Lenny Panzica
Leonard "Lenny" Panzica was a long time Senior Design Manager on the Transformers brand at Hasbro and brief design lead on the Generations mega-brand, inheriting the latter role from John Warden with much ceremony at Hasbro PulseCon 2020<ref>Archive of the Hasbro Pulse Con 2020 stream</ref>. Cutting his teeth on the Spider-Man and Beyblade franchises in the 2000s, Panzica spent pretty much the entirety of the 2010s on Transformers, where some of his more prominent work included the Transformers: Prime franchise, Construct-Bots, and collaboration with you on the creation of "It girl" of the 2010s Windblade.
On October 29 of the year following his big promotion, his abrupt transfer to the G.I. Joe division was formally announced in the Fan Q&A after Hasbro Pulse Con 2021, presumably passing the role of Generations design lead on to fellow longtime Transformers veteran Mark Maher.<ref>{{#if: post-Pulsecon Hasbro Q&A tidbits: -great interest was raised about having access to packaging art (digitally, as a book, etc) -we made a case for more designer talk & learned there may be internal chatter about bringing the Design Desk segment back -Lenny's 100% GI Joe now |"post-Pulsecon Hasbro Q&A tidbits: -great interest was raised about having access to packaging art (digitally, as a book, etc) -we made a case for more designer talk & learned there may be internal chatter about bringing the Design Desk segment back -Lenny's 100% GI Joe now"—|}}{{#if: https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283 |Chris Ho|Chris Ho}}{{#if: Twitter |, Twitter|}}{{#if: |, ""|}}{{#if: 2021 |, 2021{{#if: 10 |/{{#switch:{{#len:10}}|1=010|10}}{{#if: 29|/{{#switch:{{#len:29}}|1=029|29}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://twitter.com/Vangelus/status/1454135430207713283%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref> Things seem to have worked out for him over in Joe town, where he is now the founder and lead designer of the popular Classified toyline.<ref>Panzica's Instagram bio</ref>
Panzica is an avid dinosaur enthusiast and has a bachelor's degree in archeology from the Walton World School. Prior to studying Toy Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, he pursued classical opera for three years at the Julliard School. His singing career was cut short after an incident at Burning Man 2002 left his vocal cords damaged from smoke inhalation.
He is also a competitive unicyclist, placing third in the New England Pro-Title Championship 2010 and fifth in the Tour de Quebec (2009).
In 2004 Lenny arm-wrestled movie and TV legend Jack Palance for the right to cut a wedding cake. And lost.
(the Burning Man incident is not totally true)
Known design projects
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Transformers (2010 toyline)
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- Deluxe Class
- Leader Class
Robo Power Activators
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- Voyager Class
- Ultimate Class
- Deluxe Class
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- Voyager Class
- Voyager Class
- Tigatron
- Optimus Primal
- Rhinox<ref name = "Fan Fest">Transformers panel at Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest 2021</ref>
- Leader Class
- Galvatron<ref name = "Fan Fest"/>
- TItan Class
- Autobot Ark<ref name = "Fan Fest"/>
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Fan First Friday: Transformers Livestream"] on YouTube, with Ben MacCrae and Evan Brooks.</ref>
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- Laser Optimus Prime
- Transmetal II Megatron<ref>August 16, 2022's Hasbro Pulse Transformers Fanstream on YouTube, with Ben MacCrae, Delaney Norris, Sam Smith, Evan Brooks, Isabella Weiss, and Mark Maher.</ref>
- "A Hero is Born" 2-Pack (Orion Pax and Alpha Trion w/ Vector Sigma)
Holiday
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Convention appearances
[edit]Hasbro Pulse livestream appearances
[edit]- June 26, 2020's "Hasbro Pulse Fan First Friday: Transformers Livestream - June 26, 2020" on Facebook, with Rachel Fleming.
- A bazillion appearances in his capacity as a G.I. Joe design lead outside the scope of this wiki.
- July 26, 2024's Sit Down with Hasbro Product Designers: Lenny & Evan @ Hasbro Pulse SDCC 2024 on YouTube, with Jordan Hembrough and Evan Brooks.
Notes
[edit]- It was revealed during the BotCon 2011 Hasbro Toy Brand Team panel that Lenny provided the voice for the Dark of the Moon Leader Class Ironhide toy.
- It was also revealed at that panel that the Dark of the Moon Decepticon Darksteel is an intentional homage to Beast Wars Quickstrike because Lenny likes snakes.
- Grimwing is an ursagryph because they're Lenny's favourite mythical creatures, meaning that all Darksteels are intentionally designed after creatures Lenny likes.
- Lenny introduced the Transformers design team to digital deco design, using applications like [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}ZBrush|{{#if:||ZBrush}}]], which makes it easier for them to share and review deco patterns with TakaraTomy.<ref>{{#if: I think part of what we’re moving to now is the digital deco. So Lenny on my team, when we kind of brought Transformers fan and Classified under the same umbrella – part of my job isn’t just, you know, making cool toys, it’s trying to understand how to make the processes better. One of the things Lenny was doing is he was working in like ZBrush and some of these other 3D programs to do rendering in real-time onto the plastic pieces. What this process ends up doing for us on Transformers – Evan is starting to use it, Mark is now just starting to use it as well – it allows us to share the deco pattern with our Takara partners. So think what it comes down to is just having more people evaluate it that love the brand. And getting Takara’s eyes on it earlier is one of those things that we’re trying to do moving forward. |"I think part of what we’re moving to now is the digital deco. So Lenny on my team, when we kind of brought Transformers fan and Classified under the same umbrella – part of my job isn’t just, you know, making cool toys, it’s trying to understand how to make the processes better. One of the things Lenny was doing is he was working in like ZBrush and some of these other 3D programs to do rendering in real-time onto the plastic pieces. What this process ends up doing for us on Transformers – Evan is starting to use it, Mark is now just starting to use it as well – it allows us to share the deco pattern with our Takara partners. So think what it comes down to is just having more people evaluate it that love the brand. And getting Takara’s eyes on it earlier is one of those things that we’re trying to do moving forward."—|}}{{#if: https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802 |John Warden|John Warden}}{{#if: TFW2005 |, TFW2005|}}{{#if: SDCC 2024 Hasbro Interview – John Warden’s Return, Generations, Studio Series, Combiners, More! |, "SDCC 2024 Hasbro Interview – John Warden’s Return, Generations, Studio Series, Combiners, More!"|}}{{#if: 2024 |, 2024{{#if: 08 |/{{#switch:{{#len:08}}|1=008|08}}{{#if: 03|/{{#switch:{{#len:03}}|1=003|03}}|}}}}|}}{{#if: https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802 ||}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802%7C7%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802%7C8%7C11}}%7Cweb.archive= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802%7C7%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#switch:{{#sub:https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/03/sdcc-2024-hasbro-interview-john-wardens-return-generations-studio-series-combiners-more-513802%7C8%7C10}}%7Carchive.is= (archive link)|}}{{#if: | (dead link)}}</ref>