The Energon Pub

daimchoc wrote:The names for Leo Dux and Fortis have already been revealed before today's post. Looks like you just missed those.

mooncake623 wrote:Wow! they make Prime look really small.... oh well!! nothing else in classics is really in scale anyway

That Bot wrote:

daimchoc wrote:The names for Leo Dux and Fortis have already been revealed before today's post. Looks like you just missed those.

Evidently. I thought I was on top of everything. Then again, their fake names are not important to me, since I'll just be calling them their trademarked Hasbro names.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

mooncake623 wrote:Wow! they make Prime look really small.... oh well!! nothing else in classics is really in scale anyway

Nothing in Transformers is really in scale.

TFWiki wrote:Scale in Transformers is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.

Banjo-Tron wrote:considering cancelling my pre-order based on how poorly these will scale with my other gestalts Is that other Predaking still around or did it get canned?

griffith76 wrote:
Bovis and Fortis

They share the basic body and these two are pretty much ready. What I changed are mostly engineering stuff that non of you will be interested to hear like standard screw sizes, pin size etc.
The major flaws with this design were the lack of locking of beast limbs in robot and alternate mode and the front legs of the beast were left hanging downwards in leg mode. I made some modifications to ensure that there is no loose kibble and any mode.


Talon

We literally got trashed for the design of the wings in Actoys based on the sihoulette and we decided that we need better ones. The new set of wings are pretty much the same length but based very closely to IDW's art and of course the feathers are made articulated for a more dramatic effect.
The body proportions were changed slightly coz we feel that him and Tigris were too wide in arm mode. With the change in body proportions his indian headdress had to go and I opted for a dancougar look with a young handsome face as the older look did not suit the leaner body at all.
We decided that the simple flip down foot was too simple and the lower leg was too hollow so we filled that up and gave him new feet. And talons that are more complex and articulated.

Tigris

He had the same base body proportions as Talon but made much worse with the beast hind legs sticking out sideways in arm mode. He was made leaner as well and I redesigned him arms to have shoulders to resemble G1 more.
I modified the beast legs to make them look closer to how a real tiger should but they had to be a bit skinner to keep the arm mode compact.
Gave him a longer tail that points down instead of up and a neck for beast mode that he's missing. I also added a hunch to the tiger's look coz crouching tigers
He's actually my personal favorite and I think he looks really dynamic in botmode and fun to play fiddle around with.


Leo

The orignal finalized Leo from Cassy was good in robot mode and a nice beast mode (apart from the arm joints looking a little unorthodox). We would have kept it if not for three very fatal flaws. Lets just call him V2 I don't know if Cassy considers the earlier larger mock up to be V1 or are there more versions inbetween.

1. V2 Leo is 9" tall. Its somewhat still acceptable but we really don't want a leader size figure if possible at all.

2. We understand that Cassy had originally wanted him to be even bigger and because we asked him to shrink it down to a reasonable size to scale with his team members, the combined mode suffered and we got what you guys would call the FOC Bruticus Syndrome. It didn't help with the bot's arms/beast front legs merely hang around loosely as back kibble.

3. Lastly, the leg transformation is basically too G1. The beast legs were still acceptable and they look pretty good in bot mode with the fake knee joint in his thigh... until the knee is bent. Anyone who knows how the G1 toy works will get the idea.

So basically with all these taken into consideration the only way to fix things was to redesign Leo from scratch. I loved the body so I kept it but chopped part of the sides off to and design new arms that fold into a block that can add actual mass to the combined torso. Boss hated the heads so we got new ones. The design of the legs was one of the biggest challenge for me since G1 obviously doesnt work here and giving him beast legs like what we had for Tigris made the thighs look terrible. I came up with a new design where we still got some decent rear legs albeit a bit skinny, becomes almost unnoticeable from the front when kept in for torso mode. I'm proud of those legs
Lastly was the biggest challenge of all. Rex has no ass. I spent 2 days designing a collapsible one for him but the kibble was too huge even when folded so back to the drawing board. Finally managed to come up with a design thats simple enough and actually looks somewhat decent to be a friggin shield coz like I explained before, the shield option is a must. So the rest is history and it became the hip that a lot of folks wished it was 10% smaller.


Oh and theres the hugeass-sword and the arm cannon. The sword was a reconfiguration of what Cassy has already done but I felt that his original design looked more like a club so I played around with the blades and managed to form something that pays some homage to his G1 sword. It was initially smaller but bossman says its too puny so it became the monster we're gonna have now. Downside to it is that it takes 2 blades for each member to form it. Theres still some hidden secrets to that thing that we won't be revealing.

Cassy gave us G1 guns scaled up. They are huge and don't go anywhere in almost any modes apart from being held in the hands of the robots. Cassy originally intended to use the sword handle as the arm cannon but we thought that's a little too cheap and it means we can't have both the sword and gun at the same time. I thought since we made that sword we might as well do it for the cannon as well. So I borrowed some gun models from what I did for the other toy company I worked for and made sure no one can tell where they came from after I'm done with them.

Thats about the gist of what happened between the receiving of the finalized models from Cassy and my contribution to the overall design.

That Bot wrote:Razorclaw's buttplate better detach and become a shield. That thing's massive.

Really cool insights, it's nice that they give us these.

daimchoc wrote:c/o griffith76

daimchoc wrote:

That Bot wrote:Razorclaw's buttplate better detach and become a shield. That thing's massive.

Really cool insights, it's nice that they give us these.

The skirt armor is going to be a shield for Leo.

That Bot wrote:

daimchoc wrote:

That Bot wrote:Razorclaw's buttplate better detach and become a shield. That thing's massive.

Really cool insights, it's nice that they give us these.

The skirt armor is going to be a shield for Leo.

Oh, it was confirmed, I see. The way I initially read it, it looked like they were only considering using it that way.

Lastly was the biggest challenge of all. Rex has no ass. I spent 2 days designing a collapsible one for him but the kibble was too huge even when folded so back to the drawing board. Finally managed to come up with a design thats simple enough and actually looks somewhat decent to be a friggin shield coz like I explained before, the shield option is a must. So the rest is history and it became the hip that a lot of folks wished it was 10% smaller.

From my point of view, we have the best designer in the industry on this project with Cassy, and with Griffith we have the best design engineer as well. I'm gonna take my work hat of for a second and be a fan, but I CANNOT wait to have these guys in my hands. I've been a huge fan of griffith's work since before I was involved in the 3P industry, and I have had the pleasure of working side by side with Cassy on projects and - although he is too busy to come on here at the moment - rest assured, he is working on some more very awesome toys for you guys.

As for release schedules. It has changed to meet the demands of the fans, but it looks to be: Bovis, Talon, Leo Dux, Fortis, Tigris. At least, that is the order of the comics at the moment.