HOME | DD

Description
The title should read "TM2 Humanoid-Cyborg Cheetor" since really, the Beast Wars transformers are already cyborgs. A cyborg by definition simply means a being composed of both organic and artificial parts (usually mechanical parts). (and yay, my art hiatus is over!)

Alright, where to begin...
First of all, I love Cheetor. For these past ten years ever since Beast Wars first started airing on television, he's remained my second favorite character of all time, second only to Link. People who know me know I am a sucker for
the hot-headed, spunky, reckless, good-natured boy types in any fandom, and Cheetor fits that description perfectly. Probably what boosed him into second place over all the other spunky boy types was the fact that not only does he have all the qualities above, but he has a genuinely kind heart and is in fact supposed to be the fledgling hero. The difference between him and all the other 'hero' types is that you actually see him evolving, maturing, changing as a character. He starts as someone small, naive, and totally dependent on the stronger members of his team, but slowly growing and maturing to the point of having other members depend on him. I think that's what I love the most. As a testament to how big of a fan of his I am, I have six action figures of him set up in my room. The number of any other transformer action figures I have? One- Waspinator- which happened to come with the Transmetal Cheetor action figure. Which is bonus since Waspinator is my favorite predacon, so that's okay. I wouldn't have bought Waspinator if he came separately though.

Alright, my description about the picture now, since this is obviously not how one would see Cheetor in any of the Beast Wars episodes. Like many people familiar with the Beast Wars series, I've also wondered how the transformers would look if they were humanoid instead of beastly. I can't really imagine them as a complete human, since they are transformers, so I usually imagine them as a cyborg- their overall shape being humanoid, made out of flesh to an extent, but one could easily pick them apart from a crowd of normal humans and able to detect their robotic origins. Because of this, Transmetal 2 Cheetor was probably the easiest for me to imagine as a humanoid being (besides being the only one important enough to me to actually think hard about it), since his beast mode has a perfect combination of organic and mechanical parts to make it happen.

So, design. There isn't a whole lot here recycled from the Transmetal 2 form of Cheetor, but there's a few of the more important design details. First of note is his head/face plate, which is his beast form's head plating in the show. I tried replicating it very closely, allowing for some minor artistic license when it came down to details, since most of the few reference pictures I could find of TM2 Cheetor were medium-sized at the very best. I kept the red/yellow theme to his eyes, but I decided that since I wanted him to exude more 'human' than 'machine', I decided to put the whites of the eyes and leaving the color for the irises, rather than him having 'glowing' eyes from an artificial light source in his eye sockets, which would make him far too much 'machine'. Lastly, his weapon is as close to his actual weapon as I could possibly get. A detailed reference picture of Cheetor's TM2 rocket launcher in the show was impossible to find, so I had to resort to the tiny gun that comes with his action figure. Since that gun looks entirely like the plastic toy that it is, I had to use some major artistic license to get it to look decently like an actual weapon he would use, in a material that wasn't plastic and which features far more detail than a 1-1/2 inch gun could possibly have. I realize that since I haven't seen the show in ten years or so, and only had a plastic toy to help me, there's very probably a HUGE discrepancy between his actual weapon and the one featured here. But that's okay, since this isn't exactly the Cheetor we know either.

If there was a single word that summed up the overall sense and function of Cheetor, it would be 'Speed'. This is especially important in a design of Cheetor based on his TM2 form, which can travel at speeds of up to mach 2. I decided on a number of design elements to hopefully give him that sense of speed, or at least not hamper it in any way. First of all, Cheetor is long and lean- well-muscled but without bulk. This is the optimal form for a character relying heavily on speed, but it also serves to reflect his feline origins (especially the cheetah, whose muscles are well-defined, but long and flexible as opposed to stocky and compact like a larger wildcat). Cheetor also boasts a greater-than-average lower body strength, which is necessary for bursts of high-speed movement as well as prowess in jumping impressive distances and heights.
He is a skilled martial artist who specializes in a discipline focusing on using lower-body strength (similar to kick-boxing), but augments his upper-body strength by using his secondary weapons, the double-kris, in melee combat rather than relying solely on his arm strength- which is considerable in it's own right, but cannot stand up against power-based characters which are generally more common.

