Derrick Wyatt has answered two of the questions raised to him in comments on his blog.  DieMaus asked "a) We've now seen Animated Hot Shot and Red Alert, two characters who were reportedly in the original outline for the show, but were subsequently replaced by Bumblebee and Ratchet, respectively. Do the current Hot Shot and Red Alert bear much similarity to those original concepts? Are they a taste of "what might have been"? Or did those original character ideas never get past the planning phase?

b) Who actually decides which characters DO make it onto the show? You suggested, for example, that Hot Shot wasn't your call, Marty Isenberg mentioned that Hasbro nixed the idea of Sixshot, and as noted, we know that Bumblebee's inclusion was their initiative as well; on the other hand, I can't imagine that the likes of Highbrow were anything other than your idea. How does this all get decided, and whose call is it at the end of the day?"

To which Derrick replied

"Hey,those are some good questions.

a) Hotshot is more of a tribute to his UT self (or selves). Red Alert is actually a bit of what might have been. Her design is based in part on TFA development art that my friend Eric Canete had done. That's why she's female.

b) There are some upcoming interviews that go deeper in to this process than I will here. The current TFCC magazine has an interview with Eric and me where we discuss it. Anyway, we on the animation side try to work together with the 'Bros to come up with a roster of characters that both teams are happy with. Bumblebee's inclusion in the show was actually a result of Matt Youngberg and me pleading for him in the first meeting we had with the higher-ups."

 An anonomous poster then asked the question "Well, I kinda like Red Alert being female, it mixes things up a little. I personally would have liked to have been at one of those meetings, just to hear some of the characters Hasbro wanted in that you guys didn't, or vice-versa. Is it generally harder to get characters who weren't popular in terms of toy sales(or were only in that franchise's toyline) in the show? Or is Hasbro pretty cool about letting some relatively unknown/unpopular characters get their chance in the spot light?"

Which prompted Derrick to reply "On the whole they've been great. I don't think there were any characters we really wanted to do that they vetoed. The only things that ever got nixed were characters that it would be too impractical to do from either an animation or a toy point of view, or characters that just didn't fit the stories we were telling."

Derrick Wyatt has posted several new comments on his blog regarding Transformers Animated Season 3 including details on who designed which characters and the news some the third season will contain even more guest voice actors.  Here are Derricks comments

"Yep, there he is. Hotshot was designed by Irineo Maramba, loosely based on some head sketches I did, with some help from Eric Siebenaler.
I can't say Hotshot was a character from my personal wish list, but I think he's made certain people pretty happy."

"Let's see, of the Rodimus and Strika teams Irineo did Hotshot, Brawn, Cyclonus and Oil Slick, and I did the rest."

"Yep, we have more guest actors, and one former guest is practically a regular this season."

Following on from the Universe Countdown story, TF08.net have also uploaded some images of the future releases of Transformers Animated Waspinator and Samurai Armour Prowl.

To keep with TF08's requests we've not mirrored the images, so please visit their site to see them.

Derrick Wyatt has sent TF Wiki writer Walky an official image of Transformers Animated Season 3 character Hot Shot.  This is the second image of Hotshot to be published, the first being in the Transformers Collectors Club Magazine but is the first image availalbe to the entire world.  You can view the image here.

Yizhi has posted some more images over at TF08.net of the upcoming Transformers Animated Wreck-Gar figure as well as a video which you can view below.

S250 has updated his blog with a teaser of a rumour regarding some more Transformers Animated season 3 characters. S250 reports that these characters closely resemble their original G1 counterparts. The information he has given is that the names of the characters are A**** T**** and D** A****.

The most likey candidates are Alpha Trion or Astro Train (more unlikely as the character has been used in Transformers Universe) and Dai Atlas (the Japanese Micromaster commander).

NTFA member BigPete has received word from Hasbro that the Transformers Animated cartoon will not be shown in Sweden in 2009 - or at least is currently not scheduled to be. We hope that the show will be picked up later in the year, to give the Swedish Transformers fans a chance to catch the show.

TF08.net have come through again with more images of in-packaging upcoming Transformers Animated and Transformers Universe releases.  The toys featured include several recolour minicons, for the Transformers Universe line, and a few recoloured toys for Transformers Animated.

You can see Suppressor, Bodyblock, Makeshift, Brimestone, Boltflash, Blight and Dinobot from the Transformers Unvierse line as well as Dirge, Cliffjumper and Atomic Lugnut from the Transformers Animated line.

Transformers Animated Art Director Derrick J. Wyatt has updated his blog,A Delightful Tedium with images of Transformers Animated Wheeljack and Perceptor. These two characters will appear in Season 3 of the Transformers Animated cartoon, due out in 1009.

TF08.net have posted several images on their message board of upcoming Transformers Animated and Transformers Universe figures.  On the Transformers Animated front they have images of Wasp (out of packaging), a boxed image of Atomic Lugnut, card Activator Dirge and an image of a carded Activator CliffJumper.

On the Transformers Universe front, the images include carded Supressor, Bodyblock, Makeshift, Brimstone, Dinobot, Boltflash and Blight

TF08 has been updated again with the latest batch of loose figures which they got their hands on, and are for sale.  This time it's the Transformers Animated Autobot 2-pack of Jetfire and Jetstorm.

You can see the images at TF08.net.  Out of respect of their requests to all western Transformers sites, we are not mirroring the images.

Wal*Mart.com has updated their site with new images of the upcoming Transfromers Animated Bumper Battlers Stealth Ninja Jazz and Workzone Bulkhead.

Both toys are recolours of the original Transformers Animated Bumper Battlers figures of those characters.

Thanks to board member I-Primus for reporting that Tesco have the Stealth Lockdown and Animated Legends 3 pack now on shelves for £20.

"Just spotted this in Tesco whilst looking for those 10 Quid voyagers (which I can never seem to get ) Store Exclusive Stealth Lockdown & Animated legends 3pack now on the shelves for 20 quid! Which is clearly too much (clearly, geddit?)"