The Art Of Paul Vromen

Many of today's most celebrated Transformers artists, people like Nick Roche, Alex Milne, Makoto Ono and Guido Guidi, started out as Transformers fan artists who made the leap to producing official artwork for comics, exclusives, conventions and even toy packaging. That is the ultimate honour and marker for success for these talented fans, and it is something that my long time friend and Dutch Transformers collector/enthusiast/artist Paul Vromen can now claim. Having recently created artwork for BotCon and Transformers Collectors Club, I am incredibly proud of my friend who provided so much free inspirational artwork for my TF-1 articles over the years. This is my tribute to his work and achievements, starting with the above artwork of Beast Wars Megatron and G.I.Joe General Hawk created for the David Kaye autograph card at BotCon 2014.

Hello Goodbye - My Buy/Sell/Trade

If you're reading this direct from the blog or Transformers Square One Facebook, then it pleases me to inform you that I have just added a buy/sell/trade page to Transformers Square One where I'll sell everything from vintage rare Diaclones to lots of modern Transformers Animated toys or original Hasbro box artwork from Hasbro artists, depending on what I need to shift at any given time, including a list of things I am still looking for. If you've been directed here from said sales page, then you already know it's there, and you're wondering why the hell you need to read a whole blog post to tell you how a sales list works. You'd be surprised. Actually, if you've been in the hobby any length of time, you probably wouldn't. Regardless, read on!

Ceji Joustra Diaclone Artwork for sale on eBay - UPDATED

For any fans of Ceji Joustra's Diaclone line, specifically the wonderful comic and box artwork that the toy line is famous for, RpChristophe (Joustra-Diaclone.com) and I have been informed by renowned artists Paul and Gaetan Brizzi that their original artwork for the "War On Diaclona" comic accompanying most Joustra Diaclone toys will be listed on eBay starting today, read on for the link.

IDW MTMTE #2 Original Cover Artwork by Alex Milne

You're looking at the original Alex Milne cover artwork used on IDW's Transformers More Than Meets The Eye issue #2 Cover A and Cover RI. This spectacular piece of artwork depicting Rodimus on the cover of just the second issue of the massively popular series has also been signed by the original artist Alex Milne himself and series writer James Roberts with one of my favourite Rodimus quotes from issue 17, "Result". I spent a number of months paying this one off and during that time I regularly questioned the sanity of the purchase considering it was in the significant hundreds. However, every time I re-read these issues from season 1 and seeing this art in the flesh, well those doubts went up in smoke like Hyperion and Polaris.

Interview on Prototypes - For Aendrel

A few months ago I was approached by Aendrel, a collector from Mexico, requesting that I provide some information about pre-production Transformers and prototypes for an interview to post on his blog. I'm usually asking others for interviews so it was a very strange experience trying to formulate answers in a way that would be informative and interesting for his readers. In fact, most of the time I think my answers consisted of "I don't know" or "I can't be sure" or "I can ask someone else"! Either way, Aendrel has now posted the interview on his excellent blog Under The Radar in Spanish, and has allowed me to share the original English language version of the interview here on Square One. Pictures are from my own archive and collection.

My Dream Collection

There are a few toy lines that have found a place in my heart throughout my time as a Transformers and pre-Transformers collector, and when I imagine what my dream collection would look like, something I could fit into a single room and be able to appreciate properly and fully in terms of quantity just by looking around, it's a pretty clear picture. It involves stuff I have now, stuff I am buying and definitely stuff I have already sold. Apologies in advance for recycled photography. 

Selling Art Is Hard

When Alternators and Binaltech were huge, I bought as much original box artwork for the Alternators toy line as I could get my hands on. Why? For investment purposes? Hell no, have you seen the artwork for Alternators? Created by Transformers comic and toy industry legends Marcelo Matere, Alex Milne and Guido Guidi amongst others, they were the lovechild of the best official TF artists around and the best looking Transformers toys we'd had in years. If I had not bought them at the time when they were offered by the artists themselves at conventions, I might have lost the chance to get them forever. Having these pieces of unobscured, full-size history was the mightiest honour and pleasure an Alternators/Binaltech fan could experience. And I loved them, and displayed them fully.