I decided that TM2 Humanoid Cheetor does not wear any loose fabric at all. Loose folds of clothing would only serve to drastically increase wind resistance when Cheetor moved, slowing him down. I also opted for only minor armoring in order to avoid him being slowed down with weight. His vacuum suit, which works like a second skin with only miniscule amounts of excess air between it and Cheetor's actual flesh, is not fabric, but molded out of very fine, very flexible, but durable polymer/resin-like material. Because of the nature of resin-based materials, which tend to reflect light rather than absorb it, it is well-suited for a complimentary anti-beam field, which offers moderate protection from beam/light based weapons. The suit also works fairly well to shield blade/slash attacks since those generally have lower force over a given surface area. However, the suit offers little to no protection against piercing/bullet-type weapons, as the suit's durability is simply too low to stand up to the high penetrating force these weapons apply (an attribute tributed to Tarantulus, who was a constant plague to Cheetor in the first season of Beast Wars. Tarantulus didn't use any beam/light weapons. His weapons were purely physical-based and he used bullets quite a bit).
Because of the comparative weakness of his suit (as opposed to something like metal armor, which many cyborgs not concerned with speed favor), Humanoid Cheetor's overall defense rating is quite poor. He is the most vulnerable of the four core maximals, and relies heavily on his speed and agility to avoid damage, which would be moderate at best if suffered a direct hit.

Being a cyborg, Humanoid Cheetor's fleshly muscles are complimented by internal electric circuitry which allows him to perform at super-human capacity when activated. The three external power generators (external because the heat output of these generators is more than flesh can withstand without damage) feed power to the mechanical circuitry within his muscles, allowing him to run at speeds far exceeding that of human capacity, as well as affording him great physical strength. This electrical current (referred to as 'blood' because of it's pulsing nature) also powers his primary weapon, the rocket launcher, by a plug located in the palms of Cheetor's hands. Not only is the weapon useless without the activation of the power generators, but Cheetor could not even effectively wield the immensely heavy gun without the aid of his mechanical 'muscles'. The rocket-launcher itself drains an inconvenient amount of energy from Cheetor's generators every time it's fired, as well as requiring time to recharge. For this reason, Cheetor prefers to use it only when great force is necessary or when received damage would be virtually guaranteed in close-range combat. Transmetal 2 Cheetor, contrary to his previous forms, generally prefers melee combat to long-range shoot-outs- a by-product of his more feral nature.

The double-kris are Cheetor's preferred weapons- not only because of their complete lack of power consumption, but also because they're an aid in his preferred close-range fighting style. Rather than a standard holster, Cheetor uses a magnetic-based clip which allows him to retrieve the weapons far quicker than if he was to remove them from a sheath.
Even if all of Cheetor's power generators are damaged in battle, his blades can be wielded, making them excellent secondary weapons (and in Cheetor's personal opinion, primary weapons).

A few more tidbits to note about the design. The shape of his ears and the single claw on the toes of his boots again pays tribute to his feline beast form. His freckles are primarily from his original form, which I carried over to give him his necessary youthful appearance. His goatee is from his Transmetal form. I carried it over because I just liked it.
Since the entire crown of his head as well as a large portion of his face is completely machine with no flesh whatsoever, his hair is synthetic. It's spiked upwards and swept back, a cosmetic appearance that has no real purpose other than to again help give him that sense of 'speed'. In order to achieve this look, he merely changes the protein bonds to take on a different shape (similar to how straight hair can be made curly with chemicals). In his case, he manipulates only certain portions of hair, while leaving the rest to flow naturally. His upswept hair can probably be likened to blades of grass- it has a distinct shape, and is sturdy enough to hold itself upright, but one would hardly consider it 'stiff'. In a moderate wind, Cheetor's hair does remind one of a tuft of grass being swayed by the wind, always springing back into form when the wind dies down, but flexible enough to show a force acting upon it.

