Experiment in creating a toy company

Deathshead 1 and 2 were fun as Dr. Who kept showing up lol.

Yeah, there was Death's Head and Death's Head 2!! Brilliant characters!

and Digitek and Killpower!

True. I'd love to get teh rights to the Marvel UK comics we had over here in the 90s: Motormouth and such. Be nice to get the rights from Takara to do Marvel UK transformers for the UK only characters.

Or a Domino

Now I want one lol. Be a good use of a jean grey figure

Durham Red. She is from Strontium Dog. She has an action figure (I have it)

I know 2000ad also had this hot vampire bountyhunter chick too.

Approach 2000ad. A HUGE amount of great and much loved characters who have never really had toys ( with the exception of Judge Dredd).

200ad toys once released a limited range which was not widely available.

Characters like Nemesis the Warlock, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper(one of the greatest characters of all time , and THE best PS2 game!) D.R and Quich, ACE Trucking co and the ABC Warriors are BEGGING for toys to be made of them!!!
ABC Warriors:

Rogue Trooper:

D.R. and Quinch:

Strontium Dog:

Nemesis the Warlock:

ACE Trucking Co:

Small independent comic figures would be a good way to start. Made is USA for a lot of stuff could be expensive but maybe have them assembled in the US with parts made elsewhere. That way the QC could be handled in house instead of overseas. I just figured this would be a fun mental experiment to try.

Thats why you'd have to be good at spotting the hot commodity. Some underground comics can get followings that are quite large. Not large enough for a major company to make them, but certainly large enough for a small toy company. Beside a small company would most likely only be sold in comic stores and specialty shops where the mass of those fans shop. Releasing underground/ indie characters to stores like Wal Mart, Target and TRU would most certainly fail. If LCBH would have done a smaller run and sold exclusively in comic stores it would have done much better. People in large retailers are most likely not going to know who the hell Marv or Pitt are, but most everyone at a comic store would.

Besides you have to start somewhere. Do you really think a small toy company is going to get the rights to big name characters right away? Not a chance in hell. You'd have to start with lesser known properties and underground/ indie is the way to go. Of coarse you'd have to pick characters with bigger fan followings.

Just like anything you have to gain experience and pay your dues.

[quote="Green Skin"]Best shot I think for getting toy rights to a character is to approach underground and indie comic creators. Simply because they don't have toy deals with anyone 99 percent of the time, and you would be dealing with a person as opposed to a company. You'd just have to have a good eye for spotting the diamond in the rough as it were.

quote]


Who says those will sell? Remember LCBH? Great figures, but nobody really knew who they were (execpt for CB fans like us). Why would you want to buy something you don't know? They even put Marv and Conan in the series! Not a good chioce. The line was over after 2 series.

Best shot I think for getting toy rights to a character is to approach underground and indie comic creators. Simply because they don't have toy deals with anyone 99 percent of the time, and you would be dealing with a person as opposed to a company. You'd just have to have a good eye for spotting the diamond in the rough as it were.

Also if you can build a badass portfolio on original creations you could get approached by companies without have to go to them.

1-fair price...A fair price is going to have to be higher than a normal figure. That's O.K., as long as you have made a high quality product that meets or exceeds points 2 through 5.
2-made in USA with American materials...this would be a major part of your overhead expense. Lease or ownership of a factory, expensive equipment, etc...Toys are produced overseas where people are willing to work for next to nothing. We need more job opportunites in the USA, but most people would probably rather be on unemployment than to work for small wages.
3-non-union workers...possible, but they would have to be paid well which ties in with point 2.
4-good articulation, high QC...This seems to me to be one of the easiest problems to fix with a toy company. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to engineer good articulation, and there are plenty of talented sculptors who would love to have a chance at seeing their work immortalized in plastic. It would also help if the toy company credited the creators and artists who concieved the figure. Perhaps a little notoriety would offset a slightly lesser salary or wage for their services.
5-originals and rights to characters folks want...originals would be easy, rights to pre-existing figures are another story. Perhaps new characters would be the easiest to procure, they will not have been around long enough for lawyers and executives to have made a legal mess out of.

Anyone considering starting a toy company here in the continental United States would probably need a lot of money upfront. They would need a business education/experience or at least have assistance or partnership with someone with someone who does. Initial overhead costs would have to be researched and calculated very carefully. It would probably be a good idea to start very modestly with small production runs. If your product is good enough, people will be willing to pay a lot for it, and if it is a small production run, it could end up being highly sought after ergo generating attention and interest in future production runs. I kind of like what the 4 Horseman have done, but they have their stuff manufactured overseas and have suffered from a plethora of quality control issues. But still, producing 1 "collector's" figure a year seems (on the surface at least) to be a good idea for a way to start a toy company. I hope that they can get their qc issues resolved and are able to meet their scheduled release dates. Perhaps they will grow into a pretty big company some day. I know they are well known and do a lot of sculpting for Mattel and other companies as well, but if they get their act together, they would not need to contract out to other companies. If I could, I would make toys for a living, but then it might just become a job and not be fun anymore. But if given the chance, I would love to take a stab at it...it's not like my current job is that much fun anyways.

Actually I have an in with that. my college buddy, who I have talked to about starting a small company with, who loves TFs has a brother who makes molds. He owns all the machines to machine them and everythign so we could probably get them at cost or slightly above.

Your biggest hurdle will be the molds. The molds that toy companies use are very expensive, which is why they reused pieces whenever they can. The alternative is less expensive rtv molds, which work great, but are not nearly as durable.