MPM-15 Brawl From Screen To Toy Concept Design for Movie Masterpiece Decepticon

Hasbro's Studio Series deisgner Sam Smith @king_samlock has a new From Screen To Feature for the Takara TOMY Movie Masterpiece MPM-15 Brawl. The movie character 26cm / tall robot mode Transforms into M1A1 Abrams tank mode in 73 steps and more than 35 moving parts. Read the full behind the scenes report from Sam about this big bad tank guy with images below.

MPM-15 Movie Masterpiece TF1 Decepticon Brawl

“Devastator Reporting…”

It was bitter sweet bringing the main theatrical characters to a close for Movie 1. Having had the opportunity to work on the last 3 masterpiece Deceptions was an absolute blast. These projects represent best in class partnerships, not only with our partners at Takara Toy, but also with our studio and licensing partners, whose collaboration has been invaluable. The unwavering support from our fan community is genuinely heartening, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to help bring this cast to its conclusion. Now, with that accomplished, let’s delve into some of the behind the scenes for MPM Brawl!”

Project “Hoover” started years ago, and was thankfully tabled to make way for Blackout’s MPM release. This gave us a good head start on gathering some great historical reference for the character including on-site photography of the hero tank prepping for transit to the set from the builder. The tank was so wide on the trailer, that the armored side pods needed to be removed, but it provided the perfect reference guide for generating the camouflage patterns. The camo artwork is matched to the hero vehicle, and the colors are spec’d off of the screen used paint codes (See the vehicle section for mode details)

We kicked this project off with Shu Umezu who you would have thought was a Masterpiece veteran, but this was actually the first MPM figure that we’ve worked on together. Shu has been killing it on Studio Series the past few years, and I had a blast collaborating with him on bringing Brawl to life. I had some pretty high expectations for this figure from the start and Shu found a way to accommodate all of them.

While the ILM CAD was incredibly detailed for 2006, there was still a number of details that were only covered on a surface level vs being sculpted into the model. To account for this we scrubbed through hundreds of photos and unpacked flat files from the CAD artwork to ensure that we captured all the vents, grills, bolts and asymmetrical detail to help to set it apart from Brawl figures of the past.

Movie Masterpiece Scale Comparison

I wanted to finally put together a full MPM deception line up as Brawl closes out ranks for Movie 1. This brought me so much joy to assemble, and I threw a couple of Autobot in there to showcase the magnitude of this brute as he met his demise.

How deeply have you collected the MPM line up? Have you secured them all? some? Or do you not collect the MPM Scale.

MPM-15 Brawl vs SS-12 Comparison

Brawl is a sizable upgrade from his Studio Series counterpart. Despite sharing the same reference CAD from the film, the MPM tooling budget means not only a much bigger portrayal, but a bit opportunity to increase the panelling to block the character out a bit more. There are so many panels on this tank form that make up his chonky robot mode. There are so many additional fine details and asymmetry brought to the vehicle mode, and it was a great opportunity to modernize the figure with huge range of articulation.

Check out the visual comparisons, and feel free to post any of your questions below!

MPM-15 Movie Masterpiece TF1 Decepticon Brawl - Battle Damaged Damaged Turntable

In an effort to continue to push these figures to full encapsulate their limited onscreen appearance, I wanted to ensure that we had plenty of accessories to outfit Brawl with. Brawl includes 4 individual barrel blast effects that can be used on his arm cannon, or any of the articulated tank barrels. He also includes a missile cluster that can be used on either of the shoulder pods. Brawl also features a chest explosion for when he gets swarmed by the Autobots, and a swappable severed limb for when Ratchet saws his arm off. The exposed hoses / fragments of the limb are cast in the same orange translucency and utilize a painted gradient effect to imply they are red hot from a fresh cut.

Paired with an articulated Jaw, there is a lot of posing personality with this guy. I can’t wait to see what this community comes up with!