#micromasters

[mistermalaprop]

gamers i need some help rn

Apparently, one of my beautiful Micromaster Constructor Squad pals-- Sledge-- cameos in the 2019/2020 IDW Comic "Rise of the Decepticons: Swindle's" at some sort of illegal "skitter" race. On his wiki, there is no picture to go along with this fact, but he is mentioned BY NAME... so he must've been SEEN. As a big fan of this group, I want to make sure I have every piece of media I can find--

I would really appreciate if someone could perhaps direct me to where i can read this or perhaps find a screenshot??? It says he is next to Sharpclaw, so that could narrow it down??

Anything will help- I just.. wanna see how he's drawn in modern years... I can only do so much with boxart and his toy :,)

[churino]

Design for greaser

The second in command and original founder of the hot rod patrol, many years ago he figured out something humanity would figure out for itself much later, that fire decals look awesome, he defines the hot rod patrol's sense of style

Greaser is the oldest member of the hot rod patrol, and is completely loyal to their leader big daddy, he sees her as his true sucessor, having turned his style into an ideology and a way of life, the hot rod patrol believes authority must be tested at all times if it's fit to lead, tough interestingly greaser doesn't seem all that willing to question big daddy's authority at all, a contradiction born from coming from a slightly older era? Or maybe he just has a soft spot for her.

Either way they lead the team with an "anything goes in the name of freedom" philosophy, they're mostly hands free but when they need to get their hands dirty Greaser is there to lift the weights and beat up other guys who think they can rub big daddy's paint He's also the team's field mechanic, though the team works for the wreckers they can't always rely on their expertise, so greaser is there to pick up the slack

His mechanical know-how is pretty avarage really, hes a blue-collar working guy, nothing spectacular the other members build off from his foundation. his personal beef with hot rod is that roddy borrowed 2 shanix from him once and hasn't paid it back to this day

[majachee]

sunrunner design for @emperor-kumquat

hehe play/read Mercy <3

[catbusdriver]

Micromaster Deployers

Synching with Minicons has always been viewed as a valuable skill. Having a Minico usually means having an incredibly powerful weapon ally at some bot's disposal. However, Synching is a VERY rare ability.

When it was still believed Micromasters and Cold Constructs were non sentient drones, an idea was proposed, modify certain drones to be able to be able to carry smaller units. On ANY OTHER KIND of Cybertronian, this would be very inhumane, as the mods necessary are invasive, painful, and EXTREMELY dangerous. On an unfeeling drone? Go nuts.

This attitude unfortunately returned when the Predacons did. Hundreds of CCs "inlisted" to get the Mod.

The Mod for the Deployer itself is simple. Just remove the part from wherever you want to store the Micromaster, then replace them with connectors, pseudo stasis field generators, and rewire fuel line so the Micromaster gets some of the Deployers energon.

The Mod for Micromasters however is much worse.most of them cant even transform without outside help anymore. And that's the least horrible side effect. Autoscout cant speak, ??? Can't move. The list goes on!

Is it any wonder why Galvatron rebelled?

[askvectorprime]

Dear, Vector Prime.

How did Astrotrain end up with such a small and skeletal body?

Dear Astrological Anatomist,

In the universe where one might encounter this particular Astrotrain, the Great War had been going on for so long that energon supplies were running dangerously low. Many Cybertronians on both sides were forced to undergo the Micromaster downsizing procedure, and Astrotrain was no exception, giving up his locomotive form to do so.

Having three modes was something which Astrotrain had always felt elevated him above his peers; with only two, he developed quite the inferiority complex. This led him to begin experimenting with strange and unorthodox materials to upgrade his new, smaller body, in the hopes of unlocking a new transformation. Eventually, through a combination of Skeletron and Forestonite, he was able to grant himself a new double-barreled blaster mode—although the formula did have some side effects.

[cybertronia-obscura]

Feature Character of March

Red Hot (or Red Heat) of the Rescue Patrol!

