Rare, never-before-seen concept material from years past
Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2023 10:39 pmA few days ago, the Facebook pages for both BotCon and their former merchandise partner Night Shining, Inc. posted never-before-seen concept material from years past.
The first is a pitch that was made by Fun Publications back in 2010 for a sort of Rescue Bots type spinoff of G.I. Joe, called "Adventure Team", with art provided by Evan Gauntt.
The second is the earliest concept PDF for what would ultimately become Transformers: Prime, laying out the earliest intentions and goals for what fans would term the "Aligned Continuity", unifying video games, novels, comics, cartoons, packaging blurbs, and web content into one conglomerated universe.
At this point, the movies and G1 were still the biggest influences. Animated's influence had not yet been added to the mix, while Revenge of the Fallen was the most recent source of influence.
Much of the artwork in this pitch was made for the "Binder of Revelation", the production bible that served as the creative backbone of the Aligned Continuity. While none of these designs actually made it into the final version of Transformers: Prime, several of these pieces made it into the books Transformers: The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe and Transformers: The Covenant of Primus.
Some more concepts, this time from the BotCon Facebook yet again.
In 2021, one year before BotCon would return in its current iteration, it was originally planned for it to return that year instead of 2022, but the continuing pandemic pushed those plans back a year. But because it was supposed to return in 2021, the first BotCon exclusive toy since 2016 was produced and released online during that year: Wasp Raider.
Produced by Valaverse as part of their Action Force line, Wasp Raider was a direct homage to Waspinator from Beast Wars, and was supposed to be the first of three such figures, but was the only one to see release.
Now, we have pics of two more Beast Wars-homage concepts for Valaverse's Action Force, Aracknid (Blackarachnia homage) and Scale Face (Dinobot homage).
Additionally, Night Shining, Inc. has also posted to Facebook a whole slew of prototype designs for the Beast Wars toyline's second-year packaging.
Some of these designs are pretty close to what we got back in 1997, while others are wholly different from anything we've ever seen before.
Many feature the name "Dragonfire", which was a preliminary name for the Predacon Jetstorm. The use of both Maximal and Predacon labels for him were likely just to demonstrate the differences between Maximal and Predacon packaging variants. The cross sells on the back even show that certain figures didn't even have proper names yet at all.
The first is a pitch that was made by Fun Publications back in 2010 for a sort of Rescue Bots type spinoff of G.I. Joe, called "Adventure Team", with art provided by Evan Gauntt.
An internal pitch that was made to Hasbro back in the mid 2010’s. With the brand having direction issues, the current team at Night Shining (who use to work for the official G.I.Joe licensee) made this pitch. It brought together 1970’s Adventure Team G.I. Joe with the concept of the 1980’s ARAH. This concept was pitched as a mix of appeal to the Rescue Bots and Transformers Prime audience. Basically, what cartoons use to be in the 80’s!
Obviously it was not used by Hasbro, but what do you think? Would something like this have been a hit? A young Cobra Commander, Destro, and Baroness? Future G.I. Joe’s making weekly guest appearances? Guess we’ll never know. (And never knowing is… the other half of the battle?)
The amazing art for the pitch was done by Evan ZeroMayhem
The second is the earliest concept PDF for what would ultimately become Transformers: Prime, laying out the earliest intentions and goals for what fans would term the "Aligned Continuity", unifying video games, novels, comics, cartoons, packaging blurbs, and web content into one conglomerated universe.
At this point, the movies and G1 were still the biggest influences. Animated's influence had not yet been added to the mix, while Revenge of the Fallen was the most recent source of influence.
Much of the artwork in this pitch was made for the "Binder of Revelation", the production bible that served as the creative backbone of the Aligned Continuity. While none of these designs actually made it into the final version of Transformers: Prime, several of these pieces made it into the books Transformers: The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe and Transformers: The Covenant of Primus.
NEVER BEFORE SEEN concepts for the series Transformers: Prime! (August 2009 WIP - Not Final)
It’s been 13 years since Transformers Prime debuted. For better or worse, this franchise was the series intent on transitioning the characters from the big screen to the small.
Like many media projects, the initial idea is often somewhat to quite different than what is finally seen on the screen.
So, with that seems now is the perfect time to show off a little something we have been holding on to for the last 14 years - The original official working pdf pitch for what would eventually be known as Transformers: Prime. The series had a working title of ‘Robots in Disguise’ and as you will see, the design and character selection was initially much more aligned with the live action movies.
So take a look! We are showing off around 20 pages of the pdf here. Some amazing never before seen looks at the Prime series!
Some more concepts, this time from the BotCon Facebook yet again.
In 2021, one year before BotCon would return in its current iteration, it was originally planned for it to return that year instead of 2022, but the continuing pandemic pushed those plans back a year. But because it was supposed to return in 2021, the first BotCon exclusive toy since 2016 was produced and released online during that year: Wasp Raider.
Produced by Valaverse as part of their Action Force line, Wasp Raider was a direct homage to Waspinator from Beast Wars, and was supposed to be the first of three such figures, but was the only one to see release.
Now, we have pics of two more Beast Wars-homage concepts for Valaverse's Action Force, Aracknid (Blackarachnia homage) and Scale Face (Dinobot homage).
As you may have heard, our partner Night Shining is closing up shop at the end of the year. With only 10 days left in 2023, we thought we’d take a look at some of the other TF inspired exclusives they had planned/proposed.
First up. The Action Force BotCon exclusive Wasp Raider. This was the FIRST new BotCon exclusive in nearly 5 years when BC Productions acquired the BotCon trademark. Produced by Night Shining, the thought was to actually do THREE BW homages.
Wasp Raider (Inspired by Waspinator)
Aracknid (working name) - a Blackarachnia inspired toy
Scale Face (working name) - a Dinobot inspired toy.
Despite Wasp Raider being one of Action Forces most popular releases, and doing extremely well for Night Shining having sold out completely, for whatever reason Valaverse decided just to keep all their releases in house. A shame for sure. But it’s always good to see the BotCon brand expanded out in to other fandoms, at retail, and in homages such a Gridman. So for that, we can say we are happy that this item got released and is out there for BotCon fans to enjoy!
Additionally, Night Shining, Inc. has also posted to Facebook a whole slew of prototype designs for the Beast Wars toyline's second-year packaging.
Some of these designs are pretty close to what we got back in 1997, while others are wholly different from anything we've ever seen before.
Many feature the name "Dragonfire", which was a preliminary name for the Predacon Jetstorm. The use of both Maximal and Predacon labels for him were likely just to demonstrate the differences between Maximal and Predacon packaging variants. The cross sells on the back even show that certain figures didn't even have proper names yet at all.
Another fun little "never before seen" update. Concepts for Beast Wars series 2? Series 3? Packaging from way back in the day. Some of these are pretty wild. These are scans of the concept proof cards we use to have, but have all been long since sold minus a couple. What is your favorite design?
