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The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Book In-Hand Review

The stunning visuals from "The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy" arrives in book form this month from VIZ Media. The book collects a vast amount of production, concept development, design, production art, and toys made for the original Netflix series and Hasbro toy lines. Thanks to VIZ who sent me this preview to share with you. I will be reviewing what fans can expect from this hardcover book by author Mike Avila, with an introduction by F.J. DeSantos.


The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Book Index


The book opens with a forward by the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Netflix series showrunner, F.J. DeSantos. The producer and fan, shares the story about his War For Cybertron came to be. Clearly passionate and grateful to work on this project, F.J. gives credit to all the work so many people put into this series to make it happen.

Chapter 1 explodes all aspects of the Trilogy from behinds scenes, starting with the origins of the War For Cybertron series. The book quotes Takashi Kamei, “One of the main themes of War For Cybertron is going back to the roots of Transformers in G1”. However, this wasn't going to be a classic feel-good cartoon for kids. They created a whole new story that takes place on a decaying Cybertron, where things have changed with the Autobot faction near collapse. The book discusses the plot choices and how the story would be told from the perspective of the characters. Additionally, we gain many insights and details about characters chosen and how they were developed for the show.


The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Concept Art


Fans raged over the G1 elements most about the series with the great designs we first saw in SIEGE. Chapter 2 of the book dives into the first part of three, each with its own sub-theme. In SIEGE we learn about the story developed that tells of an extremely dark situation on Cybertron. Reflected on many levels, it was designed into the character's mood, words, and most of all the decayed environment of Cybertron. Everything is made dim, rusted, and gritty. The book documents this process with page after page of smog filled animation stills and concept art of the landscapes and Transformers. Each of the major SIEGE characters are profiled on their own with images and notes on the designs and or CGI models. This is followed by details and views of the many locations and scenes in the show. Here we see the realization of Cybertron's world of fantastic alien architecture, going from sketch to final renders.

Earthrise is covered in Chapter 3 where we are flying through space with the characters that were set up in SIEGE. The book covers the factions, as well as outside elements such as the disparate Mercenaries and Quintessons who complicate things. The chapter digs into the complex character relationships as well, some between foes, others within factions. Megatron is at the core of this series, and we learn about his development as a leader, Optimus Prime's foe, and minion of Unicron. Optimus Prime's weaker, overly emotional characterization is discussed along with profiles on new comers such as Quntession, Doubledealer, Scorponok, Sky Lynx and the many others with character art and notes on each. Next, we go under the hood of the wonderful vehicles in Earthrise with models, designs, and specifications on the Autobots' Ark, Decepticon's Nemesis, and Mercenary Fool's Fortune. Finally, the chapter closes with journeys into the great locations of the striking Chaar, Epic Nebulon Space Station, and exotic Pastel Colony Planet.


The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy


Chapter 4 takes place on pre-historic Earth, a bizarre time trip into the dawn of a future past where timelines collide just in time for the 25th Anniversary of the BEAST WARS! This chapter looks at having characters interacting with different versions of themselves. Writer Mae Catt and others talk about how they wanted to capture many of the aspects of the 1994 TV series. Insights on how the story ideas were worked out for better, or worse, are documented. The Kingdom chapter character profiles could be some of the most interesting in the book with notes, and views on how the new robot designs were translated from old, yet updated with new more life like alternate beast modes. Not to forget the inclusion of some stellar G1 characters such as The Ark with Teletran I, and awesome adversaries Galvatron, Unicron, and Nemesis Prime. Likewise, this chapter documents the numerous locations, from deep jungles with spewing volcanoes, to temples and frozen cities. These scenes are so easy to miss in a fast moving series, this shows just how much work they put into creating the organic world of Kingdom.

Chapter 5: Worldbuilding explores the construction of the Universe the story would take place in. These pages pull back the curtain of the aesthetic development of the War For Cybertron. From the art to the visual tone of the series. Again, we see how much was developed and experimented with to arrive at the very consistent look and feel of the show. Many propaganda posters are shown along with documentation of the animation, music, planets, and a plethora of faction and military insignia that was created.


The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy


Finally, the book closes with something we don't see very often in art publications, the toys. Easy to forget, the Transformers brand was created to sell the toys. They are the lasting impression of the property long after the comics, games, and shows are done. Unfortunately, there are just a handful of pages that take us behind the scenes on how the toys became the show that sparked the War For Cybertron animated series. Show producers talk about the challenges, realizing a story that could bring it all together, incorporating ideas Hasbro had for another project, and turning it into the Netflix series. I suppose it would be redundant to reprint all the official stock toy photography, and even the full character bios, but I would have liked to seen that in very high resolution for the book as well.  


The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Toys Chapter


Overall, The Art and Making of Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy book is a stunning document of the epic series. The page after page of gorgeous art, concept design, fantastic robot design, and extensive behind the scenes insights is a deep dive into the making of an epic Transformers series. All of this is packed into a large format 11 x 9 inch, 192 page, hard cover book. Made with a glossy wrap around cover, cloth biding, and vibrant colored high quality printing. Makes this is a genuine coffee table book that will be read over and over. Mike Avila's book captures all the beauty of series without the rough acting, for a great addition to any collection. If only it had a more complete toy section, with designs and such, it would have been perfect. So I give the book 4 stars, a must-have for every transformer, and science fiction fan.

The Art and Making of Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Hardcover book will be shipping on October 11, 2022. Preorders are still open now from Amazon.com

The Art and Making of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy Book Cover

Price: $40 USD
Release: October 11, 2022
Author: Mike Avila
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Pages: 192
Weight: ‎ 1.54 pounds
Dimensions: ‎ 11 x 0.51 x 9 inches
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: ‎ 1974732509
ISBN-13 : ‎ 978-1974732500

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Last 10 comments - ( Read All Posts )
Quautobot 2022-10-06 @ 10:54 pm

Oh great, more scale charts to screw with our minds.

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