Talk:Package art

G2 Box/Card Art Mostly Traced From G1?

I ran across the Powermaster Prime/G2 Hero art trace and it's obvious, but I'm starting to think that maybe most of if not all of the new figure card art was traced from G1 stuff. Am I crazy?

Case in point (comparing G2 instruction lineart to box art here this time):

• Crosshairs -> Turbofire (They match up near perfectly when overlaid in Photoshop, including the weird left leg)
• Blitzwing -> Rapido (Upper body, left leg, and left arm match up in overlay; pay attention to left hand on Rapido- thumb looks so odd because it's obscured on Blitzwing by sword hand guard)
• Skywarp -> Eagle Eye (Again, upper body, legs, left hand. I'm guessing the character's right side got changed to account for placement on the card by the clamshell bubble)

Those are the first few I glanced at in the last few minutes. You can kind of tell what year G1 box art the character seems to have been copied from judging by the proportions and the pose. The awkward poses are 1984-86, the more dynamic but sort of "squatty" poses are from 1987 onwards. --MCRG Again 16:16, 23 February 2010 (EST)

Beast Machines

I think... I theeeeenk... that the only instances of CGI models being used on the packaging were for the Mega toys, and they didn't actually appear on the FRONT of the boxes (Cheetor might've still been there?), but on the BACK, in the vicinity of the bio-card. I know this was definitely the case with Tankor... - Chris McFeely 00:32, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Optimus Prime

I won't argue too hard against replacing a run-of-the-mill Ordinary Joe example with the Shining Icon -- Prime's art was my first thought when I was starting this page -- but I really don't want to see this article become burdened with a ton of Optimus Prime images. Better to stick with a wide variety of characters. Also, I really liked the Rollbar art because it so aptly illustrates the exaggeration inherent in most G1 art; it'd be nice to find a home for it on this page somewhere. -- Repowers 07:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to use G1 Prime's art because it's the most well known and one of the best 1984 art. Supercon Armada Prime's art is there because it's the only neutral white background packaging art from Armada that I know of on this wiki (the other being Powerlinx Optimus Prime). As for exaggeration, I'd say that's mostly for the first half of G1. During the Masters era and there after, the standard of packaging art was quite high. --FFN 07:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Eh. Thunderwing there has about 50 joints, none of which exist on his toys. (Still not as extreme as the Throttlebots, though. At least his toy HAS joints. And feet.) -- Repowers 07:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you mean the art making the character (and thus the toy) look like they have natural joints and articulation that allows the cool posing that toys today can't even dream of doing? --FFN 07:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The movie's "computer-rendered" headshots

Do we really know those are CGI? They could very easily be paintings. --ItsWalky 18:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I was about to say. I'm pretty sure they're paintings. I'm sure the movie bots' headshots use CGI renders as a BASE, but do we really think they made CGI models of allllllll the non-movie bots' noggins? I severely doubt it. --M Sipher 18:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that was just me making an ass-umption, working from memory and without looking too carefully. I'll readily defer to your more artistically-experienced judgment. On close inspection they pretty obviously aren't the movie models. -- Repowers 18:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Links from Botch's Site; Question about mirroring

Hey hey, it's Botch. I wanted to mention that I put up a link to this page from the homepage of my Box Art Archive. In truth, I was hoping there was some way that I could mirror an edited version of the contents of this page via a feed of some sort, but I haven't found any information or utility for that yet. My hope was

• Allow people to read the history of TF box/character art without leaving my site
• Advertise this Wiki and encourage people to visit and contribute.

So if anyone has any opinions on all of this, feel free to shout them at me. -- Botch the Crab 02:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think wikia sites have any kind of feed, but I'm not the expert. It's open source, so there's nothing to stop you from reproducing the content on your page in some form or other, but that wouldn't have live updating, of course. Regardless, the link is appreciated! -- Repowers 03:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Richard Marcej

This fellow's page shows instruction sheet line art, not package art paintings. I'm gonna guess that he was copying the paintings, rather than vice versa. Anybody got facts to the contrary? -- Repowers 03:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Marcej did the line art upon which both the final box art and instruction sheet art were based. The instruction sheet renderings all appear to be simplified versions of Marcej's renderings, and the box art looks like final painted versions (with all the detail). I compared several of the character's instruction sheet art and box art against Marcej's art and what I said above seems universally the case.

As far as 'facts' (beyond what he presents on his site), Marcej even put out a small book of illustrations from his time as a Hasbro package designer. Honestly, based on the line art he's presented, I see no reason to doubt his word that he was at least the penciller/inker for all the box art I credited to him.

There was an interview with him on Seibertron.com that is currently down, but I have asked them to restore it. It's here, working or otherwise. -- Botch the Crab 02:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)