Building LEGO Icons Transformers: Soundwave was a ‘childhood dream’

The designer and superfan behind 10358 Soundwave has revealed how building the LEGO Icons set tapped into a passion he had since he was young.

The LEGO Icons theme officially revealed 10358 Soundwave this week, a 1,505-piece Transformers model that features three brick-built Decepticons in one and impressive sound brick functionality.

Following a recent livestream event showcasing the upcoming LEGO Icons set, one of the designers behind 10358 Soundwave has been talking about what went into the model’s creation and how important it was for him to have worked on the Transformers project.

“I’ve been a Transformers fan since childhood,” said LEGO Icons designer Áron Gerencsé. “I’ve been collecting the toys ever since and currently have a collection of over five hundred figures and counting!”

Amongst Transformers fans, Soundwave is regarded one of the most prominent Cybertronian characters and a mainstay of the long-running universe since it launched back in 1984, a fact that wasn’t lost on the LEGO Icons team during the creation of 10358 Soundwave.

“His design is iconic,” Áron notes, “and some features and characteristics unique to him allowed us to explore interesting new functions in the set that helped this release feel like the next step up.”

“The first step was figuring out the opening cassette window,” Áron explained. “This would inform the scale of the entire model, and I also wanted to make sure the mechanical function was viable and satisfying to use, with the ‘click’ sound upon closing it like the real thing.”

With the basics of 10358 Soundwave in place, the LEGO Icons design team moved onto one of the Decepticon’s key features, the ability to transform from robot mode to microcassette player and back.

“Once the engineering was figured out, it was time to ‘dress up’ the model and make it look blue and silver and like a microcassette player,” Áron elaborated.“The conversion process is directly based on the way the original toys convert, so even as you go from one mode to the next, the legs, the arms, the head all fold away much the same way.”

“Soundwave went through roughly 30 iterations. The differences between the shapes and forms, coupled with the need to make him poseable and accurate to the source made it a difficult set to pull off while following all of our design rules. It was an incredibly enjoyable and energizing process, but also emotionally important to me personally.”

10358 Soundwave will launch for LEGO Insiders on August 1, with a wider release for everyone else from August 4, priced at £159.99 / $189.99 / €179.99. To find out more about the latest LEGO Transformers set, be sure to check out our full review here.

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