The color I chose for Cheetor's power output- yellow- is for a few reasons. One, because Cheetor was primarily yellow in his original form, with yellow optics. Two, I was originally considering giving him a yellow suit with black stripes, a tribute to Bumblebee his spiritual predecessor. I felt though that a large amount of yellow would not represent his more mature TM2 form as much as it would his original form.Thus I inverted the colors, giving him yellow stripes (which are actually just transparent circuitry filled with yellow-colored energy), and a darkest-brown suit, because not only would a black suit blend far too much in with the background, but it has also been far too overdone (yes, I realize that darkest brown isn't that far removed from black).
Three, because to me, the four core maximals (Optimus, Rhinox, Cheetor and Rattrap) maintain properties which can be likened to a certain earthly element, and which also coincides with their primary colors. It goes like this:

Optimus = blue, element of water. The sustainer of life, but also the most destructive, most powerful of all the elements. Life flourishes where water is found, but who can hold back the crushing tsunami? What can consume the ocean?

Rhinox = green, element of earth. Fortitude, strength and stability- a comfort to the land-dweller who depends on it; but if the earth quakes, the ones in its midst are terrified.

Rattrap - red, element of fire. A small spark can grow into the largest inferno. The undetected flame spreads, causing destruction wherever it goes, consuming those who have not been forewarned.

Cheetor - yellow, element of air. The power of the winds, the hurricane and tornado- who can command them? Who can control them? It comes and goes where it pleases, an unpredictable force that cannot be tamed.

Because of Humanoid Cheetor's lack of, well, 'cheetah-ness', I find that the French version of his name much more suits his human-like form, and as such, I will use it to refer to him in this form from now on. Velocitor Ah, what an appropriate name.

Maybe I should have written a novel.

Description
The title should read "TM2 Humanoid-Cyborg Cheetor" since really, the Beast Wars transformers are already cyborgs. A cyborg by definition simply means a being composed of both organic and artificial parts (usually mechanical parts). (and yay, my art hiatus is over!)

Alright, where to begin...
First of all, I love Cheetor. For these past ten years ever since Beast Wars first started airing on television, he's remained my second favorite character of all time, second only to Link. People who know me know I am a sucker for
the hot-headed, spunky, reckless, good-natured boy types in any fandom, and Cheetor fits that description perfectly. Probably what boosed him into second place over all the other spunky boy types was the fact that not only does he have all the qualities above, but he has a genuinely kind heart and is in fact supposed to be the fledgling hero. The difference between him and all the other 'hero' types is that you actually see him evolving, maturing, changing as a character. He starts as someone small, naive, and totally dependent on the stronger members of his team, but slowly growing and maturing to the point of having other members depend on him. I think that's what I love the most. As a testament to how big of a fan of his I am, I have six action figures of him set up in my room. The number of any other transformer action figures I have? One- Waspinator- which happened to come with the Transmetal Cheetor action figure. Which is bonus since Waspinator is my favorite predacon, so that's okay. I wouldn't have bought Waspinator if he came separately though.

Alright, my description about the picture now, since this is obviously not how one would see Cheetor in any of the Beast Wars episodes. Like many people familiar with the Beast Wars series, I've also wondered how the transformers would look if they were humanoid instead of beastly. I can't really imagine them as a complete human, since they are transformers, so I usually imagine them as a cyborg- their overall shape being humanoid, made out of flesh to an extent, but one could easily pick them apart from a crowd of normal humans and able to detect their robotic origins. Because of this, Transmetal 2 Cheetor was probably the easiest for me to imagine as a humanoid being (besides being the only one important enough to me to actually think hard about it), since his beast mode has a perfect combination of organic and mechanical parts to make it happen.

