Unleash the Legions of Polypropylene!!!
Raaarrrggg!!!!
Just a silly here - and this image is sourced from one of my favorite blogs - "Fantasy Toy Soldiers" - a site devoted to cataloging this wonderful sub-facet of culture. Way back as a kid I loved these things and it was fun finding out how much I missed.
Warning!
Fantasy Toy Soldiers blog can cause a drain on the pocket via Ebay...
One thing I'd like to do - and I'm posting this to hope someone can help - is to make my OWN "Fantasy Toy Soldiers". That is a "Death on the M'Kunga River" set with cardstock jungles, plastic hollow rocks for buildings, the sacrifical statue, lots of characters for Rexx, the Professor and his daughter, tons of Cannibals, etc. I'd love to make that and sell on my websites or list on ebay for sale, etc.
Now - I have:
1 - the artistic/creative ability to make the figures. I could mold in sculpey or sculpt in Z-brush.
2 - the shop skills (well I'd have to buy a welding torch) to make molds - some sacrificial wax casting, plaster of paris, aluminum - to make clamshell trees.
3 - printers/printing services to get the cardboard cut outs and boxes made - thank the Internet - #4
4 - the Internet to buy the plastic and to market it.
What I need is:
A small scale jet molder for plastic. I look on ebay and find things the size of my house for $20K - good if I wanted to make a MILLION sets a day... Left to rot when they sent the factory to CHINA. However, I know from seeing it there used to be desktop sized devices for injecting plastic into molds. As a bratty kid in the 70s, being told to wait in the corner as Dad talked with some guys making it - they didn't want me to burn or crush my hands, and I might have so good advice.
Now I do NOT mean those pieces of garbage that have a heater and a hand crank handle. Expensive, you'll waste 70% of material, I could rig that myself.
These things were the size of a desk. Had 2 chambers for plastic so you could add to one then use another while waiting for the plastic to heat, and/or do dual color stuff. Air compressor. Electric heater and motor for injector. Clamps and injector. Kind of the "3d Printer" of the 70s - but you made the design by hand
Oh, and a 3d printer wouldn't help. Well it'd make a "Death on the M'Kunga River" playset (imagine the image but jungles, cannibals, African explorers) cost $300 break even with long waits to print and the thing breaking from overwork versus $50 or less even if I want to profit and being able to make a few dozen in a few hours or less and only need to overstock if I have to pre-order the prints for the cardboard cutout/boxes. And take forever to make. A few of them - in the $1000 range - I might use to print out the 3d models if I make them 3d but need a blank to cast for the clamshell mold for injection - those "GlueGuns on an axis" don't cut it for miniatures.
I'm not asking for charity, save maybe someday someone reading my stuff or skipping blogs knows what I'm talking about and points to where I might find it. Hopefully in a few years I'll make as a gag but a serious one playsets/toys based on my stories to promote them and ask for $ in a way that isn't just charity, like special toys and badges for crowdfund projects and such.
Now, yes I could go to Alibaba...
Or, given its me, INDIA
And get these things made.
I'd rather have it a "Made in the USA" thing. And be able to almost casually make figures, buildings, space ships in RL and sell them online as part of my writing someday.
