit pixelated; the PDF is much sharper. -- Graham Yes as attachments if they are less than 1mb in size. Andy |
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