Courtesy of Slate.com we can share for you a very interesting interview with John Warden and Lynsey Bernier On Making Transformers.
As you may know, John Warden is Transformers Senior Design Manager and Lynsey Bernier is Transformers Senior Project Engineer at Hasbro, and they talk about how they do their jobs. On this 40-minute audio interview they reveal the fun, nerdiness, and math that goes into making our beloved transforming robots.
You can listen to the interview here and then you can share your impressions on the 2005 Boards!
TFanPage101
'You may have a valid argument, that I could potentially and respectively counter, but instead I just want to make sure I'm right. Buh bye'
I'm not gonna argue which company does a better job, I'll just say, Transformers toys aren't always going to be perfect, no matter who is producing it. There's always a likelihood for flaws.
knoted
Thanks!
I finally got around listening to this excellent interview: and indeed, it shows once again, it's all about a really well-oiled collaborative effort – not just Hasbro OR Takara.
G1Prowl
Get ahold of the 3rd Ed. Marine Codex and read the blurb on Captain Cortez. I have his personal heraldry tattooed on my right shoulder.
ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND back on subject.
This was a very informative article that got drowned out by weebs starting arguments and idiots like me falling for it. I'd personally like to see more like this, without the… whatever the fuck it was.
SG Roadbuster
more of a Carcharodons fanboy. Tyberos the Red Wake is a badass.
Nevermore
Takara's Transformers brand was so much better before Hasbro hijacked it and outsourced it to Marvel!
what
i mean what
i mean seriously what
If he's on your ignore list, how can you reply to his post?
Also, making bold statements (originally including a swear word), then get annoyed when someone uses your own "argument" against you to criticize toys that had flaws, and immediately put that person on ignore. Classy. Really, this is the internet equivalent of a child sticking his fingers into his ears and yelling "SHUT UP YOUR SO MEAN!!!!!!"
G1Prowl
If you're a Crimson Fists fan, this'll get even more traumatizing for you…
And these right here made the wait from Drill Weekend worth it…
griffn29
I agree with this statement. I wasn't trying to say otherwise in my previous post, just that Hasbro likely funds all the mainlines
GizmoTron
If that's your point, then no one gets your point. TakaraTomy is not under appreciated. People still hang on to every reveal and every interview from the TakaraTomy designers for that insight, and they are highly valued for their part. However nobody goes into a thread for a Hasui interview to exclaim how he and TakaraTomy are getting too much credit like certain people do when it's an article about John Warden or anyone else from Hasbro. And frankly just looking at the going-ons in this thread, I think what you're really confusing for under appreciation is actually just people's reactions to Wing_Saber-X's incessant and trollish TakaraTomy ****-riding.
They can have a premium budget but they still can't make the toy because they'd have to pay the designer? All right…
But, you know, I've seen what some designers who are both not Japanese and work with less than less of half the budget but yet their designs can still run circles around TakaraTomy even with that "rich experience". I mean TakaraTomy's team is good, but you don't have to dig too far in the 3rd Party forums to see TakaraTomy ain't really the only game in town anymore, so as far as finding designers, I think in that your situation Hasbro could find a designer whose on the level yet still affordable if needed.
Revan1307
Carful you'll probably be put on his ignore list if u say anything negative about takara
Digilaut
Thanks for posting this, I love behind the scenes interviews and learning more about the process of creating my favorite past-time toys.
Just too bad that, as usual, there’s always someone who feels the need to elevate one portion of the process by dragging another part down and shitting all over it. God forbid somebody who’s not the cad engineer ever gets interviewed about their role, right? Very mature.
opoptimus
Love your post. I loved Combiner Wars when it first came before it quickly became repaint wars. And each of every one of those TT box sets was like TT's way of saying, "let me show you how it's done right first time around."
Although to be fair, MP-09 was a really ambitious design (you can tell Kobayashi is the kind of designer that lives for challenges), but be it industrial or mechanical design, "design for manufacture" is a key factor to take into consideration, and imho Kobayashi and the designer engineers weren't doing a good enough job. Be it tolerances or the material selection for the ratchet joints, the design team should be responsible too. not just manufacturing.
The brand unification imho has lifted the quality of these general Hasbro releases by quite a lot. I mean TT put their logo on the packaging too and they'd certainly want to keep their good name in the western market.
Afterburner
MP-5 Megatron was designed quickly and has a far more accurate gun mode than any other take on Megatron, 3rd party or otherwise. Of course there is compromise for that. There were some parts that could have used more refining for sure but he was a rush job (which was the real mistake – not giving Yuki more time). The figure hasn't aged great, but works really well with MP-1 and Alternators so he will always have a place in my collection.
MP-9 is an amazing effort, a truly top notch design that just never was manufactured correctly. Faulty parts kept it from possibly being the greatest TF of all time. The only serious design issue I have with that toy is the roof gap in Rodimus' vehicle mode and where the spoiler sits (too far back). Otherwise, his design is wonderful. Too bad tolerances and materials weren't perfectly worked out during production.
Sorry but there's no doubt that TakaraTomy has a much higher standards overall for what they produce than Hasbro. A few less than stellar releases in the premier TF line of all time which Hasbro officially has no input on does not equate to things like not painting the detail on the molded faction symbols in Armada because they thought it didn't matter. Or skipping the paint on the wheels of almost every vehicle TF for years. Or giving Vortex Slingshot colors and shoehorning him into a legacy Combiner when they released that base mold at least 4 other times and certainly didn't need a 5th time as a random repaint so they could make you wait and charge you extra for the character you wanted in the first place (who's design was meanwhile released in the mainline with a different head as an inaccurate version of Fireflight with a wrong name). Or not painting Titan masters at all. Or creating 2 Combiners Wars Scattershots because they realized the first one was so terrible. Etc, etc, etc.
Even when TakaraTomy had to try to make a diamond out of a shit, they did their best. Hasbro has picked it up under John Warden and the current team, no doubt about it. But they aren't where TakaraTomy was at their best before they couldn't release competing versions of the same product.
SG Roadbuster
God-Emperor preserve my fragile Soul, I actually agree with you for once.
G1Prowl
So the internet equivalent of "Lalala not listening", "NO U", and "Last word!" all rolled into one? Par for the course, it would seem
The point being that NEITHER company is infallible, BOTH companies provide a great product for us and the children they are intended for, and some petulant self important weeaboos can't accept that.
Shin Densetsu
Yea MP Megs 1.0 was Yuki and he designed it under 2 weeks. MP Rodimus 1.0 was Kobayashi. While it's expected that Takara's track record will be more hits than misses, they still miss from time to time.
[Wing_Saber-X]
Thank goodness youre on my ignore list. Buh bye.
cynw32618
Serious question, & honestly not being funny but do you say these things to try & troll/try to get some sort of reaction or is this just your way of trying to get your point across?
I just genuinely don’t see what you get from these sorts of statements, & feel you’re shooting yourself in the foot here because you may raise some good points on occasion, but if people think you’re mostly trolling they’ll just block you beforehand. And if that’s the case you’ll just end up wasting your time here.
I don’t believe in blocking people as I’m always welcome to discussion & opening my mind to new things, especially on here, but my time’s at a premium & if I don’t think people want to talk properly, they just want to troll, then why would I or anyone entertain those sort of things? Life’s way too short for that!
When others ask you for proof of some of these statements you just ignore them or go ‘lol’ so I have to assume there’s some sort of awareness, but if anyone from Hasbro ever did somehow see what you put they’d just laugh at you & move on.
Constructive criticism is always welcome, but wild accusations just make you look immature & how can people have a conversation with someone like that?
G1Prowl
So you're saying that the shit shows that were MP Megatron 1.0 and MP Rodimus 1.0 lay squarely at Takara's feet? Noted. And that's just two of MANY examples.
Verno
John's story of progressing through different jobs to eventually work at Hasbro is quite touching.
opoptimus
You still didn’t get my point.
Takara Tomy is very under appreciated in the fandom, considering their key contribution in the actual designing of nearly all the TF toys; and the engineer’s job is necessary for the corporate world only (no disrespect here), Shogo Hasui and co at TT are vital for the joy we fans get out if TFs.
And just for arguments sake, if the opposite happens for Hasbro where they can “go to town” and have premium budget to design a collector level tf from scratch..a 6 inch Marvel legends? Sure. An MP level tf? I sincerely doubt it. Why? Aside from the rich experience TT have on designing transforming toys and the kitbashing/Mecha culture in Japan, I think it’s not that Us don’t have quality industrial design power, but the hourly rate is much higher and for the time needed to design something Mp level it’d end up being not profitable.
I used to live in China, and I heard TT used to fund production for their own lines; and all the factories are actually contracted by TT, not Hasbro. Even some of the factories in Vietnam now were set up by the Chinese companies that contracted for TT.
Thank you. My point exactly.