Derrick J Wyatt , who designed the characters for Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans series as well as Transformers Animated and Ben 10 Omniverse has passed away. He passed away aged 49.

The news was broken by fellow Transformers artist Josh “Dyemooch” Perez, who said that Wyatt had passed away earlier this month.

“This isn’t the best of news to share, but please bare with me. I was informed by Derrick’s sister that he has unexpectedly passed away earlier this month”, he said in a tweet. “There will be a more information from his family in the future, but for now I just want to let people know”.

“I want to thank everyone that’s helped passing the word out privately among those he’s worked with, his close friends, and those who he meant a lot to. We lost someone incredible this month. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts. I love you all”, he continues.

Other artists in the Transformers community have since come out to express their condolences on Derrick J Wyatt’s passing.

“Hard to express just what a tragedy the loss of Derrick J Wyatt is”, says Casey W Coller, artist for the Transformers comics at IDW.  “I’m so grateful to have been able to get to know him even a little. I still can’t believe he’s gone. My thoughts are with his family and friends”

“Just now I knew my favorite, talented TF creator Derrick @DerrickJWyatt passed away”, says artist Kei Zama, also having worked at IDW.  “I’m totally devastated. Really sadly, we couldn’t meet face to face, finally. Thank you for all of amazing stuffs, Rest In Peace, pal.”

A Visual Savant

Derrick J Wyatt was a defining force of 2000s era animation, having designed characters on the now-iconic Cartoon Network adaptation of Teen Titans. He would go on to spearhead Transformers Animated- where despite coming out right next to the live action Transformers movie quickly became a fan favorite thanks to its bold visual style.

He also worked on Mystery Inc- one of the most beloved runs of Scooby Doo, also celebrated for taking the famous meddling kids in a new direction and for its bold visual style.

Aside from that he’d also spent a lot of time on Twitter further celebrating his unique visual style, drawing chracters from other series in his now-iconic art style.