Blender Artist Turns an Indian Bus into a Transformers-Style Mecha

3D Artist Pranav Pradi reimagined one of their older works, showing how a weathered bus transforms into a powerful mecha. The artist broke down the rig, model, and transformation of the project inspired by the Transformers movies.

Pradi shared that rigging the model was challenging, but it was even more difficult to fit the existing bus shape into the Autobot form and reduce the ambiguous parts to almost none. "Putting everything in a sensible place and have some sort of purpose was the hardest part," they said. At the same time, the animation was the most enjoyable part. Pradi's favorite detail was the bus's old diesel tank, which now sits on the Autobot's back like a fuel source.

According to the artist, the rigging and animation took around two weeks. The bus model was a separate project. Its design was inspired by a bus from the 2001 Malayalam film Ee Parakkum Thalika, and the creator built it to closely match the Indian movie prop.

Pradi often showcases amazing works in Blender. The artist recently recreated a Houdini setup using Geometry Nodes, calling the procedural toolset a "mini Houdini." Their other Blender-made works include acute visualization of sentient rickshaws, inspired by Pixar's Cars series, and a time-lapse of Blender's default cube transforming into a realistic 3D model of an American retro car: