🂱 Optimus Prime "Ace of Hearts" - Digital Painting & Process

"Thrones are for Decepticons, and besides, I prefer to roll."

Optimus Prime is a Transformer from the planet Cybertron. Perhaps the most famous fictional robotic character of all time, this noble leader of the Autobots has seen his share of sacrifice. Yet even after countless battles with Megatron and his Decepticon in defense of Earth, the spark has never gone out and Optimus continues to seek a path to peace. He famously transforms into a huge truck too!

This is a digital "freehand" (no reference) illustration of about 45 bitmap layers. Standard Photoshop brushes and layer blend modes. The cards and textures I got from google and edited them to suit our needs. I also tried to preserve as many of the steps as possible for the process animation. I then made the animation in Premiere Pro CC, sped it up, rendered it as an mp4 video file and then converted it to an animated gif online (nifty!)

Category	FanArt
Medium	Photoshop
Suit	Hearts
Subject	Optimus Prime
Style	Digital Illustration

Lore

Optimus Prime was created as the last of the Thirteen, the first generation of Transformers, each created directly by Primus as a band of unique warriors to combat and defeat Unicron. Upon his creation, Optimus united the Thirteen by his greeting: "All are one." While all of the other members of the Thirteen each possessed unique abilities and artifacts, Optimus wielded no special powers or weapons. It was only through his vision and encouraging words that allowed the Thirteen to finally defeat Unicron.

tfwiki

In response to Megatron's attempts to seize the AllSpark and conquer other worlds, Optimus assumed his proper title and rallied the Autobots to stand against the Decepticons.

As obsessively as Megatron strives to achieve his objective, Optimus is equally as dedicated to stopping him even at the cost of his life, his world and - if necessary - his own people. It was on his order that the AllSpark was jettisoned into space, dooming Cybertron to a slow death and his people to a nomadic life. The sacrifices he has made weigh heavily on his spark, but they must be done for there is no other choice. He knows the ambitions that lurk in his brother's spark and they must never see the light of day. Lives must be kept free from the threat of Megatron's tyranny, no matter the cost.

transformers.wiki

Process

Here's the animated process for Optimus Prime that I made out of the individual layers:

Phew that was a fun one! This is already the third card in what seems to be developing into a little project of sorts. Let's just say I won't play my entire hand just yet.

roll out,

ZeroOoC

Draw some more cards: