Studio Series 77 NEST Bumblebee Concept Design Notes and Images

I think it’s time to recruit more robots and soldiers from the Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty (NEST)! Working on this Studio Series Deluxe Bumblebee was a lot of fun and a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

First it was slated for a Universal Studios item, then it moved to Gen Selects (one of my personal favorite programs), but was finally released under the Bumblebee Movie umbrella. For a while I thought this little honey bee would never see the light of day, but guess what, it did! I’m actually pretty excited about the end result and allow me to elaborate on my design vision for this little, rough and tough spark plug!

Probably because of my love of GIJOE. I’ve always been a huge fan of the military aspect of Transformers and loved that the movie tapped into that with NEST. I imagined military masterminds rebuilding Bumblebee to create their own JEEP robot drone soldier. Officer Walken, who comes with this item, always seems to be on the run, either he’s a very busy man or he has a very weak bladder.

The mold was designed by Yuya-san and I could pleasantly see this in the transformation. The fact that you have a variety of head movements and can open and close the doors like a real vehicle makes this guy an insanely fun toy! Great sculpt details, a squat, stocky, rugged aura that this Apis mellifera agent exudes.

What I find most fascinating is that we’ve started fleshing out more characters in this elite tactical robot force of NEST. Personally, I’d love to see more characters and would also love to read a story centered around NEST going on secret missions against the Decepticons! How about you all?