Toy bio:

"The hotter things get, the better I like it!" Note: The bio below is for the entire Micromaster Rescue Patrol. "True victory can only lie in the ability to locate and mend the injured." This fearless foursome braves the heaviest combat fire on land and sea to perform their assigned tasks. Fully equipped to administer emergency aid under the most adverse conditions: Seawatch has over-the-horizon radar and towing capability; Stakeout has a state-of-the-air communications dashboard; Fixit is outfitted with repair bay and life-function monitors; Red Hot contains fire-retardant chemical foam.

Red Hot and the rest of the Rescue Patrol were introduced in 1989 in the Marvel comics! Although he will never shirk his duty to save lives, Red Hot is a thrillseeker who loves to dive right into the action! However, his eagerness gets him into trouble when he runs out of fuel.

His largest role was in the Marvel comics. He's had cameos in Regeneration One, WFC marketing, the Earth Wars game, and appeared in a commercial.

[palaciosworks]

Look! It's Gingham!

[siphersaysstuff]

THE GHOST OF PICS: MECHS PAST

And with THAT tortured pun, December's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture batch is all stuff we've kinda needed forever, all stuff from the prior century, and all stuff from outside the US market!

We start with Takara's original DEATHSAURUS, Decepticon leader in 1989's Victory, who just had his Legacy Haslab toy start showing up on doorsteps. And of course, new separate pics for his Breast Animal partners EAGLEBREAST and TIGERBREAST (yes, get them giggles out, go ahead).

Let's jump back a year to 1988's Super-God Masterforce, and the Godmaster RANGER. This mold is the only one of the three Powermaster Autobot cars to get recolored for its Takara release. Sadly, the MIB copy I bought back in 1996 was missing its gun, thus my general reluctance to add a pic to the wiki. But lord, that tiny, crunchy book scan we were using suuuucked. Made Ranger look white when he's a very light stony blue. Still using the scan though, just now in an inset panel to show off the gun I don't have.

And now we bounce ahead to 1990's Zone, and the Micro Transformer base SKY HYPER, piloted by Deadwheeler. I took these pics forever ago at some BotCon, and have long lost the notes as to who owned this piece a few hard drives back. This sample was also missing the three ramps, thus both the length of time it took for me to get comfy going ahead and adding these to the wiki, and the new book-scan inset to show the missing ramps.

Let's shift over to the European market, with 1992's THUNDER CLASH, the leader of the Autobot Turbmasters. His gravity-feed missile launcher was, like all the Turbomaster and Predator launchers, very much not US choke-gate compliant.

Fun fact: Thunder actually did get a Japanese release! He and Skyquake were straight imported to Japanese stores in Hasbro packaging, with just some necessary legal info changed to Japanese on the boxes. This was the Operation: Combination year, where Takara released the small Turbomasters and Predators in 2-packs.

And now we're going much further back, and much further south. No, that's not Brawn, that's OUTBACK, the 1987 Mexican version by IGA. Apparently, IGA was unwilling or unable to pay for the new '86 Mini Vehicle molds, thus they made their own versions by simply recoloring the '84 originals and slapping them on new cards for the '86 characters. Sometimes with alternate decos to boot!

Sadly, I don't own this toy, and like Sky Hyper, this was a BotCon pic taken with original owner info lost to time. (I always try and credit the toy owner when they let me take pics.)

Now here's the ones I'm super-happy about. These are two of the three Eletrix, ESPORTE and PORSCHE, exclusive to Estrela's 1985 Brazilian Transformers line! These toys transform and walk/roll forward via remote control, attached by a wire over 4 feet long. I'm keeping an eye out for the third one, Jipe.

None of the '85 Brazilian toys have any faction markings, but the Autobot-style packaging leads one to assume "all good guys". As do the bios of many of the toys in the line... but the Eletrix lack bios, sadly. Which is weird, as Estrela made up new bios for some toys in the line, and just straight-translated others from their Hasbro bios.

These molds were released in the US, but as the "Pow-R-Bots" in Village Toys' TF-wannabe line Convert-A-Bots. Like Estrela, Village licensed them from Japan's Yonezawa Toys, where they were the Remote Change Robo Series. All of these releases use the same plastic colors, but give them new stickers for branding and language.

