This was the first redesign I tackled when I thought about making them for the Autobots. Some key things I kept in mind about Optimus Prime was that he is in several iterations: a leader, ironically heroic, strong enough to be gentle, stoic honorable, experienced, compassionate, and overall pretty based. 

The vehicle I chose for his alt mode would be his classic G1 truck which I learned was called a freight liner cabover semi- the body is red with a white stripe across it and with a cut in the stripe before it reaches the grill because I thought it would be cool, with the Autobot logo set on the stripe roughly before it reaches the door and the rear colored blue with a yellow front plate. 

The general layout of the vehicle parts across the body were meant to match his G1 counterparts with the window chest, grill on the abdomen, smoke stacks on the shoulders, wheels on the legs, put the fuel tanks on his back like Bayverses' design and the doors on the back like Prime's. When it came to colors... yeah I stuck with the classic red white and blue and a little bit of yellow, the colors you would find in characters like Captain America and Superman who share a similar sense of righteousness. When first designing his body I gave Optimus more square shapes to compose his body of to emphasize several of his qualities such as his balance between his own strength more morals intelligence as well as his stability as the leader of the Autobots, the go-to guidance in their time of need, the dependable role model that stands tall structurally sound for them. I wanted to give Optimus features that resemble that of a comic book hero and or protagonist including features that depict his physical strength which includes the larger classic big chested upper body with them robotic muscles and maybe that tiny waste kind of like Hercules over here, also this was applied in his animated counterpart but also I wanted to give the rest of the Body Balance too since Optimus is much more than his physical strength and so I made him visually balanced by adding weight in a few lines to his shoulders forearms and legs to visually match his strong upper body though when animating him I also made his waist a bit thicker along the line so he went from Hercules to more like Kratos. 

When designing his face I wanted it to look somewhat intense while yes he is compassionate towards all sentient life and has shown his friendliness to humans from time to time there's no doubt the guy has seen a lot and no doubt has a lot on his mind from the centuries of Cybertronian war and in the end of the day he is a leader who needs to lead his crew even with absolute initiative. I thought along the lines of taking inspiration from Samurai Jack another warrior from television whose determination similarly knows no bounds to bring balance back to the world every second and the intensity of his face shows it. I also had Keanu Reeve's John Wick's face in mind considering his indomitable will to achieve his objective of avenging his dog is the same vibe I wanted for Optimus too. Also when designing the mask mode for combat I thought the shadow casted around his eyes would be really cool to highlight Optimus's eyes and the determination he shines through them. I also designed the helmet to have these prominent designs near the cheeks and I was thinking it would be associated with his higher ranking in leadership and I added this tall emblem on the front of the helmet that stands out as an important symbol, I was thinking this particular design would be associated with lineage of primes and I'll be honest I just thought it'd also be cool and my brain is pretty fried after trying to remember all the in-depth undocumented thought process I had making this design in late 2022.