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Hello Dakka community,

This one goes out to anyone with industry knowledge/experience of putting plastic kits into production. I, btw, know nothing on the subject so I'm looking for some very general advice.

In the thick pipe smoke of my daydreams the other day I thought to myself "I much prefer plastic buildings to resin stuff - if only other manufacturers made more plastic scenery, maybe stuff for other races like elves/eldar. HEY! MAYBE I COULD!"

So after a little research I discovered this...
Not many companies do it, which isn't a good sign.
All non-GW designs out there try and capture all of the wargaming community - not just GW-fans. I suspect this means the market is very small for the investment required.
GW's legal team are like the Inquisition.
Renedra seem like a friendly, wargame-friendly bunch of chaps. Other than them I wouldn't have a clue who to talk to.
Kickstarter may be the way forward for funding a project like this. A bank would just think I was insane.
I'm assuming i would have to work with a production team to convert CAD designs into viable designs for production on a sprue, and I'm assuming that involves a lot of know-how which average joe doesn't have.
I'm guessing this will all cost a fortune.
I'm guessing that promotion, sales, storage, order fulfilment, distribution, returns etc is a full time job in itself.

So I figured I have three options...
1. I start my own wargames scenery design and manufacturing company with online store and handle everything myself... [Not going to happen].
2. I work with a production company to get something made and boxed up and sitting in my garage, then sell to online retailers who handle everything else... [I'm guessing most wargaming mini-makers do this]
3. I sell/license my designs to an established company who handles everything... [do people even do this?]

So...
a) can anyone point me in the direction of a good online information source on this?
b) can anyone offer more info on any of the above, or any advice in general about how a venture like this would get off the ground?
c) can anyone give me a very rough indication of how much a typical wargames company will have spent on the development of a plastic kit. £10,000? £100,000?

I know this is all a bit pie in the sky at the moment, but I just need some basic information to work out whether it would be possible.

Thanks!

Usually a new user asking a question like this would get the cold shoulder, but you seem to have at least given it some thought, so here's a few things to consider before making any grand plans.

As well as excellent designs, means for distribution, and alot of time, at its very core, the production plastic miniatures require one of two things:

1)Knowledge and equipment to make them yourself.
Have a look at this video from proxie models and see if you're up to the task.
http://proxiemodels.com/videos.html

or

2) Alot of capital to expend paying to have the molds made and then produced. I don't know exactly, but word is that a small mold can cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce. That's for one sprue, a terrain kit might well take several of these sprues. How much $ do you have access to?


This doesn't even factor in the cost of the CAD designs or master models, but these are probably the two biggest hurdles. Virtually anyone with a bit of cash and some artistic ability can produce their own metal or resin figs, (either on their own or farm out the work economically) but plastic is a whole other ballgame.

I really don't know much about it, but I believe plastic is best suited to mass production. So unless you plan on getting out thousands of sets, you might be better off going with another medium more suited to short runs like resin.

#3 is not really viable. Designing stuff is the easy part. Paying for and putting it into production is where the real investment and legwork come in.

Thanks for your replies.

@Ellif - yes, I do sound like a bit of a noob crackpot, so thanks for humouring me and spending the time to reply.

There is no way I could possibly do any of this myself (the proxie models guy is my new hero), so we're really talking about the "tens of thousands of dollars" option. Since I have access to about $15.32 that would require attracting investors, which realistically would mean crowd-funding. Dreamforge recently Kickstarted a plastic kit, for which they claim the tooling exceeded $100K (gulp). They reached it but they have a huge following already and are a very experienced, established wargames company. Four-figure sums I could maybe rustle up, five-figure sums I might even be able to crow-fund with a huge marketing push and an amazing Dreamforge-style rewards structure, but six-figure sums are just totally out of the question.

As far as mass production goes, it all depends on sales. Based on GW's own sales figures last year, a back-of-a-napkin calculation tells me that even with a good wind behind me I'd be selling hundreds of these things, not thousands. In fact i played around with some figures and estimated that if I made a three-sprue kit and sold it for £15, it would take 25 years for me to break even! How wargames companies making plastic sprues (other than GW) do it and make any money I have no idea.

I'm disappointed there doesn't seem to be evidence of any other type of business model (eg, designers going into partnership with manufacturers/retailers). Or maybe there is and I just can't find any.

@Altruizine - Re: "Designing stuff is the easy part." I'm a graphic designer so I'll resist the temptation to flounce off. But I take your point.

Thanks again for your comments. I'm gutted to admit that maybe this one should remain in the pipe smoke.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Update.

