Package art

Package art for Rollbar, a Throttlebot from 1987.

Throughout the life of the franchise, package art has been one of the common elements of Transformers. Though not as widely noted and celebrated as Tech Specs, it is just as enduring and iconic to the brand.

Transformers package art most often serves to portray the toy in the mode that it isn't packaged in. As most Transformers are sold in their non-robot forms, it typically shows them as robots (or whatever their equivalent primary mode is.)

Generation 1

And if you complain once more, you'll meet an army of me.

Every Transformer sold in G1 featured hand-painted artwork on the front of the package, most often showing the robot mode, with the vehicle form of the actual toy visible alongside it through a clear plastic window or bubble.

Generation 1 package art often provided a rather fictionalized version of the robot mode, showing the character in poses that were utterly impossible with the limited articulation of most G1 toys. The lower the posability, the greater the exaggeration tended to be; thus, the Throttlebots and Battlechargers were shown with jointed arms, separate legs and feet, and poseable heads, when the toys lacked all these features.

With the advent of the multiple-form Pretenders, package art began to feature several modes, often the outer shell and both modes of the inner robot. As the more complicated Pretender schemes came along, this resulted in some rather crowded package art.

Much of the late-run G1 package art was the work of Japanese illustrator Hidetsugu Yoshioka, whose work brought a dynamic and appealing style to the often blocky and simplistic toys.

A number of the original G1 paintings have appeared for sale at recent BotCons, at asking prices starting around $600 and ranging to over $1000.

Beast Wars

Beast Wars continued the painted-art standard of G1, though the artwork tended to exaggerate the beastly qualities of the robot modes. Occasional use of the mutant head feature on the early Beast Wars toys lead to some strange results on occasion.

Beast Machines

The Beast Machines toyline was the first to break with the tradition established by G1. Most packages featured the CGI-rendered robot mode of Cheetor, rather than the character whose toy was being sold. The primary exceptions to this were other characters featured in the Beast Machines show, whose CGI models were shown on their respective packages.

Robots in Disguise

Robots in Disguise restored individual character portrayals to the front of packages... but these were simply computer-enhanced photographs of the actual toys within.

Armada

With the Armada reboot, all packages recieved an identical front treatment, with no package art at all. Instead, art by Dreamwave Productions was included as a collector-card style insert inside the package. This art followed a comic book style with Photoshop coloring, rather than the hand-painted work of G1.

2007 Movie

Toys from the massive 2007 movie toyline feature a computer-rendered headshot of the character.

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.