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It's a little like a Willy Wonka's Toy Factory hidden away in the middle of New England, right down to the litigiousness. "What happens if a kid signs the thing and then tells someone?" a student asked a Hasbro PR representative at a recent career day. (Hasbro employees are always a hit, shockingly.) "We'd sue them," the rep deadpanned to me. That sounds extreme, but when you consider that basically every planned product the company is working on is being paraded in front of and prodded by a bunch of kids sipping on Capri Suns, you sort of get it.
We weren't allowed on-site at the Fun Lab when we visited because they hadn't been prepped for our arrival. We asked if we could ditch the cameras and just pop our heads in, but no dice. It's that secretive. "Stuff being tested in there won't be out until 2015, 2016," a PR rep told me. Still, it's crucial step for Transformers in particular.
AutobotTrainer wrote:You guys are FAST. I was just about to post this in the thread on "build a bot" and poof...here it is.
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GuyIncognito wrote:"And here, you can see how we decided to put a tiny head on this gigantic Optimus body."
Va'al wrote:I keep track of everyone. Backwards.
There are atandarfs to maintain.
LOST Cybertronian wrote:Hey, If Mindmaster survived then you should do just fine.
warzon3 wrote:neat article!
So after the CAD part those grey protoypes are 3d printed? Wow I never knew that, I always thought they were hand sculpted or something....
morphobots wrote:I'm a bit concerned about that comment in the article regarding metallic paints and plastic. Does that mean some of us now have a boatload of figures we shelled out extra money for sitting around waiting to develop their own version of GPS?
GuyIncognito wrote:morphobots wrote:I'm a bit concerned about that comment in the article regarding metallic paints and plastic. Does that mean some of us now have a boatload of figures we shelled out extra money for sitting around waiting to develop their own version of GPS?
These are cheap plastic toys made for kids. They're not made to last, like the olden days when toys were hand-made with wood and metal. EVERY figure has a potential to fade or disintegrate over time. That's one reason why I don't waste money on imported figures just because they have a special paint job.
SkyWarpsGhost wrote:I thought he meant mixing paint into plastics would weaken them, which is why they are prototyped in grey then painted. He did mention that a guy paints all the protos, as they are usually the figure in the box art pics. Sorry if that's a stupid idea and I totally got the wrong end of the stick with what he said in the video.
Designing toys takes sketching and planning and imagining, sure. But what's even more impressive is the actual making—still a much more industrial and craftsmanlike process than you'd imagine. It requires, essentially, a whole factory condensed into a few rooms of Hasbro's headquarters outside of Providence, Rhode Island.
We were recently able to get an in-depth look at the workshop. It's a huge place, but we're going to focus on a few of the highlights of how your favorite toys evolve from half-ideas to fully functional, kung-fu-gripping friends.
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