I bought these two MISB (cellophane still there!) earlier this year, but was a little gunshy about opening them, worried the electronics might have somehow rotted. Schrodinger's Electronics. But no, since they didn't come with batteries, no corrosion, and they work as well as a 1984-mold cheap electric gear-powered toy can (that is to say, loudly).

And of course, since I got the boxes, I took the opportunity to take 600dpi scans of the box art unique to Estrela's packaging!

Man, I love going through these older, not-US corners of TFdom, and hope you learned something new about the vast TF universe. And if you'd like to help make that just a little bit easier and get more pics out a month, consider joining my Patreon! "gregstfwikipics" there, every little bit helps, plus at higher pledge levels you can pick a theme for the month!

[elfdragon12]

Finally got all single pieces of the Astro Squad and Ettie! This time, inspired by the @cybertronia-obscura prompt "navigator"!

Missile Master enjoys when Ettie asks him questions because it helps him feel like a better leader.

[bigangrytrev]

Age of Primes: Which Bots can be traced back to which Primes?

Which bots can be traced back to which Primes? The Original 13 Primes has been part of the Transformers mythos for quite a while now.  Be it in the Aligned Continuity, the Movieverse, the Power of The Primes Trilogy, or even retroactively into G1 via the IDW Comics, the idea that Primus originally created 13 Primes in order to battle Unicron has become an established part of Transformers…

[mistermalaprop]

"Woah... you're beautiful!"

(based off this post)

[churino]

Design for pre earth barricade

He wasn't able to handle the autobadge ealry on, maybe he was never a good fit for it if you think about it,

Inside the Primax 984.0 Gamma ark that our initial group of autobots called their home layed the seat of power for all autobots, as you may expect, being the head of goverment doesn't mean a place is entirely peaceful, Barricade and his Race Track patrol would make sure of that. The Race Track patrol was a minor group of troublemakers back in the day. The young barricade was among them as "runner," an alias he used to avoid reconition like the coward he was, but everything changed the day the ark was attacked by the predacons.

the rest of the patrol saw oportunity in the chaos and broke into living quarters and stole as many things as they could, but barricade was left behind by them and caught by the authorities, he ratted em out and got away scott free as a result while his buddies rusted away.

Now, without a job, Barricade decided to "turn his life around" and get into law enforcement, and that's where the trouble really began. You see, Barricade is a bully at heart, and what happens when a bully is determined to get more power? Not good things. I'll tell you that much

[jazzluca]

BARRICADE ( Deluxe ) Movie Studio Series GAMER EDITION 02

In mezzo alle riproposte dei personaggi di War for Cybertron nella nuova veste di Studio Series Gamer Edition, per fortuna spunta un modellino inedito, non apparso nelle linee di giocattoli contemporanee all'uscita dei videogiochi dove questi personaggi apparivano, ovvero BARRICADE, il poliziotto cattivo nato e portato alla fama nel primo film dal vivo dei Transformers del 2007.

Anzi no, anche se ormai associamo quel nome a quel personaggio, a dire il vero un Barricade esisteva già sin dalla G1, nella forma di un Micromaster fucsia ed azzurro che diventava un'auto da F-1, e questa versione videoludica pare ispirarsi più a lui, ma non nei colori, col nero e grigio scuro che richiamano di più quello cinematografico.

Se i vari design dei WfC del videogioco li ho sempre trovati innovativi ma comunque reminiscenti dei personaggi G1 cui si ispiravano, giocoforza non avendo un corrispettivo definito questo Barricade mi è sempre parso un po' anonimo, e per questo non mi ha mai attirato tanto, a veder le foto in rete di questo modellino seppur inedito, ma una volta dal vivo il ROBOT finalmente palesa il suo carisma latente, con una figura bella solida.

Il nostro è riportato fedelmente dal modello in CGI del gioco, appunto con un grigio scuro che si sposa col nero principali ed i però pochi tocchi di viola, sopratutto sulle ruote, cui ci tornerò nel veicolo.

