Gizmodo has posted their first part that looks into how Hasbro and Takara design and manufacture Transformers. Today's part looks into the design and initial mold creation phase with Transformers Senior Design Director Josh Lamb and Product Designer LEnny Panzica at Hasbro's Providence, RI headquarters. Tomorrow's article will into detail on creating the master mold and manufacturing of the toys for wide scale distribution. Below is highlights from the article but worth reading the whole thing here. I keep hoping that every time a new Transformers movie is released on home video they would do a extra feature on how the toys are made. Maybe interest in articles like this will encourage them as the disciplines required to create a single toy is pretty substantial.

Highlights:
- Hasbro already designing toys, including Transformers, for 2015 (so guessing the TF4 toys are already through or at least near end of mold creation).
- To generate design ideas for Beast Hunter toys, previous TF toys and Zoids parts where painted grey (so can focus on shape, not color) and "frankensteined" together to see how new configurations might work and look like.
- The ideas are then sketched out to conceive a potential final product including robot and alt mode, features and more while being aware of the engineering that will be required for the transformation Read More »