Constructicon

Constructicon
General Information
Other names	Build Team Construction Team
Homeworld	Cybertron (generally) Earth (Animated continuity)
Body type	Robotic
Height	Varies
Locomotion	Varies
Diet	None (fueled by energon)
Lifespan	Potentially immortal
Sapience level	Sapient
Subspecies/Races	Earth Constructicon Constructicon Micromaster
Species origin	Similar to other Cybertronians
Racial abilities	Transformation Combination
Behind the Scenes
Universe	Transformers

Constructicons are a subspecies of construction vehicle-themed Cybertronians from the planet Cybertron.

Biology

While also being a subgroup of Decepticons, Constructicons consider themselves a species unto themselves.

Anatomy

Constructicons have similar biology to other Cybertronians, except that they transform into construction vehicles.

Powers and abilities

Constructicons share many of the same abilities as other Cybertronians.

Select Constructicons can combine to form a combiner known as Devastator.

Culture and society

Constructicons are generally considered to be the mortal enemies of the Dinobots.

Though Constructicons are primarily affiliated with the Decepticons, several Autobot Constructicons exist such as Hauler, Erector, Canopy, Trench, and Divetrain.

History

Aurex 1104.30-DB Zeta

According to Vector Prime, the TransTechs had been debating over whether this universe was a Primax-influenced Aurex universe or the other way around. Dr. Brian Jones attempted to reverse-engineer the Maximus combination technology and apply it to Mini-Cons.

These experiments resulted in the creation of the Micromaster combiners: the Aerialbots, the Protectobots, and the Railbots. However, the Decepticons stole this technology and used it to create their own Micromaster combiner, the Constructicons.

At some point, Devastator fought against Superion, Defensor, and Rail Racer during the Combiner Wars as the Unicron Singularity drew near.

Gallery

Primax Decepticon Constructicons

Scrapper

Bonecruhser

Scavenger

Mixmaster

Hook

Long Haul

Gravedigger

Hightower

Primax Autobot Constructicons

Hauler

Erector

Scoop (IDW's Transformers)

Quickmix (Beast Wars Uprising)

Wideload

Viron Constructicons

Wedge

Wedge (as Bonecrusher)

Grimlock

Grimlock (as Scavenger)

Hightower

Hightower (Robo-Smashed colors)

Heavy Load

Heavy Load (as Long Haul)

Aurex Constructicons

Steamhammer

Bonecrusher

Duststorm

Sledge

Wideload

Bonecrusher (Micromaster)

Buckethead

Hightower

Long Haul

Quickmix

Scavenger

Malgus Constructicons

Dirt Boss

Scrapper

Scrapper (Decepticon form)

Mixmaster

Mixmaster (Decepticon form)

Bulkhead (Constructicon form)

Scavenger

Bonecrusher

Hook

Long Haul

Skipjack

Tyran Constructicons

Demolishor

Rampage

Long Haul

Mixmaster, a Constructicon Triple Changer

Bonecrusher

Scrapper

Scrapmetal

Onslaught, a Combaticon/Constructicon

Payload

Scavenger

Skipjack

Hightower

Overload

Canopy

Trench

A Constructicon Scout

A Constructicon Warrior

Negative-Polarity Constructicons

Dirt Boss (Shattered Glass Animated)

Scrapper (Shattered Glass Animated)

Mixmaster (Shattered Glass Animated)

Constructicon Combiners

Devastator (G1)

Landfill

Landfill (as Devastator)

Devastator (Energon)

Devastator (Revenge of the Fallen)

Devastator (Animated)

Devastator (Animated; Bulkhead version)

Devastator (War for Cybertron)

Constructicon Maximus

Miscellaneous

Steamhammer (Power Core Combiners)

