Transformers Legacy: Blackout

BLACKOUT
Function: Heavy Weapons Technician
Alternate Mode: MH-53J Pave Low III

_{Strength: 8
Intelligence: 4
Speed: 5
Endurance: 9
Rank: 5
Courage:: 9
Firepower: 9
Skill: 6}

Virtually nothing is known about Blackout's background and history. Personally culled from a pool of Decepticon recruits by Megatron in the decisive twilight years of the Great War, Blackout stands as a silent, dutiful sentinel amongst the ragtag Decepticon soldiers. He is perhaps the most skilled combatant of the earthbound Decepticons, always following Megatron's orders without question, though he seems to operate out of a sense of duty rather than a relishing of wanton destruction like many of his peers. On the rare occasion that he does speak, it is never more than a few words and usually only to acknowledge an order.

Blackout is the largest and most heavily armed member of the Decepticon team. He is outfitted with a pair of back-mounted long-range mortars, abdominal flechette launchers, two repeating pulse cannons formed from the helicopter mode's engine intakes, and a particle laser disguised as the helicopter's chin-mounted refueling probe and sensor suite. The latter two weapons systems also carry over to Blackout's alternate mode, which is further outfitted with a pair of miniguns aft of the cockpit and a tail-mounted .50 cal machine gun. The chopper's main rotor assembly is mounted on Blackout's right arm in robot mode, allowing him to use it as a rotating blade weapon or as a deflective shield. Additionally, the rotor can still be used as a flight mechanism, enabling Blackout to perform controlled descents and hover for brief amounts of time, though it cannot actually generate lift in robot mode. Finally, Blackout's immense size grants him the ability to create miniature earthquakes, stunning or disorienting his enemies.

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<sub>Welp, allow me to address the elephant in the room and state that yes, Cyclonus pretty much IS movie Blackout. Right down to sharing the exact same altmode and a pretty similar transformation. I even keep calling him "Blackout" by accident. I just think "Cyclonus" is a much cooler and more appropriate name for a helicopter. I was originally planning to include more reference to his namesake Armada Cyclonus in the Legacy version, specifically the color scheme - the slate blue stayed the same, but the black was a very dark blue, the beige a richer tan color, and the chartreuse was magenta/purple. But it didn't look that great, so I decided to go with an Animated Blackout inspired theme, with chartreuse green as the "highlight" color. The green alongside the beige-y secondary color reminds me of key lime pie for some reason.

Since Cyclonus is the biggest Decepticon, I wanted him to appear big and intimidating, but in a different way than the equally imposing Bonecrusher. Bonecrusher is wide and squat, with most of his "mass" focused on his burly arms, while his legs are quite short and stubby. Cyclonus, on the other hand, carries most of his weight in his torso. He has very wide shoulders and kind of a hunchback with a recessed head, but his limbs are close to the normal length (his arms are still a bit longer than average). I'm really happy with the result. Drawing him in such a way that we're looking "up" at him, rather than eye-to-eye or above like most of the other characters, also helps him look a bit more intimidating, I think.

I must've done a million designs for his head before I got it looking how I wanted. I wanted him to have a wider, more movie-styled head than most of the other characters, but I had a really tough time getting it to look right. Especially in drawing the three-quarters view for the mugshot, I think there were two or three false starts before I landed on the version you see here.

Edit: Oh yeah, regarding the choice of the Pave Low for the vehicle mode. I actually didn't explicitly want him to have the same vehicle mode as Blackout, just to be a helicopter of some sort. It's funny, because in actuality the MH/HH-53 (which, moreover, has recently been retired in lieu of the Osprey) is a search and rescue/heavy lifter rather than a combat aircraft. I considered a few more appropriate helicopters like the Mi-24 Hind, UH-60 Blackhawk, AH-64 Apache, and CH-124 Sea King, but in spite of its function I kept coming back to the Pave Low because it's just so big and MEAN looking.

Revision Edits (2/28/14): Screw it, he's called Blackout now. Having him be so heavily based on movie Blackout but called by a different name just ended up confusing pretty much everybody, and understandably so. When I was initially planning out Legacy, I wanted the Decepticon helicopter to be named Cyclonus because I thought it was fitting for the vehicle mode and had precedent in Armada Cyclonus. However, that was before I knew he was gonna end up looking so much like Blackout. So here he is, called what he always should have been, three years late.

Oh yeah, and the other impetus for changing his name is that REAL Cyclonus is coming to Legacy Series 2. Spoiler Alert.

Absolutely no other changes were made save for adding the "schematics" in the background. I didn't put them in originally because the rotor blades of both modes were filling that space, but them NOT being there is inconsistent with the other entries, so meh.</sub>

Next Up: Wheeljack! Finally! My favorite character! What took so long?