La parte peggiore si sicuro sono i piedi, un po' troppo grandi e piatti, e se la forma grossomodo è quella a guardar il concept in CGI, la fregatura sta nei talloni corti che tendono a far cadere all'indietro il robot con un nonnulla. Non scherzano nemmeno le ruote ai lati delle anche, anche loro fedeli al design del personaggio, e citazione degli stessi particolari nel Micromaster G1 omonimo, ma volendo queste si possono abbassare sotto le ginocchia, come farà anche il suo remold del generico Decepticon Soldier uscito in seguito.

Anche la forma della testa è presa dal Micromaster, ed anche per questo però il nostro mi risultava banale dato che sembra essere un Megatron dei poveri con quel casco nero tondeggiante, ma vabbè, magari è solo un problema mio. ^^'

Comunque, interessante è la zainata sulle spalle che rispecchia l'effettiva schiena del personaggio nel videogioco, con scolpito il reattore che sarà nel retro del veicolo, e sotto cui si può sistemare a riposo l'unico accessorio / arma, una mitraglietta leggera che, come negli altri Gamer Edition SS di WfC, si fa usare al robot sostituendola all'avambraccio destro.

E come per gli altri GE di questa prima wave, a parte Optimus, pure lui però non ha poi nessun posto dove appendere l'avambraccio tolto; come posabilità sulla carta non siamo messi male, con tanto di rotazioni di polsi e bacino e tutto il resto del pacchetto tranne l'inclinazione laterale delle caviglie, MA quando dicevo sopra che la figura è solida non scherzavo, nel senso che le articolazioni sono davvero dure, che si fa fatica anche a ruotar la testa, così come la zainata e le ruote sulle cosce summenzionate sono d'impiccio per i movimenti del robot.

Peccato infine che non abbia nessun altro accessorio arma bianca come gli altri colleghi sempre della prima wave.

La TRASFORMAZIONE non è nulla di nuovo e si è già vista in millemila altri, ma per questo Barricade si sposa molto bene, con i piedi che si richiudono verso l'alto, le ruote sulle cosce si abbassano ed il bacino ruota mentre salgono i pannelli sui polpacci per formare la parte anteriore e centrale del veicolo, mentre le mani rientrano negli avambracci e si abbassano le spalle con le braccia che diventano le parti laterali, ed infine la zainata sulla schiena si dispiega rivelando la parte superiore posteriore ottimamente nascosta che si posiziona al suo posto.

L'AUTO CYBERTRONIANA risultante non ha nulla dell'eventuale auto della polizia del Barricade dei film, così non ricorda manco da lontano un'auto da F1 come il Micromaster, ma è comunque davvero bella e sopratutto grande, quasi fosse un Voyager.

La forma è stilizzata al limite del giocattoloso ma contenuta dalla colorazione grigio e nera, con tocchi di viola ed argento, MA un po' rovinata dalla banalità delle ruote tutte nere e con l'aggancio alla "sorpresina da ovetto kinder", laddove sarebbe stato il massimo averle in plastica trasparente viola o almeno con qualche linea sempre viola.

Bello il paraurti aggressivo frontale ed i reattori sul retro; magari avrebbe giovato esteticamente aver le ruote posteriori più grandi, ma va bene anche così. Niente male il simbolone di fazione sul cofano, ed ovviamente l'arma ( che a guardar il videogioco dovrebbe essere un po' più grande a paragone ) può piazzarsi subito dietro il tettuccio o "nascosta" sempre nel retro.

Di certo è un salto nel passato in quel periodo e con quello stile di veicoli creati per i videogiochi del dittico Cybertroniano, così come aiuta l'essere inedito come modellino rispetto ai colleghi, e quindi ha quasi più carisma così che come robot!

Insomma, un bel modellino da scoprire, per chi magari come me ad una visione superficiale non dice chissà cosa, e al solito peccato per quei difetti succitati, ovvero le ruote anonime e la posabilità un po' soffocata, ma di certo sulla mensola fa una bella figura insieme agli altri Decepticon di WfC. ^^

-Videorecensione

[themcomicsofficial]

Transformers BotBots Season 2

S2 EP 6

"Discovering Yourself" Part 3

"B-Burgertron?" The full-powered Kikmee said to her friend as Night Thrash flash stepped to him with his red hot katana ready to slash at his torso.

