Well I consider myself lucky that Deed at least did that Edit: Later when I get time I will give a long explanation of everything that happened.
So here is what happened (from my point of view) with First Party Toys and a few things I learned in 3P: So here are the main people (@ing them if they want to pitch their Experiences): @DEED - Leader @destrongerlupus - CoLeader and designer @Giga Leo - Artist Exstrodinare @Megawillbot - Designer @Scaleface - Designer @Maximus Danz - CoLeader and all-around business guy. I first joined up with First Party Toys (only Deed, Lupus, and Giga) in August of 2019. At this time, they were starting to unload the Chief Fire's for the 0.01 as a stunt to get more interest in FPT as a whole. They were also looking for new project ideas with there connections at WeiJieng, which is where the ideas for these came about: These are unproduced concepts made by Giga Leo. We wanted to work the upcoming WeiJeing Computron molds and were brainstorming ideas to due with them and I had come up with the idea of Tri-Predicus from the Botcon 2016 exclusive box set. Then we had to decide about how to repaint these to make our money back (Megawillbot joins around this time and we had a really fun hour of throwing ideas back and forth.), also around this time, the idea of community involvement was starting to shape into a format. Later in August, I started shopping around of extra Cheifs to online retailers (ShowZ and TFSafari) and Will was also working on his really cool MPM Optimus Prime (which I think he is still working on). We were also working on the headmasters, with Will reverse engineering them with much better articulation and we made a discord (which Will took over. Also about this time, I was placed in contact with Lu, our connection at Weijeing about our repaints to and payment, which lead to more progress on the boxes as we got the dimensions, here they are from Giga Leo: (He was meant to be blackjack until we released the Upgrade kit making them all the predicons) We also got the Patron that I did a lot of work on, even a script for a sequel for the Cheif Fire Comic (will post later if I can find it). Around this time, it would begin to fall apart as I talked more with Lu. Here is what the price looked like: The run would have to be 2000 units as that is the smallest run we could do with each figure costing 95-100 Yuan which is $13-$14 freedom bucks, meaning one figure in a 5 figure team would be $26,860-$28,2800. The problem with that? We had no money. After days of brainstorming, we did not come up with a way to get the money, At this point, Lupus was pretty much out the door and fully handed over the Co-leader role to me. Deed was also pretty miffed about how people didn't "see the future of the Fandom he was making" and started phasing himself out. The reason Lupus left is he was sadly in a financial pickle, he solely funded the Fire Chiefs which he lost about $10k on. After a little while, there had been no more activity and it stopped pretty much. I've spent the last few months trying to get in contact with Deed and Lupus but neither have ever answered. Miscellaneous: There are a few other funny things business things I had to do that I wanted to share: I think I annoyed the shit out of the ShowZ rep here, he stopped returning my messages after a few exchanges Lu and I were talking for months and it was really fun while we tried to understand what each other were saying. Deed is one Hell of a character, he was a really funny guy and a joy to work with. (At one point, he wanted a chase version of BlackJack in white to be Tigertron) Same with Lupus, he was really supportive and had actually offered me a job at where he worked for Agile management... Until I told him I was 15 and that was a riot. Lastly, Joel from BBTS was very nice and easy to work with to get the figures listed on BBTS. He was also very understanding when I had to cancel it. I will work on getting all the leftover box arts and other concepts when I can find them.
Chief Fire Comics (Written by @DEED ; Drawn by @Giga Leo ): Requiem (Draft Written by @Maximus Danz ): Story opens where the comic had left off, Chief Fire getting the upgrade FLARE CONVOY from the core matrix: Flare Convoy destroys the Inferno’s with his canons while K.A.T cheers him on, Megatron, Terrorsuar, and Scorponok all join the fight. Flare Convoy uses his ladder railgun when he sees Scorponok targeting him with his tail missile, destroying Scorponok, sending the other two flying. Megatron gets a good shot in on Flare Convoy but gets fire returned from K.A.T. Megatron goes over and steals Terrorasur’s body as he is damaged and fires into the sky, breaking it more and the Plague-cons come down and begin a brutal assault on Flare Convoy. K.A.T is sent by Flare Convoy to go get reinforcements as Flare Convoy has been beaten down, even with the matrix. K.A.T leaves as the Plague-cons combine into Quin-Dacus and begins to pummel Flare Convoy. K.A.T goes before the council ( Comprised of Star Convoy, Thunderclash, Power Master Rodimus Prime (fire truck design), Ironhide, and Opt P (Pre-BW Optimus Primal). ) He requests for assistance and shows the council footage of the battle (shot of Flare Convoy heavily damaged but catching the Sword in his hands) Ironhide stands up and charges out of the room with the “Boss Force” at his side along with K.A.T. When they arrive on the scene, Flare Convoy was tossed against a wall, Ironhide and the Boss Force jump into battle, combine (into skettleicus), and hit Quin-Dacus with the tribal staff. A large battle ensues between GigaBoss and Quin-Dacus. This time allows for Flare Convoy to recover. GigaBoss gets ran through by the Plague sword and thrown back, heavily damaged and unable to move. Megatron on Terrorsuar’s body (Terrasour headmaster has been hiding in the rumble) is taking aim at Flare Convoy’s head until Thunderclash hits Megatron with his turret tower. The rest of the council also appears to assist, causing Megatron to turn into his new jet mode and take off with the unscathed Quin-Dacus. The Council and Flare Convoy looked upwards and see the sky shattered opened with the many Earths converging.
Damn, thanks for sharing all this! I won't lie, the comic was one of the things I was most excited about, just to get another little taste of the Car Robots lore again. (That's a big part of why I went in on Chief Fire to begin with tbh, but, well) Also holy shit you're only 15? I was that old when I joined this damn forum back in 2002, and I never could've managed anything like this Shame to hear how it all went down, but I guess that's the problem with the 3P market, it can be a little...fickle.
So it sounds like this DEED guy somehow convinced detrongerlupus to fund the KAT-02 operation $10,000, made him give them all away for a penny and then skipped town? That's some epic trolling, god-tier even.
To be fair, I have no idea about how that went down, that whole situation was before I arrived. No Prob! I thought people should know about it, and yes 3P is very fickle, It was fun though.
*sighs* man, so many missed opportunities.... I don't regret trying to fund it one bit. I hope you guys still figure somethong out one day.
yeah i went all in for both of the larger funding options (rid op + combiner)... i just wish we got something/anything in return... pretty sad... and i'll never crowd fund again
Hey gang, Gigaleo alerted me that this post mortem was going down, so wanted to drop in and let everyone know I'm alive. The financial bind this whole situation left me in and the lack of resources to execute what we had planned really sucked the fun out of the Fandom for me. I also had a major health crisis right around the holiday, which I'm just now getting my feet back under me from. DEED's a charmer, I'm still not sure how I feel about him. I took the biggest real-world-hit on this whole project (to the best of my knowledge), but designing KAT01 and KAT02 was a blast, and I have one cool ass Strika figure to show for it. But DEED is also batshit, I think. Probably. And yeah, my wife was not happy about the loss. It was a wild ride. Between this and the kidbash debacle, I seem to have rotten luck in fan projects. Anyway, alive. I'm still running the stateside penny auctions, DEED edited the boxed auctions with that blessing stuff at some point, not sure what that's about. Other than that I haven't heard from him either, for better or worse. And for the record, I scripted the Chief Fire comic, definitely my favorite part of the project. D/L
