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In a way Bee Line is Sister City's
"miracle baby." Unfamiliar with Predacon DNA scanning, the
Autobot technicians were not able to re-sequence baby Bee Line
in time. Instead, they reworked her alternate form into a vehicle.
She still bears much resemblance to one of Queen Waspira's drones but she is her own robot and proud of her uniqueness. She is loyal to the Autobot cause but wears "bee stinger" earrings to remind herself where she came from and what she went thru.
Quite a scrapper. She's been through the toughest of times and she's grown strong through it all.
Transforms into a bright yellow (new) Volkswagen bug.
Her primary functions as a courier keeps her pretty much on the streets. In Sister City or in an earthen metropolis, she's buzzing around carrying her small packets to various locations.
She enjoys her little excursions. She loves driving and being amongst the locals. She beats her little horn when she sees another VW bug.
While she doesn't have a GPS tracking unit with in her (for security reasons), she can tap into GPS satellites for positioning or if she needs a map. But with her tremendous sense of direction (no doubt from her Predacon instincts) she hardly needs to address her maps.
Bee Line still has Predacon recognition protocols built into her making her the perfect spy. She can change her identification signal to either Predacon or Autobot at will. Equipped with a bumble bee (the literal insect) Pretender shell, she can slip in undetected and operate among Waspira's minions. However, she cannot fool Waspira herself.
In robot mode, she carries a variety of hand-held pistols. In particular, she has a proton blinder pistol, acid pellet-pistol, neutron blaster, and a "needler" pistol (small rail gun). The CGI picture below shows her with the acid-pellet pistol.
On both sides of her neck, she has four autocannons that spray bullets in a short range. Good for getting out of crowded situations.
Her arm shield is also her back windshield.
Doors of the car are her "wings". With the aid of small fan-jets, she
can hover for limited times. The fan-jets emit a faint buzzing sound.
Early draft of Bee Line. (pencil).
I kept much of the original elements I designed her with. Considering her heritage, I wanted her to perhaps triple change into a bumblebee. However, this was impractical to her design and too many car panels would be hanging off her bee mode. So I came up with the idea that she could utilize a Pretender shell to "become a bee". Lazy, I know, but then I wouldn't have to figure out a clever transformation. Y'all want me to focus on drawing nice robots anyway. ;)I had the idea of a tiara early on and kept it. The earrings were an idea I added later. Kinda cute I think. I experimented with several headdresses but settled on the "hair in a bun". Yes, I know I could have used a "bee hive" hairdo... PLEASE! :)
Final drawing of Bee Line. (CG enhanced pencil)
Most of the car panels are on her main body. The car doors are wings. The front windshield and ceiling lay on the back like G1 Jazz's or G1 Prowl's toy.From concept to completion, she was a joy to draw. Bee Line is a return to the cute Transformer like Dee-kal. Unfortunately, Bee Line isn't particularly easy to draw. :)
But I am glad to be able to put in a deep back story to her. Already, you are able to see a connection from Sister City to her foes. You see a bit of how Sister City conducts it's operations. And you get a glimpse of how they interact with earth.
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