Thomas (AEG)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Thomas is a fictional standard gauge tank locomotive created by the Reverend W. Awdry with the help from his son Christopher Awdry.

Thomas first appeared in the first series episode A Thomas Promise, which first aired in 2021.

Compared to his portrayals in The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends, Thomas' portrayal in All Engines Go is significantly different. He is explicitly a child character and his cheeky, impatient and fussy characteristics have been softened, in order to make him more of a "hero" character for the target audience.

2D animated rigs
Thomas in All Engines Go uses a series of complicated 2D rigs created by Nelvana Studio. These rigs are made up of different assets, which can be stretched, squashed and posed to create the desired movements and poses. Thomas' movements are handled by an animation team, with a posing team to create specific poses as required for certain shots.

Thomas' 2D design has undergone many changes from the design used in the original series:
 * He now has a flat running board, similar (though likely coincidental) to the one he has from Branch Line Engines-onwards in The Railway Series.
 * His running board is now completely red.
 * The letterform of his number 1 is altered.
 * His face was modified to look younger.
 * His nose is now rounder.
 * His triangular eyebrows were changed to normal ones.
 * He now has blue irises.
 * He is much shorter in size and length.
 * His whistles are much larger and set further apart.
 * His cab doors were removed.
 * He now only has rivets on his smokebox.
 * The steps on his tanks were removed.
 * His wheel splashers and side tanks are now meshed together.
 * He now only has one cab window on each side, similar (though again likely coincidental) to the original E2 class.
 * His dome is closer to his cab.
 * His tail lamp has been lowered.
 * His brake pipes have been removed.
 * His bunker and dome now have a lighter tint of blue.
 * The lining on the back of his bunker has been removed, similar to how he appeared between mid-Series 3 and Series 18.
 * He has both a knuckle coupler and a chain link coupler. Additionally, he can detach it at will.

Test animation
In 2019, a test animation was created for the series featuring a different rig of Thomas. The design used in the test animation featured numerous differences from the final design, including:
 * His smokebox is longer, lower down and connects directly to his tanks, with no boiler portruding out the top.
 * His face has a different design.
 * His eyes are further apart.
 * His nose is a cylinder.
 * He has rivets on his eyebrows.
 * His wheels have a simplified design.
 * His wheels have a circle of four rivets in the middle.
 * Each axle is connected by a bar along the middle of each side.
 * His funnel has a different design.
 * His cab side window is smaller.
 * His front windows have yellow insides.
 * His lamp light is coloured blue instead of yellow.
 * The lining on Thomas' bunker and around his number 1 is missing.
 * The lining on Thomas' tanks and splasher is merged.

Voice Actors

 * Aaron Barashi
 * Meesha Contreras
 * Sean Mendes
 * Denisse Aragón
 * Mariela Centurión
 * Minami Tanaka
 * Carloz Magno
 * Arthur DeMetrio
 * Sara Couce Manso
 * Avgustina-Kalina Petkova
 * Andrija Petek
 * Robin Pařík
 * Mikkel Hansen
 * Lotta Lindroos
 * Emilie Guillaume
 * Nancy Philippot
 * Simona Pahl
 * Eleana Pastella
 * András Bátor Kovács
 * Csanád Tóth
 * Shahar Tavoch
 * Jessica Bologna
 * Valentina Pallavicino
 * Espen Sandvik
 * Antoni Kwiecień
 * Prokhor Chekhovskoy
 * Jeong Yu-jeong
 * Adam Portnoff
 * Kim Van Zeben