Cybertron Con 2012 Day 3

And I was back for Day 3. I went in the afternoon. My main purpose was to attend the panel.

I had some time on my hands. Looking at the shots I have of the toy displays, I should have spent it taking more photos... Anyway over at the Street Artist Gallery, you could get an airbrush tattoo.    

The Kre-ons made their last scheduled appearance. They were taken away on a trolley. Hopefully we'll see them again. I think they are cute. And from the pictures I saw online, the Kre-ons look better than the movie mascots.

The movies were being screened on stage instead of in the mini theatre. The cartoons were also screened on stage on Day 2. Good decision by the organisers. The capacity of the theatre was only 50 and the queue for that was ridiculously long. More people could watch the shows now.    

Got myself a freebie. Didn't think there was going to be any. They were handing out posters near the merchandise zone. There was only one design. You can click the image to enlarge.

The only panel of the day was the Design Panel by Hasbro Studios - "The Art of Animation". It  was held at the Cybertronian Base. On the panel were:

• Jeff Kline (Executive Producer Transformers Prime, Hasbro Studios)
• Jose Lopez (Designer, Hasbro Studios)

The panel started with a screening of Transformers Prime Season 1 review.

Another video was shown. The first part showed sketches of initial character designs and their final look. Agent Fowler was initially a white guy in good physical shape.

The second part showed the five stages of putting a scene together. The five stages are:

1. Script and Storyboard
2. Animatic
3. Layout
4. Animation
5. Lighting

You can view some pictures of the video here.

Some additional bits.

The decision to do Transformers Prime in CG was due to the movies. Discussion took place on whether to include humans or not. In the end they were as humans have always played a part in Transformers. The thing about doing humans in CG is that you do not want them to be too realistic as they would look creepy. Motion capture was considered but was decided against as actors can sometimes be over expressive. In the end what we got was something stylised with a realistic finish.        

A series usually plots ahead 3 years. When writing, they try to make each character distinctive.

A lot of detail is included in the storyboards. Things like character expressions, body positions, the  emotion a character should reflect, the camera view to use, whether to zoom in or zoom out and so on. 

Just a couple of questions from the Q&A:

Q: Why the title Prime for the series?
A: Firstly because there's Optimus Prime. The series is to be a start point for new viewers.

Q: Why is Bumblebee mute?
A: Kids are used to the movies. There was some thought to making him use songs but it was decided against. His lack of speech could also be used for a story arc. 

The finals for the Transformers Fastest Fingers First Competition was on that day. I had to leave before it began. Contestants had to transform three Transformers Prime Robots in Disguise deluxe figures. According to the Transformers Singapore Facebook Page, the winner was Gavin Lim with a time of 5min 20sec. In second place was Jordan Low and in third place was Willie Teo. Congratulations to them! 

List of Finalists

I did not go for Day 4. The main thing happening that day was the Announcement of the Customisation Model Kits Winners. 

For the Designers category, the winner was ZERO.

And for the Hobbyists category, the winner was Kenny Lim.

Congratulations to them!

That's all for this post.


Click here for a quick tour of Cybertron Con.