Inside look at how Transformers are designed

[JediTricks]

Saw this article earlier and skimmed it, very cool stuff. Gizmodo went to Hasbro and got a look at the design process.

http://gizmodo.com/5994962/autobots-ass ... me-to-life

Some good insight, I hope to read the whole thing when I have more free time in the next few days.

[Onslaught Six]

There are a lot of Geewunners and uninformed people in the comments for that. Here's a pair of gems:

As a fan of all things Transformers, especially the Prime series, which is the BEST version of Transformers bar none! The original design came from the actual animated show, Transformers Prime Beast Hunters. Which was designed by Jose Lopez not this Lenny guy or really anyone in corporate Hasbro.

"A Zoid head might end up on an old Optimus body" Zoids were made by Tomy, not Hasbro, so if you have a Zoid head, you're using the wrong toy for parts. #corrections

[andersonh1]

Nice video, if a little short. I'd love to have seen some more prototypes and see some more discussion about what was added or subtracted due to cost and/or engineering concerns. Pretty cool though, thanks for sharing the link. My oldest daughter is into dragons at the moment, and she and I had some fun after watching it by counting the pieces of plastic and the paint colors for Twinstrike and thinking about how the designers might have designed him. That lasted about two minutes before she was off to her next activity of course!

[Almighty Unicron]

I want to like the voyager Predaking more, but those blocky heads really just look terrible. I wonder if this is the guy who thought that particular design was a good idea? Reminds me a bit of Cybertron Scourge, only slimmer and winged,

[JediTricks]

Funny how they talk about the price of metal parts being too expensive right after plastic skyrocketed to manufacture. I wouldn't be surprised if his data is out of sorts with the market on that issue.

There are a lot of Geewunners and uninformed people in the comments for that. Here's a pair of gems:

As a fan of all things Transformers, especially the Prime series, which is the BEST version of Transformers bar none! The original design came from the actual animated show, Transformers Prime Beast Hunters. Which was designed by Jose Lopez not this Lenny guy or really anyone in corporate Hasbro.

"A Zoid head might end up on an old Optimus body" Zoids were made by Tomy, not Hasbro, so if you have a Zoid head, you're using the wrong toy for parts. #corrections

Giz is a pretty rough port to read comments, they think they know a lot and that gives them the right to be loud about it, especially when they're wrong.

Seems like their CAD designer is interpreting their drawings pretty simply, the art on Predaking in the video looked better than the CAD output by leaps and bounds.

Nice video, if a little short. I'd love to have seen some more prototypes and see some more discussion about what was added or subtracted due to cost and/or engineering concerns. Pretty cool though, thanks for sharing the link. My oldest daughter is into dragons at the moment, and she and I had some fun after watching it by counting the pieces of plastic and the paint colors for Twinstrike and thinking about how the designers might have designed him. That lasted about two minutes before she was off to her next activity of course!

I agree about the brevity of the content. The article is long and yet could easily contain triple the amount of hard data and be fascinating. I think they're doing a follow-up article tomorrow.

That seems like a fun activity for her to mentally engage in, even if only for a moment.

I want to like the voyager Predaking more, but those blocky heads really just look terrible. I wonder if this is the guy who thought that particular design was a good idea? Reminds me a bit of Cybertron Scourge, only slimmer and winged,

I thought the same thing about the heads, and I put the blame on either the CAD designer or on Takara who often has face sculpt duty - in the video, the CAD designs have no faces for Predaking.

[JediTricks]

Part 2 is up:

http://gizmodo.com/5995083/where-the-to ... l-workshop

Interesting stuff, but not necessarily what I'd consider deeper. This is how they go through the prototype process. The cool thing is that I have seen some of that output at conventions, the Star Wars team's sculptor brings bags of prototypes in various media to display and even let us touch. A lot of the tools they use are connected to aerospace, medical, and scientific manufacturing.

Oh yeah, and at 1:23 in the video, there's a shot of Generations Metroplex standing on the table with some Voyagers in and out of boxes, HOLY FUCKING SHIT is that thing huge.

[Tigermegatron]

I saw both videos,I gotta say,It almost felt like a parody of "the big bang theory" TV series. Those guys in those 2 videos were so overly self-conceited & so full of themselves.

Without those Takara designers those Hasbro art sketches could not be translated in physical TF toys. Any hack can draw TF sketches or take pics or hand paint toys,IT TAKES A REAL GIFTED/GENIOUS TO DO THE JOBS OF THOSE TAKARA TF TOY DESIGNERS.

[Sparky Prime]

Part three: http://gizmodo.com/5994875/michael-bay-is-why-transformers-got-so-complicated. The video clip this time is just a clip from the first Transformers film unfortunately. I was hoping for some more behind the scenes stuff.

Without those Takara designers those Hasbro art sketches could not be translated in physical TF toys. Any hack can draw TF sketches or take pics or hand paint toys,IT TAKES A REAL GIFTED/GENIOUS TO DO THE JOBS OF THOSE TAKARA TF TOY DESIGNERS.

Not sure why you seem to think the guys in the first two video clips were full of themselves. They acknowledged that they are only two parts in a very long process in creating these toys. And I'd say you're actually misunderstanding the work that these guys do. "Any hack can draw TF sketches"? These guys aren't just drawing TF sketches, they are the designers for the toys, who figures out how the thing is supposed to look and transform for the guys that actually build the physical model. As the article points out, the design process is actually a back and forth between the designers at Hasbro and the engineers at Takara to actually get the thing to work. It's very much a team effort.