"Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts" Illustrator, Michael Michera, Shares Concept Art Of Cheetor & Nightbird

“Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” Illustrator, Michael Michera, Shares Concept Art Of Cheetor & Nightbird

Concept designer Michael Michera, who is credited as an illustrator on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts posted concept art for the characters Cheetor and Nightbird from the pre-production stage on his social media accounts and gave insights into his design decisions on those characters.
In his posts Michera had the following to say:

“I had the amazing opportunity to work on the new “TRANSFORMERS: Rise Of The Beasts” movie.
As someone who was a big fan of the original BEAST WARS series, it feels like a fulfilled dream.
I am truly grateful to those who found my art and decided that I will be a good match for this project.
I designed this version of Cheetor back in 2021. My goal was to keep the features of the correct cheetah anatomy, mix them with some characteristics of prehistoric felids such as Smilodon, and add a futuristic/biomechanical approach to it.”

“I was fortunate enough to work on the new TRANSFORMERS movie (“TRANSFORMERS: Rise Of The Beasts”) with a team of people who made the entire experience of contributing to the dream project truly remarkable. Here you can see another version of Cheetor and his beast mode in all its glory.”

“To improve the readability of some of the shapes in my 3D sketch (but also out of pure curiosity) I decided to try out various experimental materials. It took me a minute and the result looks intriguing so now you have an opportunity to see the black alternative along with the proper version of Cheetor.”

“Nightbird – “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts”.
My role here was to design one of the Terrorcons called Nightbird. I took a lot of inspiration from the original cartoon (Transformers G1 – “Enter the Nightbird”) but I also intended to add my own touch to this version of the character. I took some inspiration from nature and decided to introduce more bird-like but at the same time, I didn’t want to make them too apparent and obvious. Let’s not forget that she is first and foremost an ultimate assassin!”
“I intended to avoid making them too apparent for many reasons. One of them is Airazor – she is the best at being a bird-like machine… on the other hand, this kind of rivalry between two characters with similar features could be interesting!”

Michael Michera – Instagram

You can see Michael Michera’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts concept art in the slideshow below, or click the links below in the Sources section to see them on his social media accounts.