I talked about this in detail at the panel on Sunday, but for those of you who weren't there, I shall reveal the hidden secrets found on page 5 of the TFcon 2010 prelude comic.
http://www.tfcon.ca/gallery/TFcon-20...c/TFCon_2010_5
Originally the script called for me to draw 3 multi-dimensional portals. I put 11. I had the idea of making the contents of each portal have something to do with TFcon in some way. Some of the portals were drawn as part of the original artwork, while the rest were copied and pasted from previous images I made. Some of these are pretty obvious. Others perhaps less so. One is kind of silly.
From the top, moving left to right:
1: Bumblebee from the movie appears in honor of Mark Ryan's visit. Behind him is the Doubletree hotel.
2: Obsidian appears in honor of his designer, Marvin Mariano,, In my mind I imagine this portal not simply as a future glimpse of Beast Machines, but as an alternate world where Obsidian rules Cybertron.
3: On the next row we have artwork of Skyfire from the last page of the 2008 prelude comic.
4: Just below and to the right is Defensor punching Devestator from the 2007 prelude comic. This comic was Black and White so I added a brown tinge and a paper texture to make it look like an old faded manga.
5: Night-bird appears next, being the talk of the town for TFcon 2010.
6: Bumblebee shedding is Goldbug outer-self from the last page of the 2009 comic is here not just to acknowledge that convention, but also to acknowledge the dreaded curse that is Gold Plastic Syndrome. This is a terrible condition which claimed the shoulder of my Transmetal Megatron while transforming so I could get a better look at how to draw the character from the back. It just snapped with minimal effort and left no stress marks. I sacrificed for TFcon! I would like to find a replacement some time, preferably a Japanese one since it uses a different color plastic and is not supposed to have that problem.
7: REV from RiD appears in honor of last year's customizing class, and since I'm a RiD fan and wanted to squeeze something in there to cover pretty much all of the generations of Transformers in the comic.
8: Now on the bottom row is Slag from the 2008 comic as my shout out to the Canadian Slag podcast as well as the previous G2 Flamethrower exclusive.
9: Perceptor from the 2008 comic is there because Messum seems to love that character while I HATE drawing him so much.
10: Bombshell and Cyclonus from the 2007 comic with an added purple color for the exclusive Stealth Cyclonus Hard Hero bust.
11: And finally, we have a photograph that I took in 2006 of a certain TFcon mascot.
It's Gubermus Prime!
I applied a few default Photoshop filters just to make it stand out less as a photograph and make it blend a bit more with the illustrations. Amazingly, Guber has seen the comic but did not notice that he was in it until it was pointed out to him on Saturday night. Would have been funny if he could have been a part of the panel on Sunday.
So that's pretty much everything. And it just goes to show that all gateways of the multiverse lead to one place: TFcon!
Sayonara.