Courtesy of Hasbro Toy Designer Evan Brooks, we can share for you another “Behind The Scenes” gallery and development info of the popular Transformers Studio Series 86 figures.
Mr. Brooks is the person who primarily works on Studio Series 86 figures and he has updated his Instagram account with images of the concept art, sketches, CAD files, prototypes and samples of Studio Series 86 Scourge (and Sweep) and Gnaw. To make things even more interesting, he has also shared amazing information and trivia about the creative process with references, and several ideas that were considered during the development and more. Did you know that Scourge’s transformation sketches were drawn by veteran Takara Tomy designer Takashi Kunikiro with a marker? Or that Gnaw’s robot eyes had to be sunken back in the head?
See all the images as well as Evan Brooks comments about each figure after the jump. If you missed our firsts round ups of images and info, you can find part 1 here and part 2 here. Sound off your impressions on the 2005 Boards and stay tuned for more updates.
Studio Series SS 86-05 Scourge
Sorry that I’ve slowed down with these. it has been a busy time!
Next up is ” Scourge, the tracker and his huntsmen, the Sweeps!”
There isn’t too much to say with this guy other than his figure turned out FANTASTIC. Scourge has had some interesting toys over the years and it was nice to have the opportunity to work on a figure that represents his cybertronian hovercraft/jet mode thing. Worked on this one with the fantastic Kunihiro san who’s marker transformation plan you can find here. The skill of a true draftsman, no pencil, MARKER.
The plan from the beginning was to make sure that his face could be revealed in his alt mode to recreate that scene from the movie, since this is Studio Series and that’s what we try to make this line about. Instead of having it extend outward, Kunihiro san found a very simple yet effective way to make that mechanism happen from the transformation and revealing a panel.
I can’t remember who proposed the open claw hand to get more expression into the figure but I’m so glad it worked out. Had to make sure he got his pink finger nails in! Just sorry I couldn’t also get his pink toes in.
The blaster included is a nod to his original toy weapon and we wanted to get a Blast effect in with him to also plus him up.
As we got to the coloring for this figure, I remember it was another game of “What color was this character, ACTUALLY?” because his blues shifted depending on the version of the movie you watched and I think every episode of season 3 and 4 that he’s in is in a different shade of blue.
We landed on the colors you see the initial release in and I was rather fond of the more muted blues. Made him feel like more of a troop builder, I think.
It was locked in before I joined the team that we would be re-decoing him as a Sweep later on but color wise it was thrown out there to just do the g1 toy deco. That g1 blue was too close to the Scourge color so we then pumped up the saturation to make it stand out as a different color.
I quite love this figure and hope you all enjoy it as well. Which version did you make Scourge and which did you make the Sweeps? Let me know your thoughts and thanks for reading.
Studio Series SS 86-08 Gnaw
Hello and happy friday to everyone where it is currently friday!
Sorry about the delays on updates, just been a rather busy week.
So next up we have SS86-08 Gnaw!
I guess technically this is just a Sharkticon but we called them “Gnaw” because of the history of the toys.
Worked on this character with Hasui san (the living transformers legend!) who you can really see took the reins on this figure. I always look forward to seeing his design sketches because the details he pumps in just look so natural. He did a fantastic job of referencing the Floro Dery sketches and transferring some of that greeble detail over to the final toy.
We bumped this guy up to DLX scale to give us enough room to really nail his conversion(and we even had room at the end to add in his Blaster from the g1 toy!). The antenna on the shark mode had to be removed due to thickness and flexibility of plastic but I still think it reads as an iconic Sharkticon.
The only issue we ran into was the robot eyes had to be sunken back in the head for some reason that I can’t remember. I believe there was an issue we were running into when we made the first physical model so the eyes where then pushed further back into the head. Bit of background on Transformer head designs, on the DLX and bigger figures the head of the robot is usually 2 or more pieces. Normally, it’s just a front and back piece that then encloses on a ball joint for the neck. The eyes for the robot mode are usually on the back piece of the head so that they’re easier to paint without having to worry about over-spray on the face. Then of course, their are a few figures that have light piped eyes so they’re their own unique piece.
But other than that, I love our little army builder figure. I think he even works well with the previous core/legends scale versions so you can make your swarm come in all sizes!
Do you all have a favorite army builder character you wish we would do more of? Let me know what you think! Hope you all have a good weekend.
Chadderbug
I mean, it's basically just Twincast but blue chest. Wouldn't be too hard to do?
TargetmasterJoe
So did he just say "hey, if you want, you can swap heads between Percy and Magnificus so Percy can have his toy-accurate head" or not really?
Dinobot Swoop
Still wondering if they'll do a Micro Man-colored Blaster repaint and name it "Bluster" just to cement that piece of canon?
Chadderbug
Or randomly do what the Creatures Collide set did and just pack in the extra head cause why not
Ramberk Magnus
I heard that both heads get produced but obviously only one is used. The extra head’s plastic simply gets recycled. It’s more cost effective to make one mold with multiple heads and simply recycle the extra head. That’s what I read somewhere.
MeGrimlock78
Every time they mention alt head sculpts being produced, it makes me wonder what happens to them?
I imagine a bunch of Perceptor heads being thrown in a smelting pot like the Unicron scene in the movie.
Creepy!
ClearAsChristal
Oh, yea. I had forgotten.
Rodibotimus84
The SS Dinobots got some BTS but not by Evan glaub ich
ClearAsChristal
I think Wildrider already happened. I'm not sure, bit isn't Perceptor the first SS86 figure to have a BTS?
WinstoBot
I really do like this Perceptor figure a lot, but I can’t understand why they couldn’t add just one more parts count and included a panel to cover the huge whole on the back.
JT-bob
The budget kept them from using a second panel to close the hole, but we're seeing in this BTS entry that the design choice was having the head flip out from the front where a panel naturally covers the hole in robot mode or the back where nothing covers it, and because they didn't want to see the back of the head in alt mode they chose to just leave it gaping in bot mode. Of course you're right that adding a simple cheap part, a friction-fit hinged plate, would have solved both issues, but that's the brand we're stuck with.
Chadderbug
Well, they waited this long to do a Perceptor, so it'll probably happen with Wild Rider? Unless he already happened.
Chadderbug
I'd assume it was the budget that got in the way of not including a back panel to conceal the head better. He is a pretty tall and dense figure by what I hear, so yea.
JT-bob
… so, to avoid seeing the back of the robot head in microscope mode, they left a gaping hole in the robot mode's back? That does not seem like a good tradeoff to me, I would not care diddlysquat about seeing the back of the robot head in alt mode, but I'd even take squaring off the back of the head to fold it flush there rather than look at the hollow back of the figure in robot mode. This is such an odd thing that they seem to be doing more and more lately, that's a big compromise to robot mode just to achieve something minor in an alt mode.
Megatronwp38
He's one of my favorite studio series figures.
Vector Oracle
It broke down. Very tragic.
Sol Fury
It's also "sorta" in Marvel UK
G1 Grimlock
Great design
Girl Pants
Nice to see a hint of a Toy-Perceptor possibly happening too. I'm also a huge fan of that multi-color sketch of the basic parts breakdown of the mold. It's cool to see how the basic shapes come into being.
Also interesting to see the whole part about the head storage. After some of the more dour ones (….yeah, Pointblank), it's nice to see a change made for appearance and not purely for budget.
pokemonsdoom
Its ok Evan. We all pretend Carnage in C minor didn't happen either.