Transformers Legacy: Arcee

ARCEE
Function: Sharpshooter/Navigator
Alternate Mode: Kawasaki Ninja 250R

_{Strength: 3
Intelligence: 6
Speed: 7
Endurance: 4
Rank: 4
Courage: 6
Firepower: 6
Skill: 7}

Arcee grew up on the exploratory starship Axalon, captained by her father Kup. She spent much of her youth hopping from planet to planet, barely given enough time to take in all the wonders and dangers of each world before being whisked off to the next. Frequently left to her own devices while the “adults” were off somewhere on an away mission, Arcee kept herself busy by exploring the insides of the Axalon and whatever wilderness the planet offered, as well as performing target practice on oil barrels and hapless petro-rabbits. She continues her father’s legacy on the Ark, acting as the ship’s navigator, though she still clings to her adventurous spirit and is just as much at home in the heat of battle. Despite being one of the younger crew members of the Ark, her skill and intellect earn her a great deal of respect from her peers, which she often utilizes to come to the defense of her friend Bumblebee.

Because of her youth, small size, and gender, Arcee is frequently underestimated by the Decepticons. This is an ill-advised notion, however, as Arcee is actually one of the most capable warriors on the Autobot team. Trained with a weapon since youth, Arcee's weapon of choice is a long-range energon crossbow. Her years of target shooting have granted her impeccable aim; if given the opportunity she could (and probably would) shoot a hapless Decepticon’s head clear off from a distance of many kilometers. She is no slouch in close-quarters combat either; her small size lends her unmatched agility and athleticism, and she has been trained in a variety of martial arts techniques by Jazz and Mirage.

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<sub>Okay, gonna make this one quick. Arcee's vehicle mode is obviously based on her Energon/first Movie incarnation, rather than the G1/Animated "futuristic car" version. The first motorcycle model I could think of was the Kawasaki Ninja (because I remember the commercial for the RC (Arcee!) version of it playing ALL THE TIME when I was a kid) and I thought the engine cowling (is that what's it's called? I don't know) looked like a lower leg, so I ran with it. That's really all there is to say about it, I just thought a motorcycle was more interesting than another car. It also means her robot mode is BARELY larger than a human, so she's utterly dwarfed by even Optimus, let alone some of the Decepticons. Yeah, I'm starting to see why mass-shifting is sort of a necessity.

I really didn't want to make her pink/purple. Her vehicle mode was originally going to be orange and bone-white, sort of like a creamsicle crotchrocket, but it just wasn't working. I tried various warm shades ranging from red to deep purple and the best range I found was from a sort of magenta to the reddish-purple you see here. I was really concerned about making Arcee a character beyond being "THE GIRL", which I hope I accomplished in the bio, but the pink isn't helping that. But then, there are plenty of other robots who will be orange or purple, so I guess it's a semi-unique color at least. And I guess it works alright on a motorcycle, a car not so much.

The transformation's pretty simple, with the portion around and behind the seat becoming the crossbow. The front wheels splits in half a la Movie Arcee's back (I think? Don't have it in front of me) wheel, and then the rear wheel splits in half the other way, with both halves ending up behind her shoulders. What you can't see here is how the windshield folds up, since her arm's covering it. Speaking of which, the half-fuel tanks (again, I'm assuming that's what they are, I knoew nothing about motorcycle anatomy) forming the shoulder armor was sort of an unintentional homage to G1 Arcee's shoulder-cowlings.

Her head is more or less original; the mohawk thing is lifted from G1 Arcee, but I added the visor and exhaust-ears because I thought it made her less stereotypically girly, I dunno.

Oh, one last thing, the holo-rider. Not sentient and its only purpose is to help with blending in, since a motorcycle driving around on its own is a lot more conspicuous than an automobile doing so (and I figure they'll have tinted windows anyway). Also it can be turned off. Her jacket is a very very obscure homage to human-Arcee's outfit in the G1 episode "Only Human", with the white replaced with black. We'll be seeing a holo-driver again with (for example) Mirage, who's a Formula 1 race car with an exposed driver.

That's it, really. I sort of rushed this one out the door so I'm not 100% happy with some stuff, particularly the robot mode's linework. I'm probably going to go back and touch these up at some point anyway.

Revision edits (1/13/2014): New art, obviously. Arcee's new art has been the single biggest roadblock in finishing off the Legacy revisions and starting up Series 2, so updates should finally be a little faster coming out now. I've NEVER been happy with the shitty proportions and sloppy linework of Arcee's original illustration, and this is the culmination of like my third or fourth attempt at drawing a replacement. I kept getting frustrated at previous attempts because I was just having a hell of a time drawing her in an "aiming" pose that was still dynamic looking (the one thing I think the original illustration did well). Eventually I just said fuck it and did a different but still appropriate pose, and even then I had to use a model (EVA-00) to capture it well. Arcee's made up of a bunch of oddly shaped, oddly curved panels that are super hard to draw, on top of the fact that it was difficult to keep her looking lithe and "feminine" with all the kibble. But it's done now, and I'm extremely happy with the result. I think the only remaining Legacy character that might need new art is Thundercracker, and even then it's a minor redraw (like Soundwave was) as opposed to from-scratch (like Bonecrusher and Arcee). I think Mirage's illustration is a little boring, but well-drawn enough that I'll probably leave it as-is.

ANYWAY. She also gets a slightly updated design, although it isn't as drastic as I thought it'd be originally. Mostly she just gets a new head since I always felt like the old design was a bit rushed. Minor changes include the fact that the back wheel now splits in half longitudinally (instead of along its circumference) to form the "wings", and the front wheel halves rest on the front of her shins instead of the back. Some of the interior parts of the foot also get less nonsensical detailing. Her main pink color gets changed to a slightly redder (rather than purpley) shade, and the lighter pink from the original gets replaced with white. Her robot arms also receive some slight changes in color layout. The vehicle mode retains most of the original linework, but has been redrawn to face left (for some reason the old version had it facing right - the only one in all of Legacy to do so, and for reasons unknown). The holo-rider was redrawn for better anatomy/perspective but it's barely noticeable, although she does get a new, more accurate helmet.

Edit: Whoops, forgot to mention that I changed Arcee's dad from Alpha Trion to Kup. The reason for this is, since I originally wrote this, Alpha Trion has been retconned as one of the original Thirteen Transformers, making him a multiversal singularity and sort of a demigod. Since Legacy (willingly) belongs to that multiverse, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Alpha Trion to be dicking around on a spaceship and having kids when he has more important matters to tend to. So I picked a different old dude. Neither will be getting an entry; they only exist in flavor text, so it's not going to have much influence on anything.</sub>

Next up: Bonecrusher! The first (more or less) original character in Legacy. But he's not coming for a while! I'll be on a much needed vacation the next two weeks so we're probably looking at close to a month before the next update (not that I've been averaging much less than that lately). Hopefully I'll have some time to flesh out more designs while I'm on break, which might result in slightly faster updates for a while, but probably not! Oh also instructions are gonna have to wait a bit longer still, sorry.