Hi everyone, I've wanted to produce a custom Transformers toy for a few years now and I'm planning to turn this dream into a reality. In the last few years I've seen several '3rd party' companies put out some incredible toys and I want to be able to perhaps do the same. My focus however is on the movie designs and characters, in which I don't think anybody has touched yet. This will obviously cost some money, so before I dive in, I want to know what you think, and maybe get some advice on if, and how I should go about doing this. Any comments and suggestions would be appreciated and if you have any questions I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Thanks everyone.
As far as robots/mecha go, I love the TF movie designs. What kinda of things were you thinking about making ?
Yeah, I thought that this would get moved. The reason that I posted in the Toys forum is that I'm looking to prototype some designs, then hopefully get them mass produced and distributed. I know there are legal issues regarding licensed property, and I am hoping to get any suggestions on how should go about it. Essentially, I want to create,produce, and sell '3rd party' toys. Hopefully this cleared up some confusion, and if anyone who still has any advice or suggestions, I would still love to hear them. Thanks again.
Well, look around in the Radicons forum. There are loads of people making custom parts like heads or filling in torsos and whatnot. But only a few are building entire transformable figures from scratch, like Anemis and Wheeljack. Also, I know Frenzy_Rumble at one point mass produced some parts so maybe he can help. It's gonna be rather expensive though, especially for a random person. From what I remember, the only actual toy made by a non-company was the steam engine Optimus and that took years and had a ridiculous price. Also, you had better live in China or somewhere Hasbro's lawyers can't just come knocking at the door.
Well, some tips from me, since I have a lot of experience with 3rd party groups. A one man group is going to fail. You'll need to bring friends in to help. Getting one product out the door is a lot of work for one guy. Designing, working on the prototype, package designing, marketing, sales, website, ect. As SmokescreenSWE said, if your group is believed to be outside of North America, your in the clear. Otherwise, Hasbro or who ever can come after you directly. As for producing parts in China, that is a big gamble if you don't have contacts. For a full figure, you'd be looking into investing over $30,000. And there is a big risk the factory could walk away with the money, if you don't know them. If you have a contact, its a bit safer then. There is also a lot of time spent once the factory has the parts and ready to produce the item you want. As you need to test molded samples, and make adjustments. If you are in China, or have a group member there, that you can rely on, it might be easier and help get the product out faster. If not, you'll have to have the factory ship the parts over. Then you test, and get them to fix any issues. Then hope they get the fix right, and repeat the cycle.
