Anibots by Kishiaku

The Anibots were an Autobot combiner team described in early drafts of The Transformers: The Movie scripts. This unit of wild, robotic animals dwelt in the Roboto-Zoo portion of Autobot City, seemingly created by Wheeljack to act as a desperation deterrent in times of crisis. When threatened the Anibots can combine into a gigantic, monstrous form called Dragon-Beast.

Although the sub-group never made it into the final film, the idea of a band of predatory hunter animals turned up the following year in Season 3 of the TV series as the Predacons, a Decepticon combiner team. In the draft written by Ron Friedman, dated April 27th 1985, no alternative modes are described for the Anibots. Instead the team are characterised as beasts of lower-order intelligence - Wheeljack's pets essentially. Unlike the humanoid modes the Predacons feature, these pieces by Kishiaku embrace this apparent lack of sentience by conceptualising the Anibots as being able to shift back and forth between vehicle and animal modes.

Concept Prime

This is an Optimus Prime I can get behind! Although colour correct, the Optimus Prime seen in the Michael Bay Transformers flicks is calibrated with male ideal dimensions. He's all tight waist, and booming chest. A truck cab vanished into fracturing layers of mechanical musculature. The design stresses organic, I'd prefer something a little more blocky, like the above idea. This design has playset flavours; the body armour synchronicity between Optimus Prime and his usually useless trailer compartment recalls the God Ginrai draft of the outline from Transformers: Super-God Masterforce. Head on over to Massive Black's blog for more anime slanted Prime conceptions, including a few spikey enough to resemble Evangelions.