User:Fanofcoolstuff27/sandbox/WIP
| Autobots | Decepticons | |
|---|---|---|
| Autobots | Decepticons | |
- ↑ Testing 1 2 3.
References
- ↑ Blah Blah Blah.
Animation models
Right: Cyclonus's finalized model used in "Kicker Beware!".
As mentioned further up in this section, the animation wasn't entirely up to snuff due to a multitude of different reasons. While it is pretty clear that some episodes were not ready to air but were pushed out anyway due to production deadlines, it seems that even the earliest of behind the scenes production materials were also somewhat rushed; one of the biggest being the animation models. Like Energon's predecessor, Armada, Energon was also very big on keeping the character models as accurate to their toys as possible, however; it appears that the show's production team had settled into work on the show before all of the first wave of toys had been fully designed, leading to several characters within the first few episodes to feature models that did not match their finalized toys. These inaccuracies were sometimes as small as a character using a weapon that was rendered in the wrong color, to characters featuring entirely different designs altogether. Production materials for both the show and Hasbro/Takara's toy designs that have since surfaced on auction sites and fansites suggest that some of these designs are based on prototypes of the toys and even hand-drawn design sheets by Takara employees.[1][2]
Most of the unfinalized designs for the main characters that appeared in the first few episodes appeared to subside by roughly the eighth episode ("Starscream the Mysterious Mercenary") and were replaced by new toy-accurate models. Unfortunately, other minor characters that appeared in earlier episodes, such as the Street Action Mini-Con Team, never received new models (though arguably, the Mini-Cons didn't need to be redesigned as they were depicted in vehicle mode a lot of the time and were mostly shown using hand-drawn animation in order to interact with Kicker). Among some of the aforementioned production materials, dates are given on model sheets indicating that the models had been finalized in December of 2003; only a month before the show's debut and several weeks before the first wave of Takara products were distributed, meaning that the first few episodes were likely nearing the final stages in production, leaving no room for corrections to be made in those episodes.[1] Some of the unfinalized models can also be found in issues of TV Magazine, as well as surfaced cartoon scale charts.
Among some of the characters that were affected are:
- Cyclonus: Cyclonus's first model featured gold tips on his lavender-ish rotor blades, gold arm cannons and light gray chest windows. His second model changed his cannons to dark gray, removed the gold tips from his rotor blades and switched out the light gray windows for dark blue (examples shown above). This second model appeared in less episodes than the first as he was reformatted into Snow Cat not long after the changes had been implemented.
- Jetfire: Jetfire's model remained mostly the same, the only major difference shown was his gun, which was depicted in gray, before later changing to a shiny red to match the transparent red plastic used on the Takara version of the toy.
- Megatron: After he first redesigns his Energon Sword, it became a tiny, green arm-mounted tank with the sword blade protruding from the front of the tank and the turret positioned towards the back of the tank. In later episodes, it is changed to a larger toy-accurate tank in black, with the blade protruding from the rear of the tank.
- Strongarm: Strongarm's first model featured robot feet based on Takara drawings that sat under his windshield feet. In his second model, the "secondary feet" were removed. Amusingly, the legs of the original Takara drawings used an entirely different design.
- Sureshock: While the other two members of the Street Action Mini-Con Team had pre-production designs by Takara that didn't stray too far from their finalized toy designs, Sureshock and in turn, Perceptor, featured entirely different pre-production designs that made it into the cartoon and were never rectified. On the other hand, these characters started to slowly disappear from the background of later episodes or were only shown as hand-drawn vehicles interacting with Kicker, so they didn't really need to be redesigned.
- Shockblast: Shockblast is a slight oddity, as he never appeared in the first eight or so episodes, but still used an unfinalized model in various scenes throughout his debut episodes; most notably in "Shockblast: Rampage". This model used a pink deco with different shades of green. This alternate model also appeared in several TV Magazine issues.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 TFRaw.com's model sheet collection - as of 2021 this collection contains four galleries worth of Super Link production materials.
- ↑ "ROLLOUT!" - An unofficial Japanese fan-published mook that contains Super Link cartoon materials, as well as Hasbro and Takara prototype photography and design sheets — all of which had been found on auction sites.
