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animation animation production cel of a pink and yellow dragonan image of a drawing of a dragon with a sword on it
FRANCOIS EPIN ART & DESIGN CONSULTING

125 - Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers (ビーストウォーズII 超生命体ト…
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Estimate €200 - €400
Sale commission
Description
Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers (ビーストウォーズII 超生命体トランスフォーマー) Galvatron Hand-painted celluloid sheet used in the production of the animated series Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers, based on the Transformers franchise by Hasbro and Takara. Executed in ink and gouache. Produced by Ashi Productions 1998–1999, Japan H32 L27 cm Lots 125, 126, 127: These three celluloid sheets depict Galvatron in his dragon/dinosaur beast mode — leader of the Predacons in Beast Wars II, the main antagonist of the series produced by Ashi Productions in 1998–1999. In their own way, they pose a question that the ‘Knights, Armour and Samurai’ themed auction raises from several angles: what happens when armour and the body become one? All the other pieces in the exhibition depict beings who wear armour — who don it, who inherit it, who win it in battle, or who are stripped of it. Armour is always a distinct feature of the body: it reveals or conceals, confers or strips away an identity. The Knights of the Zodiac burn their Cosmos to activate it. Kento de Fang loses his helmet and becomes vulnerable. In all these cases, armour and body remain two interrelated entities. Galvatron in dragon form blurs this distinction without entirely eliminating it: his scales are his armour, his body is his carapace, his power is constitutive. He did not choose his armour — he is it. But this observation warrants some qualification: Armanoïde, in *Space Adventure Cobra* (episodes 131–132), explores the same territory via an opposite path. Whereas Galvatron is a robot whose mechanical body is, by its very nature, armour, Armanoïde is a human body transformed into armour — flesh integrated into the breastplate, the organic rendered mechanical. One moves from the machine towards the living; the other moves from the living towards the machine. Both result in the same blurring of the boundary between the body and that which protects it — or constrains it. Taken together, these three celluloid sheets of Galvatron form a coherent visual record of the most graphically complex character in the Japanese Beast Wars franchise: the same antagonist in three distinct poses or sequences of his dragon form, documenting a transformation whose hand-drawn animation — ink and gouache on transparent celluloid — demands a mastery of scaly surfaces and animalistic bodily forms that humanoid robots do not require. These are pieces from an exclusive Japanese production, never broadcast outside Asia, the original materials for which are extremely rare on the Western market.
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About the sale Knights, Armour and Samurai + Animation Art Selection
Auction location
Auction time 06/28/2026 at 3:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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