Manufacturing Madness
A ToyOtter Special

One of the questions that I get asked most, once people find out that I am “in the business”, is “How are toys made?”. Well, that’s usually a pretty complicated answer, and since it seems to be something that most collectors want to find out about, I thought it was high time to write out a brief explanation of the whole mysterious world of toy manufacturing.

This article will take an overview of the processes involved in custom manufacturing of products in Asia. Hopefully, this will allow the you, the reader, to have a better understanding of the procedures and steps involved with the manufacturing of custom products. This entire process can be broken down into the steps taken in sheparding a product, in this case an action figure, from concept to shipping.

Now, as with most things in life, there are no iron-clad rules to this process. Depending on the project, many of these variables may change, and some of these steps may be skipped entirely. But this overview covers the basics that most toy projects go through on the way to your local toy store. All illustrations are just to demonstrate what the steps look like, not necessarily part of one whole project. And if anyone else “in the biz” out there has any comments or just wants to call me a durn fool, drop me a line. And with that out of the way, here we go!

Step One: Concepting - This first step in any project is in all probability the most important. Once the client and licensor have decided on a character or property, the creative department has to figure out what exactly the toy does. In the case of an action figure, this might be the pose and articulation. For a fast food premium, it could be the mechanism or deco count. For dolls it could be the material selection and “special feature” such as crawling or bed wetting. In any case, ideas are thrown around and eventually one is decided upon. At this stage, it is usually in the form of a rough sketch, but soon goes on to:

Step Two: Turnarounds - At this point, the concept is handed over to an artist to provide what are known as turnarounds: multiple views of the toy that shows it from most angles. This not only allows the license holder an easy way to handle approvals and also gives the sculptor a good idea of what the final product should look like. Once the turnarounds have been finalizedthey are submitted to the license holder for approval. Meanwhile, the account manager is working on:

Step Three: Request For Quotation (RFQ) - Once the account team has been provided direction from the client on the toy that they would like to have custom manufactured, they then need to provide the manufacturing group (usually situated in China) with the turnarounds and at this time fill out a “Request For Quotation” (RFQ). The RFQ basically gives the manufacturing staff the project details to go to various factories to get price quotes on how much the final item will cost per unit.

Once the completed RFQ is sent along with pencil drawings to the Hong Kong office you can expect to have multiple bids from factories back in 4 to 5 days. At this time the factory quotes provide you with the cost to produce the item and deliver it per your information in the RFQ. In some cases if you only want a “ballpark” cost they can provide the cost back to you in a shorter time period.

Step Four: Model Sculpting - After you have taken the cost the HK office has provided and presented them to your client you now hopefully have a sold project. At this point if the project will involve any type of “injection molding” or require that a tool be made you will need to have a sculptor create a “model” to pattern the tool from. Typically, any item that is being produced that is going to be made out of hard or soft plastic will require that a tool be made and for that a sculpt is required. If you are producing a “soft” item like a plush product then a tool is not necessary. For more detailed info on the injection molding process, click here.

The sculptor or studio will usually need to be provided with your set of turnarounds. Depending on the property involved, sometimes style guides provided by the license holder are enoughto sculpt from. The timing to produce a sculpt can be anywhere from 1 week to 1 month and this will depend on the complexity of the item and the number of designs involved. You will also need to allow for the approval stage with the creative director or line designer and if this is a licensed product you will need to allow time for the licensor to approve the sculpt. The model maker will usually produce a static model for approval along with a “paint master”. The paint master is representative of how the product will look once it has been manufactured and the decoration applied. This is what the factory will use as a guide during production and will be compared against for quality assurance. A sculpt can go through many changes and before it is approved, so it is important to use a sculptor or studio that understands both manufacturing and the artistic needs of the project.

Step Five: Vendor Selection - At the time that you have been told that all approvals have been met, you will then select a factory based on the best price, timing and quality of the factory to produce the project. At this time the Hong Kong office wil provide you with a “project milestone” which is a timeline that will list all of the areas involved to manufacture the project. This timeline is updated and provided to you weekly as the information on the project changes. Once the selection has been made, contracts are signed to lock everything into place. It is imporatant to select your factory as soon as possible, since you will need to reserve your production time. If they are already at full capacity, they may be unable to make your timeline.

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