So, design. There isn't a whole lot here recycled from the Transmetal 2 form of Cheetor, but there's a few of the more important design details. First of note is his head/face plate, which is his beast form's head plating in the show. I tried replicating it very closely, allowing for some minor artistic license when it came down to details, since most of the few reference pictures I could find of TM2 Cheetor were medium-sized at the very best. I kept the red/yellow theme to his eyes, but I decided that since I wanted him to exude more 'human' than 'machine', I decided to put the whites of the eyes and leaving the color for the irises, rather than him having 'glowing' eyes from an artificial light source in his eye sockets, which would make him far too much 'machine'. Lastly, his weapon is as close to his actual weapon as I could possibly get. A detailed reference picture of Cheetor's TM2 rocket launcher in the show was impossible to find, so I had to resort to the tiny gun that comes with his action figure. Since that gun looks entirely like the plastic toy that it is, I had to use some major artistic license to get it to look decently like an actual weapon he would use, in a material that wasn't plastic and which features far more detail than a 1-1/2 inch gun could possibly have. I realize that since I haven't seen the show in ten years or so, and only had a plastic toy to help me, there's very probably a HUGE discrepancy between his actual weapon and the one featured here. But that's okay, since this isn't exactly the Cheetor we know either.

If there was a single word that summed up the overall sense and function of Cheetor, it would be 'Speed'. This is especially important in a design of Cheetor based on his TM2 form, which can travel at speeds of up to mach 2. I decided on a number of design elements to hopefully give him that sense of speed, or at least not hamper it in any way. First of all, Cheetor is long and lean- well-muscled but without bulk. This is the optimal form for a character relying heavily on speed, but it also serves to reflect his feline origins (especially the cheetah, whose muscles are well-defined, but long and flexible as opposed to stocky and compact like a larger wildcat). Cheetor also boasts a greater-than-average lower body strength, which is necessary for bursts of high-speed movement as well as prowess in jumping impressive distances and heights.
He is a skilled martial artist who specializes in a discipline focusing on using lower-body strength (similar to kick-boxing), but augments his upper-body strength by using his secondary weapons, the double-kris, in melee combat rather than relying solely on his arm strength- which is considerable in it's own right, but cannot stand up against power-based characters which are generally more common.

I decided that TM2 Humanoid Cheetor does not wear any loose fabric at all. Loose folds of clothing would only serve to drastically increase wind resistance when Cheetor moved, slowing him down. I also opted for only minor armoring in order to avoid him being slowed down with weight. His vacuum suit, which works like a second skin with only miniscule amounts of excess air between it and Cheetor's actual flesh, is not fabric, but molded out of very fine, very flexible, but durable polymer/resin-like material. Because of the nature of resin-based materials, which tend to reflect light rather than absorb it, it is well-suited for a complimentary anti-beam field, which offers moderate protection from beam/light based weapons. The suit also works fairly well to shield blade/slash attacks since those generally have lower force over a given surface area. However, the suit offers little to no protection against piercing/bullet-type weapons, as the suit's durability is simply too low to stand up to the high penetrating force these weapons apply (an attribute tributed to Tarantulus, who was a constant plague to Cheetor in the first season of Beast Wars. Tarantulus didn't use any beam/light weapons. His weapons were purely physical-based and he used bullets quite a bit).
Because of the comparative weakness of his suit (as opposed to something like metal armor, which many cyborgs not concerned with speed favor), Humanoid Cheetor's overall defense rating is quite poor. He is the most vulnerable of the four core maximals, and relies heavily on his speed and agility to avoid damage, which would be moderate at best if suffered a direct hit.

