Vinyl Toy 'Tutorial'

Lately, I've gotten some e-mails asking for more details about my vinyl toy project. I thought it might be a good idea to adapt my responses into a blog post, so interested parties could use it as reference.

1) Do turnaround drawings of your character design - a front view, a profile, a rear view, and 3/4 front and rear views as well. If your figure isn't completely symmetrical, you'll need to draw both sides for the profile and 3/4 front views. Decide which colors you want to use for your character in the drawings. This'll be very helpful, regardless of which path you take next.

2) Hire a sculptor to sculpt a maquette of your character, or sculpt it yourself. If you hire someone, it's important that they have toy production experience, especially if you have any articulation (moveable joints) in your figure. You can either make single-piece figures (like a squeak toy), or add joints. Simplicity is usually best, and cheaper to manufacture. Make sure that either you A) make a toy that can stand well on its own, or B) include a stand with your toy, or sculpt a base that's attached to the character.

I hired Vin Teng of sculpster.com. Vin is very good at sculpting in a variety of styles, and great to work with. You'll have chances at this stage to give feedback, in case there's things about the sculpt that are not what you want. In my case, the tweaks were very minor - Vin did a great job of interpreting my drawings, and in some cases, improving them in 3-D. Vin's work cost a few thousand dollars, but it was well worth it!

If Vin's busy, try talking to END. I've never worked with him, but he has experience too, and he seems very versatile, too!

Vin is in Southern California, and END works in New Jersey.

3) Get your sculptor to make a casting for you from the original maquette. In my case, Vin did this as part of his fee. You'll need the maquette for the next step.

4) Make a color model/master with the maquette. That's a fancy way of saying, 'paint it exactly how you want the toy to look.' If you're not comfortable with your painting skills, hire someone to paint it for you. It's important that you be as satisfied with the result of each step as possible. Keep in mind that, like articulation, the more colors that you add, the more expensive it'll be to make.

5) You'll need to work with a factory overseas in order to mass-produce your toy. If you can, I'd try to connect with a experienced domestic company to act as a liason, as direct communication might be difficult. The company I work for has business connections with Gentle Giant, so I went with them - they make great busts and statues of Star Wars and Harry Potter characters, among other products.

They helped me to make the production mold from the maquette, and painting the color master (the latter cost me a few hundred dollars). They're going to help me handle the rest of production, including packaging the toy and shipping it to the U.S.

I'm not sure how willing they are to work with someone without the business connection. They seem very nice, so I'm assuming that if you can afford to pay them, they'll work with you. I'm going to make five hundred pieces in the first run of my toy. If you want to make less than two hundred, it'll be hard to get a factory to make your toys for you - most of them have production minimums. It's going to cost me about ten thousand dollars to make five hundred toys.

You'll also need to think about how you want your toy to be packaged - it could be as simple as a plastic bag with a hang card on top, or it could be very elaborate. Once you decide on what kind of design you want, you'll need to generate the box/packaging art, or hire someone to do it for you.

6) Once the toy gets back from the factory, you'll want to connect with a distributor (if you can) to help get them in stores, or you'll need to sell them yourself, either online, or at conventions. Try asking your favorite retailers for advice.

Right now, I've sent my color master to the factory, and I'm waiting to see production samples for approval, which I'm assuming I'll see before they make the whole run. Make sure to give yourself plenty of time between when you start planning, and when you expect to see the toy on a shelf - I budgeted a year, and hope to have the finished toy by this coming July.