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"Understand this. So long as you stand in my way- so long as anybody stands in my way, I will respond by killing. Murder on an industrial scale. Because in the final analysis, I would happily wade across a river of corpses, chest-deep in rust and grease and engine oil, just to crush the spark of the last Autobot standing. And I would do so not simply as a means to an end, no. I'd do it, Prime, because it would give me pleasure."
—Megatron, Chaos Theory

So, at Botcon 2013 I asked for a critique from the Art God Alex Milne on my coloring for this picture:

He was awesome and gave it a good, detailed going-over. (Thank you, Sir!!!!!) He asked my which mold it was. I had not even given that a thought. He recognized it as the Don Figueroa design by the slashes on the side of the helmet. (Because he is Alex.) And thus, he told me, I had colored it too light. He also said that there should be no light on the in-facing side of Megs's helmet, because it's not facing toward us enough to throw any light back. He said he liked what I'd done with the eyes and reflectiony bits.

I took the critique gratefully, and have gone around stoked ever since because my Marker Guru (see what I did there) took time to look at what I'd done, and had pronounced it mostly good. (true story -- he did.)

But it never stopped bugging me that now I knew how to do this pic better. So finally, I had to do it.
So here you have it: this is Black Megatron, at the bottom of his I-Hate-Everyone descent.
Here's what I did to color him:
First, I laid down purple all over him: cool purple for the light surfaces (including that one side of his helmet, because it's still facing the light even though it's not throwing much back at us), and warm purple for the shadow sides. Than I came in with grays. Actually, a dark warm brown for the deep shadows, and warm or cool grays depending on whether it was shadow or light surfaces. I did the thing with the eyes again, and this time I think it came out even better. Credit for that goes to the artist, not to me so much, because she put the hints of optical structure in there in very light lines, so I knew what to do with them. I went ahead and just let everything be purpley on him, because he's got those Tron-lines of Dark Energon Purple Glowy Stuff running all through him, and I figured what the heck -- color unity.

I'm very, very pleased with how this one turned out, and am feeling quite happy that following Alex's advice yielded such good results.
The only thing I like better in the first version are the neck cables. UNF! *BITES FIST*

Let us all enjoy the irony that I was listening to talks by my church's leaders while I colored this. (I got a lot of coloring done this weekend )

Original Lineart: black-heart-spiral.deviantart.… (Once again, thank you for sharing this with me!)
There's a hint of the watermark visible in this because I forgot to take it out when I printed it, but I do have permission to color this piece. (My printer is having an "I Do Not See The Paper in The Tray" kind of day, so I just colored over the watermark. It was faint.)

Markers on cardstock

Description

"Understand this. So long as you stand in my way- so long as anybody stands in my way, I will respond by killing. Murder on an industrial scale. Because in the final analysis, I would happily wade across a river of corpses, chest-deep in rust and grease and engine oil, just to crush the spark of the last Autobot standing. And I would do so not simply as a means to an end, no. I'd do it, Prime, because it would give me pleasure."
—Megatron, Chaos Theory

So, at Botcon 2013 I asked for a critique from the Art God Alex Milne on my coloring for this picture:

He was awesome and gave it a good, detailed going-over. (Thank you, Sir!!!!!) He asked my which mold it was. I had not even given that a thought. He recognized it as the Don Figueroa design by the slashes on the side of the helmet. (Because he is Alex.) And thus, he told me, I had colored it too light. He also said that there should be no light on the in-facing side of Megs's helmet, because it's not facing toward us enough to throw any light back. He said he liked what I'd done with the eyes and reflectiony bits.

I took the critique gratefully, and have gone around stoked ever since because my Marker Guru (see what I did there) took time to look at what I'd done, and had pronounced it mostly good. (true story -- he did.)

But it never stopped bugging me that now I knew how to do this pic better. So finally, I had to do it.
So here you have it: this is Black Megatron, at the bottom of his I-Hate-Everyone descent.
Here's what I did to color him:
First, I laid down purple all over him: cool purple for the light surfaces (including that one side of his helmet, because it's still facing the light even though it's not throwing much back at us), and warm purple for the shadow sides. Than I came in with grays. Actually, a dark warm brown for the deep shadows, and warm or cool grays depending on whether it was shadow or light surfaces. I did the thing with the eyes again, and this time I think it came out even better. Credit for that goes to the artist, not to me so much, because she put the hints of optical structure in there in very light lines, so I knew what to do with them. I went ahead and just let everything be purpley on him, because he's got those Tron-lines of Dark Energon Purple Glowy Stuff running all through him, and I figured what the heck -- color unity.

I'm very, very pleased with how this one turned out, and am feeling quite happy that following Alex's advice yielded such good results.
The only thing I like better in the first version are the neck cables. UNF! *BITES FIST*

Let us all enjoy the irony that I was listening to talks by my church's leaders while I colored this. (I got a lot of coloring done this weekend )

Original Lineart: black-heart-spiral.deviantart.… (Once again, thank you for sharing this with me!)
There's a hint of the watermark visible in this because I forgot to take it out when I printed it, but I do have permission to color this piece. (My printer is having an "I Do Not See The Paper in The Tray" kind of day, so I just colored over the watermark. It was faint.)

Markers on cardstock