Drivetrain

Notes

• According to Erector's Transformers Hall of Fame bio, the Generation 1 Constructicons are required to include green in their color schemes.
• In the preliminary stages of Transformers: Animated's development, the term "Constructicon" would have been a blanket term for any Cybertronian created on Earth.
• According to Derrick J. Wyatt, the Animated incarnations of Scrapper and Mixmaster are both brothers and friends.
• Devastator was slated to appear in an episode of the ultimately unproduced fourth season of Animated titled "Total Devastation", in which the Constructicons sought to ensure their control over Earth's new Energon deposits while coming into conflict with the Decepticons.
  • When the season's story was reworked at Hasbro's request for the show to have parallels to the live-action film series, this proposed episode was renamed "Turf War".
• The first instance of Devastator's "existence" in Animated was a headshot that Derrick J. Wyatt "doodled" when he began work on the series. However, the full design of the character was never finalized, including exactly how many Constructicons he would have been formed from. Over the years, Wyatt repeatedly stated that it had been his desire to add a couple more members to the team. Although he never settled on who, both Marty Isenberg and Eric Siebenaler have noted that Hasbro's unwillingness to commit to an expensive Devastator toy meant it was unsure if they would be able to go ahead with this idea or include Devastator in the show at all.
  • One consistent idea expressed by all three creators is that early plans involved the Constructicons forcing an unwilling Bulkhead to become part of Devastator with them. Of course, the season being reworked to have Bulkhead remain on Cybertron would have complicated his role within the episode's plot.
  • Siebenaler created a simple color guide to show how this combination would work using only the three existing Constructicons, which corroborates with statements by Wyatt on which body parts he would have liked them to form. According to this diagram, Dirt Boss would have formed Devastator's head, Bulkhead would have collectively formed the torso and both arms, and both Mixmaster and Scrapper would have each formed a leg.
  • It has also been confirmed by Derrick that the Constructicon roster for the season would have excluded Skipjack, a clone of the Autobot Erector featured in Transformers Animated: The Complete AllSpark Almanac.
• Igor, a Decepticon from Transformers: Dark of the Moon, is described as being the decapitated head of another Cybertronian in the novel adaptation. The comic adaptation bears this idea out by depicting him as a bouncing head with a trail of wires behind him as if he has been torn off a torso. In the finished film, Igor has stubby little limbs and walks around with the aid of a makeshift cane, through his green coloration points to him being the former head of a Long Haul-type Constructicon.
  • Concept art depicts Long Haul's headless corpse among the garbage at Megatron's camp in Africa, which strongly indicates that Igor used to be Long Haul's head; specifically the non-combiner Long Haul whose head was blasted off the body by the Operation: Firestorm air strike.

Designs

• In Animated, Scrapper and Mixmaster started out with yellow eyes and a more standard construction vehicle color scheme of yellow and gray. After becoming Decepticons, their eyes would switch to traditional Decepticon-red while their color scheme changes to the Generation 1 Constructicons' green and purple. They also follow the true blue-collar construction worker tradition of showing their butt-cracks.
• The Constructicon Warrior design was originally designed by artist Josh Nizzi when he created a "movie-style" design for Long Haul in 2007, attracting the attention of Hasbro's Transformers design director Aaron Archer, director Michael Bay, and the Transformers fandom. Nizzi's work impressed Hasbro and Bay enough for him to be hired as a concept artist for future installments of the live-action Transformers film series. As an added bonus, Nizzi's Long Haul design would be the first robot design approve for Revenge of the Fallen.
• In the original design by Nizzi, the Constructicon Warrior design's alternate mode was a Caterpillar 797 with an overall length of 14.5 m/47.67 ft. However, Long Haul's on-screen vehicle mode is a smaller CAT 773B with an overall length of 10.3 m/33.5 ft. Either this was a change made during the adaptation from art to CGI, or these two Construcitcons are in fact different vehicles.
• In Revenge of the Fallen, Demolishor and Scavenger share the same body-type, being only distinguished by their color schemes. Demolishor was originally supposed to be mostly red with white striping and signage, evident by both his early toys and his appearances in the video game and comic adaptations. Demolsiher's colors later became inverted later in production, being mostly white with red striping and signage.
  • Meanwhile, the preliminary red deco for Demolishor lasted all the way up until the CGI modeling phase. Why this was scrapped in favor of a white color scheme is anyone's guess. Luckily, Demolishor's original color scheme would be repurposed for Scavenger. As for this version of the model, it would eventually get used as a basis for Scavenger's Studio Series toy, so it did not entirely go to waste.
• According to Ben Procter's concept art for Revenge of the Fallen, Mixmaster originally had a friendly face based on that of actor Brendan Gleeson... and was apparently going to be an Autobot. The early head design was actually put to use in several of Mixmaster's early toys.
• One of Procter's unused designs for Overload's robot mode is a monstrous yet awesome four-armed quadruped with claws and hooks up the ying-yang.
  • A bipedal variant of this design exists, which would eventually serve as the basis for Overload's Studio Series toy. An alternate bipedal design was also made, serving as the basis for the character's Legends class toys and his comic appearances.
• Overload's vehicle mode is identified on various pieces of concept art as either a Komatsu HD465 or a Caterpillar 773. However, the actual machine used in filming appears to be a Caterpillar 776.
• According to Nizzi's Instagram account, the live-action Transformers film series incarnations of Onslaught and Long Haul are twin brothers. This comment justifies why Onslaught's on-screen appearance in Transformers: The Last Knight is a modified version of Long Haul's design.
• During the production of The Last Knight, Berserker was initially planned to be a Constructicon, with his robot mode being based off the unused designs created by Procter for Overload. Concept art for a headshot of this design was produced under the designation "Bezerker". However, the idea was dropped because Berserker became more of a quick gag. In the finished film, his design is based on the Dread Elite Enforcer design previously used by Crankcase.
• Canopy is a minor Autobot featured in The Last Knight, whose design is a modified version of the Constructicon Warrior design with vehicle kibble replaced with a cloak made of rubble and a somewhat human-like head.
  • Early concept art for the character referred to him by the placeholder name "Ruins Bot" and depicted him as rather terrifying robot with a subway train alternate mode. Another piece of concept art strangely represented him as a modified version of Optimus Prime's rusty "Evasion Mode" body from Transformers: Age of Extinction.
• An abandoned Constructicon concept for Revenge of the Fallen by artist Steve Jung was a "nurse" that would have transformed into a Volvo wheel loader. It is unknown if this character later evolved into Scrapmetal, who transforms into a Volvo excavator.
  • Other abandoned Constructicon concepts by Jung include a rockwheel trencher and a clawed crane.

