Hasbro Transformers Designer Explains How They Created Unicron

Transformers is undertaking its grandest toy creation ever with its new War For Cybertron Unicron project, which is currently seeking backers through Hasbro‘s HasLab division. Fans have wanted a Unicron ever since the original Transformers animated movie debuted, and now Hasbro is looking to deliver that with fan’s help. ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Transformers Senior Design Manager John Warden at San Diego Comic-Con all about Unicron and how the impressive figure was created.

“It’s exciting to work on a project like that,” Warden said. “Something of that scale, it’s amazing. It’s exciting because…coming into an event like this it’s exciting to be around a lot of likeminded fans that are excited about the same things you are. Truth be told we started that project 18 months ago and a lot has gone into it. We created multiple test models, tested articulation. We’ve looked at how many steps of conversion it’s going to be, because it’s going to be the biggest Transformers toy ever created.”

“The robot mode is 27 inches tall,” Warden said. “The planet mode is 30 inches in diameter, and it requires a special stand to hold it up because it weighs 19 pounds, so you can imagine the engineering that goes into something that big. We’re trying stuff with this Transformers toy that we’ve never done on any Transformers toy before, and we have a team around the world including our awesome partners at Takara Tomy In fact, the guy who worked on this thing at Takara Tomy is one of the guys that worked on some of the original Transformers toys from the 1980s.”

In fact, that designer also worked on designing Hot Rod in the film, another favorite from the original movie.

“In fact the original Hot Rod toy, also from the 1986 movie, so for him, it’s a passion project,” Warden said. “You have a whole team of passionate people working on this thing to bring it to life in 19 months, and we’re finally at, I’d say we were at the finishing line but really we’re at the starting point. right now we need backers support, it’s a crowdfunded effort, but what’s exciting is coming into an event like this you see people’s faces light up when they see that thing, and they’re taken right back to that moment in the 1986 movie where Unicron comes out with Orson Welles’ booming voice. It’s exciting. It’s a dream project for me.”

You can find out more about Unicron and back the project right here!