In a quick bright flash, Burgertron cowered from the impact as nothing happened. He looks at his soccer friend blocking the blade with her wrist as her glowing sky blue aurora is protected him--

"Kikmee, wh-why are you glowing?--"

"GO!! I can handle him! You warn the others, I'll take care of this!"

"But Kikmee you're gonna--"

"JUST GO!!"

Burgertron says nothing as does what she says as runs to the Lost & Found. Kikmee is fighting the assassin with the one eye, Night Thrash as he pushes his katana forward causing a cut on her wrist as she yelps in pain and jumps out as looks her cut as energon bleeds out a little.

"So, I see you're quite of a fighter...no matter, that was one drop of energon dropped, no matter--the rest will be spilled ALONG WITH YOUR MOTOR SYSTEMS!!! (quote on guts and intestines) as he pulls back his blade, as he gets ready to make her go offline as he lounges forward.

DARK SIDE OF THE MALL--NIGHT

A hangout of Micro-Masters are gambling with small human bones, drinking highly contaminated energon--which is a Cybertronian version of alcohol, and talking about what they did.

"So, there's this human family that I saw--so, they were screaming and crying along with their small female child telling me 'I can't hurt them' and 'NOT HARMING THEIR HUMAN BABY.' You what I did? I terminated the two while their kid just LOOKED in pity!!"

Rancid-Maker laughed sadistically

"But of all! I got some extra bones from the squishes I exterminated!"

Dumps a pile of human bones from the middle.

"Oh, sweet!"

"I'm loving this!"

"Dibs on the torso!"

As the Cybertronian bounty hunters and assassins enjoy their lives, Mercenary comes in to get a drink.

"Hey, watcha got for me?"

A wasp-looking Micro-Master shake his bottle and pours the liquid on its rectangular prism glass.

"Highly contaminated energon? Digging it." Takes the sip on the intergalactic alcoholic drink

"Just what are you doing here?" An unknown voice said to him as he turned back to see a gothic, female Micro-Master with two fighter jet wings on her back.

"Sonar! how's it going, girl??"

"Don't start with that--arousing attitude you throw at me, Mercy...You told to do based on what Laserbeak assigned you to do!! Just what in Primus' name were you doing at that time!!"

"Hey, take it easy there! I did some stuff...and..."

"Uh-huh that's what I thought...LAZY."

"Oh, cut me some slack! I'm trying my hardest to loyal to the old man and I'm frickin' 'Con for crying out loud!" Mercenary

"Then you should start acting like one!" Sonar pointed at his chest.

"I am one! Like everything else, right?"

The Micro-Masters eye him with unimpressed looks and annoyed faces.

"Oh! Frag all of you! I'm going to show you how I am while you--"

Mercenary gets bumped by a large figure, revealing to Slam Down.

"Whadda you complaining about?" Slam Down looked down at Mercenary as he's an insect.

"Slam Down, get out of my way..." Mercenary said to the spiked shouldered, mammal jawwed Micro-Master.

"Or what?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT! I'm going to show you downgrades who's the better bot?" Mercenary said in arrogance.

"And who's going to make you?" Slam Down

"You can't even compare on what the others did in this human-infested mall--we counted the number of stores taken over from our highly rated number of Mircro-Masters! Especially those who destroyed the human clothing stores!" Sonar said.

"I even burned the women clothing section!" A nerdy Micro-Master said.

"Watch me, I'll show you--you'll see! I'll gut a bot if I see one...Then you'll see..." Mercenary marches out of the hang out as Slam Down and Sonar looked at him in pity as they hear clutter from the Dark side of the mall. As Spud Muffin's silhouette scammers away.

"Go check that one..." Sonar told to Slam Down and the other bad bots.

BACK AT THE BATTLE

Kikmee is still fighting Night Thrash, cut and bruised as Night Thrash sways his katana targeting her body parts to slice off.

"You're too slow..." Night Thrash criticizing her combat skills as Kikmee uses a spinning bird kick as she spins like a top as the blue aurora mist spins to make it look like a tornado but Night Thrash uses his katana to block the assault as she gets closer causing it to grid as sparks fly as Kikmee stops fullway and backflips.

