Designer Alexander Kubalsky toy sketches

Toy designer Alexander Kubalsky has released onto his facebook page some toy design drawings that he did while he was working at TakaraTomy.

Some of the images have been mirrored here.

Alexander no longer works at TakaraTomy, but he is actually an Australian, and a list of toys he had a hand in can be seen here.


An Australian working on Transformers toy designs... it's a pity he never joined up here to tease us with his creative genius or just have a chat with fellow Australian Transformers fans.

He sold his Lucky Draw Convoy on eBay recently, along with a few other goodies. He also has the greatest eBay username.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161172358315?redirect=mobile

I believe his surname is Kubalsky. :)

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

I believe his surname is Kubalsky. :)

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How'd I manage to do that typo twice... :o

Well, misspelling a person's name would be a good reason to not join here... :p

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Originally Posted by Sinnertwin

He sold his Lucky Draw Convoy on eBay recently, along with a few other goodies. He also has the greatest eBay username.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161172358315?redirect=mobile

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Wow... he auctioned off some test-shots and design drawings too, and one sold for about $530!
Now THOSE are toy design drawings, drawing every little part for construction... not character artwork that most of the Hasbro "designers" draw of the two modes for the TakaraTomy designers to engineer into a convertible toy.
It amazes and impresses me how well these toy designers can visualise these things in 3D on their 2D drawings, and all the parts needed to make it possible.


I'm surprised he was allowed to keep or sell those things, as the designs and prototypes would be the property of Hasbro & TakaraTomy.

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Originally Posted by griffin

Wow... he auctioned off some test-shots and design drawings too, and one sold for about $530!
Now THOSE are toy design drawings, drawing every little part for construction... not character artwork that most of the Hasbro "designers" draw of the two modes for the TakaraTomy designers to engineer into a convertible toy.

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My thoughts exactly. Those "designers" are merely "concept artists" at best.


The reason he could sell all these is possibly they were personal gifts/farewell souvenirs when he left Takara

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Originally Posted by doublespy

My thoughts exactly. Those "designers" are merely "concept artists" at best.

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Perhaps, but one only needs to look at Emiliano Santalucia's work (For example) to see that often there is very little difference between his "concepts" and the end figure - Clearly his designs are very "Toy Friendly" in that regard, as well as being just brilliant pieces of art. :cool:

That said, these cross-sections and such are equally as amazing! :D
(The benefits of being directly employed as opposed to being contracted eh? ;):))

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The reason he could sell all these is possibly they were personal gifts/farewell souvenirs when he left Takara

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Do we know that he departed the company amicably though? :o

This guys work is awesome. To bad I had no idea he existed before today let alone made some of my toys.

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Originally Posted by Hursticon

Perhaps, but one only needs to look at Emiliano Santalucia's work (For example) to see that often there is very little difference between his "concepts" and the end figure - Clearly his designs are very "Toy Friendly" in that regard, as well as being just brilliant pieces of art. :cool:

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Yeah, that's why I said "some" Hasbro designers - as we saw during Animated that a lot were drawn and conceptualised (by Derrick Wyatt and Eric Siebenaler) to facilitate the creation of the toys. But those concept drawings are still by no means in the same league as these engineering designs.

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Originally Posted by griffin

But those concept drawings are still by no means in the same league as these engineering designs.

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Yeah, I'll concede that. :)

It would certainly seem from Hasbro's end, that they (now?) contract out conceptual work, whereas TakTom seeming prefer to keep it in-house; Is there any evidence available that would perhaps give credence to that theory? - or at the very least maybe shed some light?

TakTom designers do MPs from scratch to finish (Hasui's drawings are awesome...) they certainly have the capability to design awesome robots without Hasbro's creative input.

I've been having this theory that the reason Hasbro not doing any actual industrial design/engineering is that it might just be too expensive to hire someone to do in-house in the States. They do have someone to check-up and test-out the final design (from the Gizmodo interview a while ago) but I really doubt if they can make it without TakTom's engineering capabilities (the Titanium series was completely done in-house IIRC and it wasn't the finest work in the franchise)

I actually asked the question at BotCon last year to the Hasbro Marketing Rep - would Hasbro be able to cope with a worst-case scenario of a sudden split with TakaraTomy or they get bought out (again) that leaves them with no engineers to design their Transformers toys.... the guy was cagey, but assured that a sudden loss of the JP designers would not impact on Transformers. (it was actually amusing to note that he didn't reject my assertion that Hasbro don't, or can't, do any of the complex engineering/designing of TFs toys)

I guess they could stall with redecos for 6-12 months until they employ enough engineers to meet their needs. But this answer was before they announced their new "simplified" approach to Transformers toys, and since I think they did their Marvel and Star Wars crossovers in-house (because they weren't designed/drawn by the Transformers team at Hasbro, and they are a lot simpler design), they might have some experienced people already there to tap into.

I don't think they could stall with repaints. Remember Takara control the use of all molds designed by them.

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Originally Posted by DELTAprime

Remember Takara control the use of all molds designed by them.

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I get the feeling , due to the business arrangement the 2 companies have, that it's a lot greyer than that. :o