Interview With Jeff Mangiat

You may have seen the Ebay auction for the original Transformers Box Art by world renowned illustrator Jeff Mangiat. TFormers was fortunate enough to get a little time with Mr. Mangiat to do an exclusive interview asking some questions about his work on the Transformers past and present as well some of the intimate details of how these Transformers paintings and box art came about.

TFormers: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into doing illustration for a living.

Jeff Mangiat: I would first like to thank the webmasters, community members and bloggers for the very kind words written about my painting. I was recently going through my flat files and found the painting I put up for auction. I forgot how nice the moon painting was. A few months ago my son discovered the world of transformers on the web and it was very exciting to see that they are so beloved. I made some contacts and here we are. I have been very fortunate in that I always knew I wanted to be an artist. When I was in the 2nd grade my father found that Pratt Institute was the best art school for me. I started working for Hearst publications in my junior year doing automotive renderings. That taught me how to do mechanical drawings and do them fast. I soon found myself working for magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science.

TFormers: How did you get involved with doing art for the Transformers packaging?

Jeff: My next step was to join Mendola ltd.; the premier artist representatives founded by Joe Mendola, a pioneer in the field of Illustration. Early on I did covers for Newsweek magazine (many done overnight). One of my favorites was a painting of a robot with a monitor for a head and torso. On the torso screen was the superman logo. Supercomputer! My work quickly expanded to other fields, toys being one of them. I started working for Hasbro doing game boards. With my automotive background, the transformers were a natural fit, and the rest is history.