>>8090320For awhile I sold toys in an attempt to fund production of one. I had several ideas but ultimately settled on basically a 1:6 custom. Wow, was that ever a mistake. Sorry, mistakes. The problem I ran into with the figure was that I couldn't get it done cost effectively. I started with the price I was willing to pay and then costed out the components.
What I ran into was, first, maybe 1 in 10 places I contacted bothered to respond at all. So it was difficult simply getting basic information like minimum order quantities. Then, each of those parties wanted 50% of the sale price for 20% of the figure. And for all of the other parties to complete their parts before committing to produce theirs (prisoner's dilemma). On top of that, I had to scale back what I wanted because the offerings were so ridiculously limited. Like...go to any "custom" 1:6 figure site and you can count the number of accessories available on a clumsy shop teacher's hand.
Frankly, I felt like I had LESS freedom than if I'd bought Mattel figures from Walmart to kitbash, despite the costs being a few order of magnitudes higher. So I put everything on hold. I thought if I sold enough stuff to be able to wave a fad wad of bills at them they'd be less retarded (or at least more cooperative). Of course, THAT was an even bigger mistake because all I did was try to dig my way out of a hole.
I did try casting molds on my own but that was a disaster. I didn't really have time, or money, to keep doing trial and error. Also, I'm a 2D artist, not a sculptor, so there was definitely a ceiling to how good anything I might produce would end up. Not that it mattered because I was halfway to China before I realized it.
However, I was pretty lucky in that commercial product improved a great deal and alot of my wishlist stuff did get made by Bandai, Hasbro, or somebody else. There's still stuff I'd like to see, but I doubt it'll ever happen unless I win the lottery or something.
