What is Forming the Beast?

Forming the Beast provides free public access to quality digital restorations and English translations of retail packaging, posters, inserts, sticker sheets, and other printed materials associated with the Beastformers, Laser Beasts, and Battle Beasts franchises released in the late 1980’s by Takara and Hasbro. Unless otherwise noted, all of the media posted to this site are scans of pieces from my personal collection, from-scratch recreations of vintage artwork, or original designs. Please read the site disclaimer for image licensing and usage details.

About The Project’s History

When I decided to start a Beastformers site, I wanted to offer something unique yet meaningful to the collecting community. After some brainstorming I came to a few realizations: 1) I enjoy sharing my collection but wanted to offer something more than what Instagram was already providing, 2) I’ve always been a little obsessed with printed materials associated with the lines I collect, 3) due to their fragile and generally expendable nature, these materials were frequently discarded or destroyed, and 4) high-quality images of these printed materials for the Beastformers lines were generally absent online, and with my background in digital media I’m in a relatively unique position to solve that problem.

With these things in mind, I decided to launch Forming the Beast as a digital archive for restored scans of these printed materials to ensure they are available for anyone to enjoy without having to own the originals. Over time, I hope to establish this site as the primary source of Beastformers artwork online.