Two computers ago, I was working on a model of Optimus Prime. He had an original transformation that was like a reversed Powermaster Prime. Here's how far I got before I was forced to quit on him. In general, I had a very basic idea of his transformation and added stuff on to it as I went along. Nothing was really planned out, as you can tell by the overly-long arms, his super thin thighs, and his awkward waist/hips. Still, I'm happy with how the design works out, and with some tweaking, I think it'll make for a good design. 
Since the computer wasn't available to me, I turned to pen and paper for a fix. I started out by raising up, and inverting the elbow joint. Originally, the forearm rotated 180 degrees over two joints, but that's what made them so long. By raising it up, I keep it to just a 90 degree rotation, and by having the elbow joint in the middle and not the sides, I can add an elbow pad to hide the joint.
The exposed hips were another problem and without a waist, they looked too long. I added a thin waist area that will allow for rotation. The waist also has a few panels on the sides and front that will fold down to cover his hip joints.
I'm sure I'll still run into problems fitting things together though. The whole foot mechanism still has me confused. I want the wind sail up on top to fold down the become the feet, while the front of the calves are the back of the cab. How to get them to rotate arouns and sit flat, I still am not sure about.
Trying to model Prime without sme serious design beforehand has been a real learning experience. I've got basic ideas of most of the Autobots and Decepticons (who are all getting minor redesigns), but they all need a lot more work put into them. It still isn't foolproof though. Some earlier work on one of my Prototytans, Threshold, showed me that sketches don't illuminate every possible problem, and I still ran into a few snags. Still though, I had a much better idea of what to look for than I did with ol' Optimus here.
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