Jim Sorenson > Quotes

“Beast Hunters Bumblebee features a color scheme largely inverted from his season one and two body, causing Arcee to quip that "If I reversed my colors, I'd be pink!" in a tongue-in-cheek nod to fans of her Generation One body.”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Bumblebee was the second design that I worked on. Looking at G1, we thought that version was too kid-like. We wanted him to feel tougher. We liked the personality and enerou from the Bumblebee from the movie. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“We looked at the original Arcee and we decided we wanted to stay away from that design. It was important to me that, for this version, even though she's really tough, she always comes across as very feminine. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“With Alpha Trion, we had discussions about how to bring in members of the original 13 Primes. They're more regal, their armor is more elaborate, We want them to look like old world Cybertron, not modern with vehicle bits. With guys like him, you have conversations about things like his cape. A cape didn't make any sense to me. A giant piece of cloth, but he's supposed to be metal. So I made a cape for him that was made of pieces of metal. We also had conversations about the beard; I liked the beard on the original version of him, so we kept it. The question becomes, how do you keep him humanoid but make him still feel alien? -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Soundwave at the beginning- he was one where they were like "The fans are going to kill you once they see this guy." Some stuff you take liberties, other stuff you think "This stuff is too important, we can't mess with it, we'll keep it the same way." Then you have the ultimate say, which is Hasbro. If they want something then straight away you have to do it, even if you think the fans are not going to go for it. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Here's an example: as a kid I always wanted to see Optimus peel his wheels out on Megatron's face. It's just something I did as a kid, you know, they've got these tires! We've got a director, Vinton Heuck, and in the last two or three episodes of the first season we had this giant fight at a volcano and he put that shot in there for me. Watching that I had a tear running down my face. Those moments are when I'm still watching it as a kid and I'm like "Oh my God, this is Transformers, am I going to die now? Is the circle complete?" But it's always fun. -David Hartman”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“We wanted Optimus Prime to feel heroic and powerful. His design helped define the lanquage of the design approach for the whole show. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“I was really just trying to bring back what G1 was- a bulked-out Optimus Prime with giant shoulder pads. We tried 2 or 3 different color schemes. One was very G1, very bright red and white, but we muted it down to something that fits more in with the Prime universe. -Walter Gatus”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“At the beginning we weren't sure how much of June we'd see. I think I only did 2-3 versions of her. I did a couple of costume changes; we tried sweaters, but stuck with scrubs because we wanted her to have that nurse look. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Miko went through the most drastic changes in terms of style. I just produced pages and pages of sketches, trying to figure out what she'd look like. We looked at a lot of harajuku girls. We wanted her to be a bit more eccentric than the other kids, so we gave her multicolored clothes with the short shorts, the color to her hair, the ponytails. We did some really cool texturing on her; look closely at her boots, at her belt. At one point I suggested that the little characters on her belt turn out to be Decepticon spies, but they didn't do that. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Cliffjumper was interesting because originally we based him on the G1 version, a compact car. He was like that for a few weeks, then, one day, after a lot of work had been done, Jeff told me that the Rock was doing the voice so I should make him a badass muscle car. We didn't have time to redo both modes so we only tweaked the robot mode. That's why there are a lot of round shapes on the bot but not the vehicle. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Bulkhead came from Transformers finimated. I loved the design that Derrick [Wyatt] did for that show and wanted to keep that feel. There are differences, because the vehicles are different, but I wanted to keep the gentle giant aspect to him. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“One of the first characters I looked at and thought "This guy's kind of different" was Soundwave, and talking to Jeff and Duane [Capizzi, Transformers Prime Head Writer] it was always "What is the character about?" They would say "He's always in the shadows, he never talks. He's very mysterious." I was like "Let's make him like a ninja." You've got this thing where the wings are the arms and when you look at them straight on they're really thin so it's like they kind of disappear but then when he moves then we can play around with the shapes. So it's that kind of stuff that we tried to figure out as we were designing the characters. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Let's get dinner." We go out to dinner and he says "I've got this project you'd be perfect for." I said "Nah, I'm so happy at Disney..." and he said "I can't tell you what it is but it's about vehicles that change into robots and I won't say any more than that." I was like, "Ok, I'm coming, count me in." -David Hartman”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“We used elements to make Ratchet feel a little bit more square, not as dynamic. The way you break the shapes, he doesn't have the small waist. We gave him a bigger jaw, a bit more square. Within the eyes, we wanted him to feel a lot softer. All those elements make him feel a bit older. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“I was already upset that they killed [Cliffjumper]. But turning him into a zombie was something else... I twisted his legs, gave him fangs. It was tough on me, because I'm a G1 guy, but it was fun. It set the tone of the series. -Walter Gatus”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“For example, we learned that on the toys they always design the vehicle first and then the robot. They design a vehicle then they break it apart. With us, because the robot is the actor and is what we see 90% of the time in the show we told them that we wanted to design the robot first and from there, break it apart and create a vehicle. Obviously we'll know things like Optimus is a truck, Soundwave's going to be some kind of jet, so we know what kind of vehicle it is but we have the robot dictate the shape of the vehicle. That was one of the new things we did on the show that was pretty interesting. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“One of the things that everyone thought was interesting was that I gave [Jack] dark hair. Typically your hero has blond or light hair, but I thought the dark hair fit his personality better. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“I thought it'd be awesome if he looked beat up but he could still kick everyone's *$$. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Megatron went through a lot of changes, Originally. we wanted to borrow desions from the movie version. We saw him as a tortured soul, twisted metal into his body and coming out elsewhere. He didn't have the normal anatomical breaks that our guys have, which is a guy in armor. At some point we said let's forget the movie stuff and just do our own thing. Then I went back to looking at Megatron from G1. We made him a bit rounder and spikier than the G1 version, but borrowed heavily from G1. If you look at the legs, the way the shins curve in and out and the back of the leg, the cannon on the arm, the bucket head, even things like the position of the emblem on his chest and little cuts on his ribcage, all those elements are still there. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“One of the elements I wanted to keep was Laserbeak. He wasn't a cassette tape, but I wanted him to come out of Soundwave's body. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“He's the one that Hasbro had concern about, and said that we had to put something from the original version. There are elements around the head that were borrowed from G1 but that's about it." -Jose Lopez on Soundwave”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“You start grouping guys by the sort of characters they are: Smokescreen was going to be on the Bumblebee team so he should have a similar body type. This informs the design process. Then you do little weird things to make him unique. Like, you want the doors to transform into wings like Bumblebee, but on him the wheels cut through the doors. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“We made the decision to go with alien metal that's a little more malleable. We didn't want to go for a puppet hinge on the mouth- we wanted them to have softer expressions when needed. Example of that: Arcee, when she talks about Cliffjumper- you can actually see the sadness in her eyes even though they are just blue robotic lights. It means a lot to me-I think that subtle acting takes them to the next level and makes them more human, in a way. Even a subtle shift of weight from one leg to another can show somebody's unease. -David Hartman”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“[Ratchet] was the first character we saw fully rendered in 3D with the lighting and when we saw him we went nuts. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Silas, AKA Colonel Leland Bishop, leads MECH, an organization seeking political control through the application of Cybertronian technology. His obsession would eventual lead to his surgical implantation inside the corpse of Breakdown. When he became Silas's fighting 'bot, we had to figure out how he was actually connected, what sort of damage there was, even come up with the lighting for the interior the body. It was a challenge. -Auqusto Barranco”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“I had done some early sketches for Megatron that were deemed too regal, too sophisticated. I really liked those designs, so when Predaking came in the picture I pulled some of those designs and implemented them in the design of Predaking. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Collision is when you have one shape crashing into another. Like with Ultra Magnus. With Ultra Magnus we have the original design with these giant shoulders so when he lifts his arm up, that giant shoulder is going to crash to his head and in CG that thing will just go right through it, so we have to figure out ways around that. We had comments from our CG studio on our storyboards where they'll say "Breakdown will fold his arms" and they'll say, "Well he can't do that because his chest comes out this far." So those physics and geometry have to function. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“Christie [Tseng] was a really young girl who came to do props and she was amazing, a nineteen year old girl doing this stuff. She helped design Bumblebee and parts of a lot of the early characters. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime

“When we started designing [Knockout], the only directive was to make him a fast car, a foil for Bumblebee. I remember looking at rims and saying 'just pimp him out.'" We gave him lots of red and gold. That made him feel more extravagant. I remember thinking that he'd be attractive in bot mode. Then the studio said that he's the sexiest they'd ever seen. That's where his vanity came from. -Jose Lopez”
― Jim Sorenson, Transformers: Art of Prime