I just received a tip to look at Wargames Factory. They have a so-called Liberty and Union section where anyone can suggest an idea for the model. If enough people are interested, they'll make it and add it to their catalogue. And it doesn't cost a bean.

Only trouble is that THEY design it, in fact it's totally their product. They're just looking for ideas and gauging interest. No cost or risk involved by me, yet no control or reward either.

Still, they also manufacture and sell products designed by other wargames companies (eg Dreamforge), so maybe it's worth having a chat with them.

 D6damage wrote:
Thanks for your replies.

@Ellif - yes, I do sound like a bit of a noob crackpot, so thanks for humouring me and spending the time to reply.

There is no way I could possibly do any of this myself (the proxie models guy is my new hero), so we're really talking about the "tens of thousands of dollars" option. Since I have access to about $15.32 that would require attracting investors, which realistically would mean crowd-funding. Dreamforge recently Kickstarted a plastic kit, for which they claim the tooling exceeded $100K (gulp). They reached it but they have a huge following already and are a very experienced, established wargames company. Four-figure sums I could maybe rustle up, five-figure sums I might even be able to crow-fund with a huge marketing push and an amazing Dreamforge-style rewards structure, but six-figure sums are just totally out of the question.

As far as mass production goes, it all depends on sales. Based on GW's own sales figures last year, a back-of-a-napkin calculation tells me that even with a good wind behind me I'd be selling hundreds of these things, not thousands. In fact i played around with some figures and estimated that if I made a three-sprue kit and sold it for £15, it would take 25 years for me to break even! How wargames companies making plastic sprues (other than GW) do it and make any money I have no idea.

I'm disappointed there doesn't seem to be evidence of any other type of business model (eg, designers going into partnership with manufacturers/retailers). Or maybe there is and I just can't find any....

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Update.

....I just received a tip to look at Wargames Factory. They have a so-called Liberty and Union section where anyone can suggest an idea for the model. If enough people are interested, they'll make it and add it to their catalogue. And it doesn't cost a bean.

No problem dude, glad you're giving it some thought even if it is a bit pipe-dream-ish.

As to why there aren't any other business models, it's probably because wargaming is a gig with pretty slim margins as it is. There are lots of companies who you can hire to do the work, but not many folks are investing in these kind of ventures.

As for Wargames Factory L&U, it's a complicated thing. Stuff has gotten created out of there, but it is a pretty long process. I was fairly active on their forums when they started out. A few sets have made it through the process, but most of these are sets being made now that were proposed 3-4 years ago!

As you conclude, it can't hurt todirectly email those who are making plastic figs, but based on your current income, I think it may be worthwhile to consider building CAD models of your ideas and either:

1) Having them translated into files for laser cut wood models. There is at least one company that owns a cutter that will rent their services or just use of the machine.

or

2) Having a 3d printing company make plastic masters of them, making some molds and then casting them for sale.

Thanks once again for your input.

The idea that got all this started was for elf/eldar architecture because all those slender, precise, curved surfaces would lend themselves to CAD, rather than hand-modelled masters. Plus resin buildings are (IMHO) heavy, brittle, difficult to construct and uncustomisable. So for me, both of your suggestions (as perfectly sensible as they are) don't quite fit with what I had in mind.

However, I will seriously consider getting my designs modelled in CAD for 3D printing. At least then I'd have a) a tangible thing to show to manufacturers if I ever find a company to work with me on this b) master models for casting should I change my mind about the resin, and if nothing else c) unique stuff for my own gaming table (though for that I'd be better off using cardboard!).

Now... how the hell do I use CAD software?...

Why don't you look at resin casting? You can do this on a smaller scale on a garage industry basis to test your market, as the entry cost is much lower. You could 3D print a master to make moulds from, or just model/sculpt a prototype and cast from that. This would at least get you in at the ground floor, if not achieving the 'outsourcing' bit.

To be honest, if you don't know how to use CAD and don't have capital or contacts for mass production, storage and distribution that's about all you can shoot for.

Thanks for the response, JohnnyHell.

Yes, resin casting is definitely the more accessible alternative, which is why there are so many small garage-companies making cool stuff in resin. And the CAD -> 3D master model -> resin casting is all very doable in the comfort of my own man-cave.

I guess I was specifically looking to find out about plastic manufacturing because I just wish more wargames terrain was plastic, but you're probably right about getting a shoe in to test the market. I notice the DreamForge titan-thing is for sale on their store as a $300 resin model, despite it going into production as a plastic kit, which tells you something.