Bill Rawley - Transformers Wiki

The name or term "Bill" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Bill (disambiguation).

William "Bill" Rawley was a Product Design Manager on Hasbro's Transformers brand. He graduated from FIT with a BA in Toy Design, and his first job out of school was as a Product Designer for the Advanced Concepts team at Hasbro. There, he learned to design... with purpose!

Bill has been a valued member of the Transformers team since March 2006, although he first became known to the fandom-at-large through his "non-mainline" design work. Since joining the brand, he has served as lead designer on Robot Heroes, Movie Unleashed, Animated Activators, and Universe Legend, Deluxe, Voyager, and Ultra-class figures; he was also the lead designer of the 2010 Transformers line. He also had a hand in the Cyber Slammers, Real Gear Robots, and Robot Replicas segments of the original Movie toyline.

Rawley has accumulated an impressive roster of nicknames during his career at Hasbro, Inc.; Brawley, William Brawllace, Billiam, Billy "the Kid", Billbo Dragons, China Bill, Robo Billbo, Thrill Bill, Fearless Fotog, Titanium Bill Thunderpunch, Bug Man, Dollar Dollar Bill, Big Red Cheddar, the Diamond Smoothie, Gingerchin, and Will Wheaton, to name just a few.

Known design work

Robot Heroes

Transformers (2007)

Generation 1 Series

Movie Series

Universe (2008)

Beast Wars Series

Generation 1 Series

Beast Machines Series

Robots in Disguise Series

• Optimus Prime / Megatron (unreleased)

Transformers (2007)

Target

• Optimus Prime transforming gift card

Cyber Slammers

Robot Replicas

Real Gear Robots

Unleashed

Universe (2008)

Legends Class

Deluxe Class

Voyager Class

• Inferno (with Hisashi Yuki)

Ultra Class

Animated

Activators

Transformers (2010)

Deluxe Class

• Wreck-Gar^[1]

Leader Class

• Starscream

Generations (2010)

• Skullgrin^[2]

Prime

• Ripclaw^[3]

Convention appearances

• BotCon 2006
• BotCon 2007
• BotCon 2008
• BotCon 2009
• BotCon 2010
• BotCon 2011
• BotCon 2012
• Cybertron Con 2010 Shanghai

Notes

• In his childhood, Bill entered a design-a-toy contest run by Mattel for its Masters of the Universe franchise. Although he was not awarded any prizes (apart from a second-place notification letter and a consolation Teela magnet), the subsequently released Mantenna action figure bore a striking resemblance to his submission. If more than coincidence, this would make him one of the youngest-starting toy designers in the industry. And would make Mattel very bad people.
• His first Transformer was Perceptor. Perhaps Bill's mother thought the Autobot microscope was a learning toy that would help educate and shape the mind of the young lad, to help him one day become a scientist! We can see how that turned out.
• Bill's favorite Transformers toys are G1 Soundwave and Universe Hound. Universe Legends Wheelie is up there as well, as the rhymetastic Autobot survivalist has always had a special place in his heart.
• In his spare time, Bill enjoys making Jim Henson-styled puppets with foam and fleece. In 2007, his "Jim Reaper" puppet was in the top ten for the Project Puppet contest. Although Jim did not win, Bill still had loads of fun designing and creating him.
• He is capable of lifting Eric Siebenaler and Vickie Stratford onto his shoulders, although not at the same time (so far as it is known).
• Bill looks to move up within Hasbro. He hopes to one day have a private parking spot in the Hasbro lot and a team of henchmen that will help him shape the toy world, forever! nope sorry an executive needed to keep their sixth yacht
• The article below, where Bill discusses the initial new molds of the Universe line, was repurposed by the Transformers fan site Tformers.com as an "interview" with Rawley, even though they didn't change any of the text, leading the faux-interview of Rawley to sound like he refers to himself in the third person.

References

External links

• Transformers Universe Classics preview at the Official Transformers website with commentary by Rawley and his design team. (archive link)