Teen uses toys to learn more about animation

Some kids collect baseball cards. Some collect stamps. Donald Blake, 17, collects Transformer toys. You know, those robot-like characters that bend and twist to create a whole new object.

It's been his passion since seventh grade and he's not likely to grow out of it. Blake, you see, uses them in his drawings and hopes for a career involving -- what else -- Transformers.

He wants to design new ones or, because he's also interested in computers, create animation for the company that produces their cartoons. Speaking of cartoons, he tries not to miss an episode of Transformers on Saturdays, studying the way characters move and how they look viewed from different angels.

"When the cartoon for "Beast Wars" ended, I was really upset," Blake said. "They could have kept it going, done so much more with it."

He rented the Transformer movie and used the freeze frame mode on his VCR to study how the animators changed the characters from one being into an entirely different one.

His art work evolved as his collection grew. Art teachers tried to get him interested in assignments, but he had a habit of not completing them. It wasn't until this year, when he got into Linda Guiffreda-Baker's art class at Durango High School that he was able to see an assignment through to completion.

"She told me to find a subject that I really like and to draw that," Blake said.

Transformers seemed a natural.

He not only completed projects, he did extra work on his own, setting up his desk at home so he could vary the lighting, allowing him to make his illustrations stand out like 3-D images.

As he stood in the Durango art room, he picked up a small toy and showed how it went from a robot to a bull, complete with horns. The whole thing took three seconds.

"Actually, I like the larger ones," he said with a shrug. "I like when they're more involved and difficult to transform. There's no challenge in the easy ones."

His collection, which began when the Transformers were first introduced, includes some of the early versions. They are noticeably boxier than the more recent models, which are sleeker and more stylistic. Whether for aesthetic reasons or because of marketing strategies, Transformers, it seems, go through, uh ... transformations.

Blake has nearly 100 of the toys and saves up his money from mowing lawns and gardening work to keep collecting them. The prices range from $7-$40 and, after a new character is introduced, he waits "about a month to buy it so the price goes down."

He's estimates he's spent at least $300 on the toys. The most expensive one cost him $30.

The appeal of the characters is knowing they're not real, he said, but they're fascinating just the same.

When not drawing Transformers, he uses his artistic talent to illustrate people, landscapes and still life, using a variety of media.

"I'm impressed with Donald and his intense acquisition of Transformers," said Linda Guiffreda-Baker. "He knows so much about them, he's like a walking encyclopedia. It'll be interesting to see how much of a part they play in his life, his career."

Meanwhile, he concentrates on drawing them, incorporating them into art projects for school and pulling together a portfolio for the day when he goes job-hunting.