"Had enough yet?" Kikmee smirks

"No, not yet...but I'll show you what full power is..."

Night Thrash puts his katana of his left side as it glows a burning hellfire shade of crimson red as he slashes the blade left and right forming an "X"

Night Thrash, incanted a code in Japanese--

<Heaven Piercing Holy Moon Judgement!>

Night Thrash bring down his katana as the "X" launches forward to her, Kikmee only can look in fear as it comes toward her, which it seems it's over--until...

Two clangs come out of nowhere as Star Strike appears in front of her...

"What the? Where did you come from--"

"GO."

"What you just--"

"I SAID GO!!! I'LL HANDLE THIS!!" Star Strike yelled out of force as a wounded Kikmee looked at him with a surprised look. As she transforms to her soccer ball form and bounces away.

"Well, well, well...long time, no see..." Night Thrash eyes Star Strike-- "Doom Strike" saying his former name...

"Seems that you switched sides and you learned from Optimus Prime's disgraced morals for Cybertron."

"At least I had a family..."

"That's right, you had partners on that mission four years ago...They all fell on your first day as an Autobot Mini-Con, what a shame--you stood there while they die right in front of you, how did that feel--and why didn't you do something about it...and why?"

Night Thrash looked at him, mockingly...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Transformers: BotBots and Transformers is owned by Hasbro and Takara Tomy.

[blueikeproductions]

In the Nucleon era of the G1 cartoon, both Autobots and Decepticons are assisted by the Micromasters, who were created for fuel efficiency, especially for the Decepticons’ current energy woes.

While several toy based characters do appear, most of the Micros that do appear are the generics: various red colored cars and helicopters for Autobots and purple colored jets and cars for Decepticons. A rarity, but the genetics do have toys in the Heathers AU, coming in a four pack with both varieties.

The Micromasters manage the Autobot and Decepticon cities, and alongside Pretenders, the Autobot Micros assist in human relations thanks to their smaller size. Micro Decepticons tend to get the brunt of their elders’ confusion on how to address them due to their identical mass produced body types. This tends to be a running gag, with the Autobots sometimes expressing confusion over the Micros also; Optimus and Mainframe seem to be the only ones able to tell the generic Micros apart.

The Autobot Micros are more suited for technical and rescue work but are capable of fighting, usually via the Micromaster Bases and Vehicles, while the Decepticon Micros make up the main foot soldiers alongside the Sweeps. The Decepticon Micros are fairly easy to deal with but they have numbers on their side and an unprepared group of Autobots can be overwhelmed by them.

Personality wise, the Autobot Micros tend to be like excitable, good natured children, while Decepticon Micros are similar but more like unruly brats, especially when certain Decepticons mistreat them.

—-

Flint Manus, Dirk Manus’ son from another mother, and Daniel’s best friend, is a new addition to the human cast. At this stage, Dirk and Marissa are married with a young daughter, Sue, with Flint as Marissa’s step son.

While Flint does get along cordially with Marissa, he isn’t comfortable with the sudden change in his life, and tends to live with the Witwickys at Autobot City. Flint met Daniel shortly after Dirk and Marissa began dating pre The Rebirth, and the boys became fast friends, with Flint’s more daredevil personality complementing Daniel’s more reserved demeanor.

Flint thinks he’s hot stuff, and fancies himself Daniel’s wingman on certain things, but often Flint is humbled to his embarrassment. He’s inherited his dad’s space pirate skills and is a good shot, but the instability of the space pirate life made him side with the Autobots more directly in the hopes he can do some good. Dirk Manus, while more aligned with the Autobots, still works as a sketchy Mercenary and has ties with the unscrupulous Skuxxoid, Quackshot, Axer, Slizardo along with the heroic Arcee, Devcon and Rattletrap.

Nancy is Daniel’s baby sister, born inbetween The Rebirth and the discovery of Nucleon. A happy, well meaning girl who looks up to her big brother but isn’t allowed to attend missions due to being so young. Usually Nancy is with Carly handling matters in Autobot City, but more than once has Nancy both tagged along secretly and also saved the day when the Bee Team was compromised.

