The Energon Pub

Thanks to Griffin of the OTCA Boards, for his write up of two Australian meetups with Transformers Animated Designer Eric Seibenaler, comes plenty of information regarding the Transformers Animated toys, past present and future.

The two meetings (held in Melbourne and Sydney) took place after Eric participated in an Australian Animated competition. He took time out from his busy schedule to talk Transformers with Australian Fans.

Some of the tidbits of information Eric divulged to the Aussie fans included:
- Eric designed all the Transformers Animated figures, not just Oilslick. His first figure was Armada Laserbeak, who Eric was re-united with thanks to Griffin.
- Eric is working on two size classes of figures for the upcoming Movie line.
- A New Animated Bumblebee figure is on it's way, it will be smaller and include an extra weapon of sorts
- A New Bulkhead repaint is also on it's way, and like Atomic Lugnut (which Eric named) it will be a repaint that retains the Bulkhead name.
- Oil Slick was meant to contain slime or Water in his helmet and second weapon, but due to safety concerns, it was nixed.
- New Deluxe Animated Arcee will not be entirely Pink
- The UK version of Animated Sideswipe was created without the knowledge or approval of Hasbro, and when found out, they were made to change the name.

For further details about the meetups, and more tidbits of information and photos of Eric doing his thing, please check out Griffin's thread at OTCA.

I tagged along to the Sydney meetup, Eric was a blast, he was very polite and friendly. So not only can the man draw, he's a damn good bloke to boot.

Got him to sign my Animated comic, Animated Jazz and a Lugnut figure too!

Wow, the same person is responsible for both Armada Laserbeak and Animated Oil Slick. Does anyone have a list of all the figs he's designed? I have a hunch there are a bunch of other all-star best toys ever on it.

Very cool, he sounds like a nice guy.

BTW, Oil Slick is an excellent figure and much better than a good number of the classics/universe figures, IMO. I don't get why some people seem to hate him.

Now if anyone manages to find a way to get water into his head bubble thing, please share!

Did he share any new movie stuff?