Transformers Animated - Blog Posts
Transformers and Female Body Types (Rant/Essay)
(I wanted more images in this, but tumblr has a limit and it was a lot of pictures anyway)
Anyone who complains about female transformers having “robot boobs” needs to shut up. Unless it’s a case of critiquing a design that’s genuinely caricatured, this complaint only serves to protest against robots looking too feminine, as if all robots by default should have broad, masculine shoulders and flat chests instead. The problem is that people look at a masculine transformer and say, “Ah yes, an anthropomorphised robot.” But the moment it’s one of the female transformers, it’s “why do robots need boobs?” as if a male-looking body type is anthropomorphizing, but a female-looking body time is suddenly “too human” or “too much.” As if all humanoid robot aliens should look male by default.
That being said, for a long time transformers did have a glaring issue of their female transformers having a generic, Barbie-doll like body type. This especially became problematic as male characters appeared with several different and varying heights and builds, while female characters all looked the same.
This eventually improved with newer media. I’m going to go through different transformers series, giving my opinions on various female Cybertronians designs.
Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime are the cases where we see the very few female characters that there are being designed with this more Barbie doll look, especially in comparison to the male cast, who each have strikingly different silhouettes. I maintain that there’s nothing wrong with having this stereotypically feminine figure as long as it’s not caricatured or designed to sxualize the character (in TFA’s case, Black Airachnid was extremely sexualized, but Arcee wasn’t at least) it’s just the lack of variety that makes it painful. If all female characters were designed with a stocky, square body type, it would be just as bad; the problem is the lack of diversity in representing how each woman is different.
I think Arcee from Transformers Prime gets some of the most comments about how she has breasts and hips and is most often faced with the question “why should robots have boobs?” In response to this question, I propose: why shouldn’t they? The shape of their chassis really doesn’t matter in the end. I like Arcee’s design and acting like she’s inherently caricatured for looking like a woman is just a way of alienating femininity.
TFP Arcee is also unfortunately sexualized a lot by the fandom. Primus forbid a woman exist in peace.
The problem with these ‘Barbie doll’ designs isn’t that they are oversexualized— while this may have been a problem with Black Airachnia, the true problem, as seen especially with the treatment of TFP Arcee, is the concept that any female body traits are inherently sexual, which both creators and fandom spaces feed into.
It’s not as prominent, but I’ve also seen a trend of attempting to give female transformers more diverse body types by giving them… male body types.
In Transformers Cyberverse, the Seekers all have the same body type, whether they are male, female, or genderfluid, the only differences being that the female models have lips and the male ones have facial-hair like chin stubs (and Acid Storm switches back and forth). However I would hardly call this progress, because the body type is more male-leaning, not truly gender neutral.
Often to make something appear gender neutral, people will just remove anything too obviously feminine. This treats masculine traits as the “default” and female traits as a deviance from this. A truly gender-neutral design would incorporate both masculine and feminine traits at the same time.
(What if we just made all the Seekers look like women and gave the dudes chins. What if we did that. Huh.)
Shadowstriker from Cyberverse is a better example of this, having a female body type but a chin stub and generally gender neutral face.
I like the look of Alpha Strike as well, she feels actually gender neutral and isn’t too exaggerated like most muscular (and especially muscular female) characters are.
For example, Clobber’s design is good, but I do think her lips were strangely exaggerated.
Once the IDW run of the Transformers comics actually introduced female characters, they eventually gained a large cast with a variety of different body types. Take Windblade, Nautica, Pyra Magna, the Mistress of Flame, and Aileron.
These aren’t all examples, but IDW certainly had a unique design for each of their female characters, with different heights, width, mixing and matching the proportions of their bodies and displaying diverse body types. Aileron is also a stand-out character design for me, as one of the few heavy-set transformers to be designed in a way that looks more rounded than bulky, implying weight over muscle. We need more weighted transformers in general.
I have many positive feelings about Transformers Earthspark’s choice of character design for their female characters.
Earthspark has the most consistently diverse character design for its female characters.
And it shows that the key to designing actually good female Cybertronians isn’t necessarily to make them not feminine, but to show diverse depictions of femininity. All of the female characters in this show are pretty feminine, but they all look different. Twitch is small and slight, Hashtag is tall and boxy. Each one has different proportions and are easy to tell apart by body type alone. Even better, they each have drastically different facial structures. Twitch has large eyes, Hashtag has a strong chin, Elita-1 has a straight nose and pronounced lips, Arcee has small eyes and a very slight nose, et cetera. Earthspark is definitely a win in this department.
My point with all of this is to say that femininity isn’t a one-size fits all. Every woman is different and everyone should get to express their gender in whatever way they see fit. Transformers gradually diversifying the look of their female characters represents this, and I hope they continue improving as the franchise continues.
I had drawn this TFA bumblebee a while back (before the human episode happened) and thought I'd share before I do a possible redesign! :D
This design is meant to be cohesive with the g1 design I made for Bee so I'm not sure what I'll change but eh
(Love the gremlin that tfa bumblebee is! He's so me fr)
我狠狠速摸，是08bumble prime主角漫画我们有救了
今年又是推出wasp官方玩具又是我昨天刚画私设领袖if线beewasp就出bumble prime漫画预告，今年就是为了我快乐的一年，我已经爽死了蛤蛤蛤蛤蛤🥰🥰🥰🥰
The dark lore of transformers animated
TFA Slipstream
even flow ~
more meme art with tfa Bee and @bombstaticz oc Radiochatter
fuck around find out
she about to pounce
breaking: local german decpticon has lost his mind
TFA Blitzwing doodle
Noticed this mf only two years after watching and rewatching TFA
Finally I finished this!! YIPPEE!!! I’m so happy with it too!!
I’ll give you a lil hint as context for this >:3 megatron found out about bee and blitz, and now he’s gonna find out about bee being a vamp mid fight
Local firefighter and his goth gf
my take on tfa knockout...and kobd
edit: go here to see my alternate take
Hi I love this little face so much
Hi! You have been visited by the Blitzwing of “Bad Ideas”!
Feeling your impulses taking over? Go for it. Blitzwing will be the frat boy that encourages you and gets you IN these situations, but will also help get you OUT!
Hey, y’all remember that time the Autobots huddled up to plan cause they were getting their entire asses beat and Blitzwing just fuckin stood there posin’?
Honestly one of my favourite moments in the show; top three at least! Only Blitzwing would be like “yo FUCK Megatron, I wanna see how hard these bitches can HIT ME!!!”
And then the good Boi turns Bad Boi™️
Love me this antler assassin. I was debating giving him shapeshifting powers, considering he’s a spy and the lore of the show, but I really liked the idea that he uses his real face when infiltrating and instead uses his power to shadow himself and create the “Shockwave” persona.
Him also being more robotic than human adds to his duplicitous nature and makes him more intimidating. That and I genuinely love how he looks as a robot and wanted to translate as much of that as possible in his human form.
Happy Happy Halloween!!
And my birthday, which will also be on 31st weewoo
Decided to post the doodle earlier to leave some more time for celebration !
bee what the fuck, hes gonna die whyd u do that
What happens when I draw with my fingers
(I forgot my digital pen at the time))
Brace my finger drawn cringe in its full glory
Bonus normal art
