Transformers inspired me to go to college to study engineering, so as one may guess, I really enjoy the design aspect of the toys. However, have there ever been any real looks at how these toys are made?

Now hear me out, I've sought out every designer interview possible, from the Takara masterpiece interviews to the videos posted on Gizmodo, however most of these interviews simply talk about why decisions are made during design or the various stages of the process.

However, we've never really got an idea of how these toys are actually designed. Obviously they are made in CAD programs (the Gizmodo interview showed us a Solidworks model of Ultimate Beast Hunters Optimus), but have there ever been any interviews that show the construction process in CAD or elaborate on it? How do you members on here that make Shapeways figures entirely from scratch even start going about the process? It seems like it would be even more difficult with figures that transform into specific forms, such as real-world cars.

I have entire sketchbooks full of transformations I worked out on original ideas as a kid, and now that I'm in college and have the tools to do so, I'd love to actually make one of my old designs in real life- I just have no idea where to start! So if anybody has any links to obscure interviews or personal tips from experience, please share! This is an aspect I don't see a lot of people touch upon, so I'd love to hear some thoughts.

 

If you have access to CAD software like Solidworks or Autocad, you can start by making your designs. You can then simulate the transformation to determine whether you have any interference between the pieces. It's long, tedious work so I'd suggest you get started. Your coursework is only going to get more demanding, so I'd suggest you use your spare time to become proficient using CAD programs (the more the better).
I'm not in the industry, but I do have a BSME. Good luck!

 

I would imagine that they (Hasbro / Takara) would want to protect their exact process. The Transformers Designer Desk series I would think would be the closest thing we'll get. I would love to know the step-by-step process. I'm in the art field and am just curious with the creation process.

 

I Have friends and family that are engineers. Its a pretty difficult process a mechanical device such a water pump, 1 peace is fabricated at time to cut costs. where an action figure is fabricated all at once and may require a multitude of prototypes just to get the tolerences right. the more pieces something has the expensive it becomes to create.
remember that you will be working in a team and most of your own ideas will get side line the first couple of years. don't be discouraged. your job is to make the lead designer look good and in return he will move you through the rank.

If you want to get into the toy biz start saving up and go to toy conventions there are plenty of smaller companies to start out with.
get a portfolio together and start 3d printing your ideas.

best of luck

 

What I know is that the Hasbro side of things is more responsible for the aesthetics, gimmicks, budget limitations etc., whereas the engineering is more of TakaraTomy's responsibility.

However, that's not remotely cut-and-dry, all steps of the development process are very collaborative, with a lot of back-and-forth between the two companies.

 

There has been something at botcon or something that I saw about the design process, I wouldn't get your hopes up though, you probably won't end up at Hasbro unless you know someone.

Knowing the right people is more important that anything else even formal education.

Don't want to upset you but that's a big part of how art and design fields work.

It was at 2006 Botcon.

 

I'm part way on this journey. This is what I've learned so far about the practical side (beyond initial design, the actual making phase).

Learn about injection moulding. The process itself puts limitations on your design in order to keep costs down, particularly if you try to keep things to a straight pull design (the most basic, two sides of a mould simply pulling apart). Thankfully a lot of design problems have already been solved by very clever people to take straight pulls into account. On the way you'll likely discover the 4,823,412 different kinds of moulding processes there are and their relative benefits, but for the most part injection moulding is the target. Initial tooling is expensive, but part production is cheap, making it the mass manufacturing method of choice.

The GE Engineering Thermoplastics Design Guide is a good place to start for general guidelines, and should be easily found through Google. You might also find the documents and videos Protolabs make available helpful. Their manufacturing processes are limited (and costly) compared to a big factory, but it provides a useful baseline to work with.

Your key goals are to manage stress as plastic melt passes through the mould to avoid defects, and lower manufacturing costs. SolidWorks actually has plastic flow simulation in there (not sure if in all editions) to help you identify stress problems, but I haven't learned how to use this yet.