Lugnuts and Bolts are a pair of brothers that work closely with the Bee Team and are the main Micromaster rep besides the Generics. They combine to form a car, making them a bit more mundane than other Micro Combiners, but they’re no slouch in a fight. Like many siblings they tend to squabble, and refuse to cooperate, leading to humorous moments where they refuse to combine and drive off in their respective car halves. Bolts sees himself as the leader of the brothers, something Lugnuts pushes back on as he’s actually the oldest, being built first. Bolts is the more organized and mature of the two, while Lugnuts is easily distracted and lackadaisical.

[askvectorprime]

Hi vector prime! I have a question which I’ve been dying to know, how do transformers age? I’m asking this because some transformers look like old men, for example, revenge of the fallen jetfire has a cane and a beard and alpha trion also has a beard and some transformers look like kids too, for example, wheelie and those kids that were shown on the planet that unicron gobbled up. I hope there is an answer to this transformers age thing, thanks vector.

Dear Mature Matcher,

Well, I like to think I've aged gracefully, ha!

In truth, you ask a good question, though I think your lived experience as a human has colored your perspective. We do not age as humans do, but our bodies are still subject to wear and tear. Our fuel lines erode and leak, our gears grind and slip, our belts become brittle, our joints seize. We discolor, our paint scratches off, decals peel free, chrome flakes away. Stress marks line our faces and hinges. We rust. Our minds are prone to different kinds of degeneration, as newer memories overwrite older ones, or as unhealthy feedback loops develop into rampancy. But few of these processes are fatal, and fewer still are irreversible, so long as we take the occasional tune-up to replace parts as they fail.

The physical traits you observe aren't directly tied to the process of aging. With the usual caveat that not all Transformers are the same, even within the a single universe… it tends to be that, once we are protoformed or built, the only time our bodies naturally change is when we take on a new form. Now, you may not realize this, as we still must appear very alien to you—but on Earth, this might involve changing our appearance in robot form, too, mimicking physical traits that we identify with, the better to be understood by your kind; this is sometimes called "humanizer" technology. Don't be too quick to judge based on appearance, though, as sometimes what you perceive as a mustache might simply be a coincidental arrangement of kibble!

Otherwise, our bodies only change in the course of upgrades. After choosing our first alt-form, we may undergo procedures to bring us up to "full size", speaking either culturally or biologically. There are universes where our sparks grow continuously through our lifetimes, demanding periodic upgrades to match, with the bodies of the biggest and oldest Transformers practically being extensions of the planet—but those are extreme cases, and it's usually not a necessity. You mention Wheelie, who had something of an arrested development while marooned on Quintessa, and although there exist divergent timelines where he did get a larger body, he's usually comfortable with his stature; many Transformers take pride in being "Minibots" and may even make the conscious decision to downsize.

In the modern age, there is certainly an association between youth and a diminutive frame, as Micromasters, Mini-Cons and Protoformers join our society. The fact is that Transformers nowadays are smaller than they used to be, because fuel is more scarce. There have been many such paradigm shifts in the construction of Transformers: generations are usually demarcated by broad design trends, major technological advancements, and shared aesthetic sensibilities. When it comes to these fashions, there are some classics that anyone can recognise—facial adornments, oversized chins, and non-visible olfactory sensors are all characteristic of different points in history, and give a clue for how old we might be. You know, the oldest Transformers predate the introduction of the ball-and-socket joints which are so ubiquitous in Earth life; I myself have not one in my body!

The multiverse being as strange and wondrous as it is, there are plenty more esoteric reasons behind these physical changes. Famously, the Matrix of Leadership is known to induce a metamorphosis in its bearers to better accommodate the collective wisdom of Primes past. Exotic kinds of Energon have been known to possess transformative properties. For reasons yet unknown to my Transtech friends, exposure to negative-polarity particles correlates strongly with facial structures resembling human goatees.

Some believe that we once lived mortal lives, aging as most other species throughout the galaxy do, only for that mortality to have been taken from us in our race's infancy—through the interference of Quintessons, or the defeat of Mortilus, spoken of in myth as death incarnate.