Identities

• Although his correct, finalized name is used in the film (in on-screen subtitles, to be precise), Rampage is listed in the credits under his preliminary name of "Skipjack". Much confusion ensued, since nobody had actually heard this preliminary name before. As seen in concept art, Rampage was referred to by the name "Jumping Jack" during production. TakaraTomy later used the name Skipjack for a yellow redeco of the Hunt for the Decepticons Legends class Rampage toy.
  • Hasbro would eventually release a yellow repaint of Studio Seres Rampage that also went by the name Skipjack as a means to give fans an accurate Devastator. Although it has not officially been confirmed that Skipjack appeared in the film as Devastator's left foot, Hasbro employees who worked on Studio Series Devastator referred to Skipjack as being the yellow bulldozer from the film. As such, the toy bios for both Rampage and Skipjack reflected this notion for their involvements in the film.
• While Starscream calls the red bulldozer "Rampage", secondary sources such as early Devastator toys and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Movie Universe refer to the yellow bulldozer who forms Devastator's left leg/foot as "Rampage". But as stated before, new information in 2020 from behind the scenes at Hasbro suggests that they may have retroactively established the yellow bulldozer's involvements in the film as actually being Skipjack.
• In the scene in Revenge of the Fallen where all the Constructicons wait aboard the barge for Ravage and the AllSpark shard to arrive, a red bulldozer representing Rampage is among the vehicles visible in the flyover shot. But in the next scene where Ravage crash-lands into Rampage upon arrival, the bulldozer is suddenly recolored yellow. This error gets corrected when the Constructicons transform into robot mode and dive into the water. As such, Rampage is the bulldozer present during Megatron's resurrection rather than Skipjack.
  • Similarly, a yellow front-end loader representing Scrapper can be spotted in the flyover shot only to be replaced with a yellow Volvo excavator. Scrapmetal's correct alternate mode is the Volvo excavator, evident by his Studio Series toy. While the toy's robot mode is based on concept art, his on-screen robot mode shares the same body-type as Scrapper.
• In the novel adaptation of Revenge of the Fallen, the four Constructicons that accompany Ravage to the Laurentian Abyss go unnamed yet are as described as bipedal. This is contradicted by the movie, as Rampage is among these Constructicons.
• Trench is an incidental Autobot featured in The Last Knight whose design is a modified version of the Constructicon Scout design. Several months after the movie's release, Caterpillar Inc. ran a company-wide vote to give a name to the excavator Autobot, with "Trench" being the winner.