Ejection draft can sometimes be an absolute mind screw for interlocking parts. No doubt it gets easier with experience, but this still does my head in.

Learn a parametric modelling suite. Solidworks, NX, Creo, whatever. They're not cheap, but if you're at university/college there's a good chance you can get access to one. Get to understand parts, assemblies, feature trees. One stage I'm not up to yet: laying out parts on a tree with gates, runners, sprues. Perhaps the factory design engineer does this, perhaps the initial designer is meant to. This I really don't know.

In the beginning, you'll benefit from creating the same part from scratch multiple times, and learning how to make the feature tree more efficient as you learn the program.

Get to know the limitations of the solid modelling software you're using. Plenty use something like Rhino or Z-Brush for more organic shapes first, then import into a solid modelling program to make those shapes easier to manufacture.

Understand your prototyping options, limitations and costs. 3D printing (and all the different types within, including stereolithography), CNC, your own home casting set up. The process is highly iterative, and you'll be testing tolerances and making tweaks many times over.

I'm definitely not an expert on this. Someone more experienced may offer better insights, but this should give you a start.

 

Thank you to EVERYONE who chimed in! I love reading all of this kind of stuff. I just want to make it clear that I don't expect to get a job at Hasbro or start up a company or anything, but I'd still love to work on stuff as my own pet projects.

I've actually got myself a copy of Creo (want to get some better software later- Creo is really only great for nonorganic shapes, and the learning curve is steep as heck), and I spent a crapton of time on that my last two semesters learning stuff myself, as what they teach you in class is definitely bare bones. I've made a few engine assemblies from scratch and modeled a leg made up of a few parts for practice, but the whole process just seems so daunting. With engines you just make your crankshaft, impeller, etc., and they all work together one way, but with transformers there's so much to account for. It certainly is challenging!

As for the physical aspects, I really benefited from taking a materials science course last semester, as I learned a huge amount about molding and whatnot (doing tensile tests with the plastic some transformers are made of also showed me that I'm probably being way too gentle with my transformers  ). I'll probably never actually make anything using those techniques, as they are indeed very expensive, but we have a great industrial 3d printer on campus.

Anyways, keep up the discussion! I love reading all of this.

 

Now i haven't gotten into very complex full transformations, but if you've seen any of my post, i do a lot of different parts and add on stuff for figures. and its honestly a pain. but it just takes time to learn the process as well as learning your software. i use Rhino3d for mac and i love it. i have been using it for a little over a year and i am still learning new things today as i am mainly self taught.

but i have worked on one full small scale transformer, and oh boy is it tough. I'm a studio art major but i do absolutely no sketching hah. i can't draw in 3d for my life so i go from ideas in my head straight to the software. and its basically just guess and check. but definitely start with the simple shapes (blocks) first of the figure and see how things work together, then start getting into the nitty gritty with complex parts and details.

and some advice if you do consider trying to get parts 3d as well as injection molded. just start your models with the straight pull details. just as a precaution because with 3d printing, it doesn't matter at all about the direction, but then lets say you want to mold that same part, it won't work with injection molding.

 

Transformers Animated: the AllSpark Almanac II had some great stuff about the toy making process, including CAD models with editing notes.

 

If I remember correctly from a article posted a while back, Has-Tak have a large group of people work on one toy. It was in a featured lucky draw figure being sold by a former designer where he revealed he was behind the smokestack gun of Classics Voyager Prime. Creating your own figure as detailed as the ones Has-Tak makes would take a long time, plus when it comes to making elaborate curves and edges featured in the movie toys or generations lines, I believe Has-Tak has access to imported files from the CGI. That might not be correct but I think I remember reading that, maybe someone speculated it on another forum. Either way good luck to you!

 

I find this thread fascinating.

As interested as I am in learning how TT and Hasbro go about developing figures...I would love to know how some of these high end third parties go about the process. From comments dalianjj has made in the past, it almost sounds like Fans Toys utilizes a single designer for each project. With how complicated some of their MPesque designs are...a single designer would be extremely impressive.