Being a cyborg, Humanoid Cheetor's fleshly muscles are complimented by internal electric circuitry which allows him to perform at super-human capacity when activated. The three external power generators (external because the heat output of these generators is more than flesh can withstand without damage) feed power to the mechanical circuitry within his muscles, allowing him to run at speeds far exceeding that of human capacity, as well as affording him great physical strength. This electrical current (referred to as 'blood' because of it's pulsing nature) also powers his primary weapon, the rocket launcher, by a plug located in the palms of Cheetor's hands. Not only is the weapon useless without the activation of the power generators, but Cheetor could not even effectively wield the immensely heavy gun without the aid of his mechanical 'muscles'. The rocket-launcher itself drains an inconvenient amount of energy from Cheetor's generators every time it's fired, as well as requiring time to recharge. For this reason, Cheetor prefers to use it only when great force is necessary or when received damage would be virtually guaranteed in close-range combat. Transmetal 2 Cheetor, contrary to his previous forms, generally prefers melee combat to long-range shoot-outs- a by-product of his more feral nature.

The double-kris are Cheetor's preferred weapons- not only because of their complete lack of power consumption, but also because they're an aid in his preferred close-range fighting style. Rather than a standard holster, Cheetor uses a magnetic-based clip which allows him to retrieve the weapons far quicker than if he was to remove them from a sheath.
Even if all of Cheetor's power generators are damaged in battle, his blades can be wielded, making them excellent secondary weapons (and in Cheetor's personal opinion, primary weapons).

A few more tidbits to note about the design. The shape of his ears and the single claw on the toes of his boots again pays tribute to his feline beast form. His freckles are primarily from his original form, which I carried over to give him his necessary youthful appearance. His goatee is from his Transmetal form. I carried it over because I just liked it.
Since the entire crown of his head as well as a large portion of his face is completely machine with no flesh whatsoever, his hair is synthetic. It's spiked upwards and swept back, a cosmetic appearance that has no real purpose other than to again help give him that sense of 'speed'. In order to achieve this look, he merely changes the protein bonds to take on a different shape (similar to how straight hair can be made curly with chemicals). In his case, he manipulates only certain portions of hair, while leaving the rest to flow naturally. His upswept hair can probably be likened to blades of grass- it has a distinct shape, and is sturdy enough to hold itself upright, but one would hardly consider it 'stiff'. In a moderate wind, Cheetor's hair does remind one of a tuft of grass being swayed by the wind, always springing back into form when the wind dies down, but flexible enough to show a force acting upon it.

The color I chose for Cheetor's power output- yellow- is for a few reasons. One, because Cheetor was primarily yellow in his original form, with yellow optics. Two, I was originally considering giving him a yellow suit with black stripes, a tribute to Bumblebee his spiritual predecessor. I felt though that a large amount of yellow would not represent his more mature TM2 form as much as it would his original form.Thus I inverted the colors, giving him yellow stripes (which are actually just transparent circuitry filled with yellow-colored energy), and a darkest-brown suit, because not only would a black suit blend far too much in with the background, but it has also been far too overdone (yes, I realize that darkest brown isn't that far removed from black).
Three, because to me, the four core maximals (Optimus, Rhinox, Cheetor and Rattrap) maintain properties which can be likened to a certain earthly element, and which also coincides with their primary colors. It goes like this:

Optimus = blue, element of water. The sustainer of life, but also the most destructive, most powerful of all the elements. Life flourishes where water is found, but who can hold back the crushing tsunami? What can consume the ocean?

Rhinox = green, element of earth. Fortitude, strength and stability- a comfort to the land-dweller who depends on it; but if the earth quakes, the ones in its midst are terrified.

Rattrap - red, element of fire. A small spark can grow into the largest inferno. The undetected flame spreads, causing destruction wherever it goes, consuming those who have not been forewarned.

Cheetor - yellow, element of air. The power of the winds, the hurricane and tornado- who can command them? Who can control them? It comes and goes where it pleases, an unpredictable force that cannot be tamed.

Because of Humanoid Cheetor's lack of, well, 'cheetah-ness', I find that the French version of his name much more suits his human-like form, and as such, I will use it to refer to him in this form from now on. Velocitor Ah, what an appropriate name.

Maybe I should have written a novel.