Making our own . . . .

[redrage]

Just out of curiosity has anyone gone down the route of making moulds off existing toys (obviously action force) to try and make our own troops. Would make it easier to avoid the death of action force toys in the future!

[The Baron]

That's a quick ticket to a lawsuit, unfortunately. We'd have to make designs from scratch, really.

[Lady Jaye]

Good metal molds cost a fortune and casting plastic is not as easy as 1-2-3. You might wanna try casting resin, but you'll prolly end up with brittle figures without any articulation.

[Malcolm Orr]

There is a fairly easy way even with just plastic. Toyfare run a monthly tip. Try searching the internet for some guides.

I have a fan made Christopher Eccleston cast in clear green plastic from an official 5" figure. The plastic is brittle though as the mix was wrong. It's VERY expensive to do so - certainly more than buying the base figures themselves

[Space Commander]

Just out of curiosity has anyone gone down the route of making moulds off existing toys (obviously action force) to try and make our own troops. Would make it easier to avoid the death of action force toys in the future!

We've talked about this quite a lot since we asked Hasbro if they still owned or not. I'd love it if bloodforthebaron.com could spearheard the return of ... but until we fully understand the legal ramifications we'll just have to stick to kitbashing OLD figures, designing NEW ones (not based on existing moulds)... and our dreams.


SPACE COMMANDER

[Muton]

Or we could do it all via PM's....
I think this would only honestly be viable for the more expensive figures, and would still need very good paintwork.
I prefer the customs route myself. Oh and as someone who collects medals, the thought of repro action force fills me with dread! Is no hobby safe!?

[Space Commander]

the thought of repro action force fills me with dread! Is no hobby safe!?

Yes Muton, I think if there were a reproduction toyline, it'd have to be handled properly, ie. not the way they reproduced the Tron toys. I've expressed my thoughts on this before; "I was p!$$ed off a few years ago when the Tron figures were reissued in exactly the same molds and packets that they'd appeared in 20 years earlier, making it impossible to tell a reissue from an original. I'd LOVE to see the original figures make a come-back... but I'd hope they'd have a year or a commemorative logo stamped on them somewhere."

And yes, customs are certainly a way of continuing the line and keeping alive.


SPACE COMMANDER

[Dave Tree]

Technically, it's not out of the realms of impossibility. The Action Man 40th. whilst badged up under Hasbro, is actually licensed to Modllers Loft. They carry the cost and the distribution and with Hasbro help source production of parts. Hasbro have someone in Rhode Island who is responsible for heritage brands, of which, all Palitoy produced products come under that persons remit (I've forgotten his name).

If properly financed, and proposed, the line could possibly be sublicensed the same way as Action Man 40th has away from GI Joe.

What is slightly an easier route though would be to arrange repaint or repacks of existing 25th line, Quarrel, Stalker, Jammer, Hunter etc and have a UK retailer/ independant dealer have it as an exclusive same way as you have in the US. A retool to make a new figure, like a Red Shadow might come at an additional cost as it's a newly created figure and Hasbro might want to retain that for their own line.

I'd love to do it and have an exclusive for All The Cool Stuff, but the outlay would suspend me from doing anything else.

Hope that helps a little giving some insight of what actually might be achievable.

Dave.

[Space Commander]

WOW!




SPACE COMMANDER

[Space Commander]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. I don't want to put anyone on the spot by naming names but there were a lot of us chatting awhile back on the subject of making our own figures because (at the time) Hasbro weren't showing the enthusiasm for Action Force that we felt the toyline deserved... What's more, they'd pretty much admitted that they'd let the brandname fall by the wayside, meaning that certain aspects of it were up for grabs.

Since then of course, we've all seen the hints that Hasbro have dropped indicating that despite their earlier stance they may be reviving elements of the toyline after all, specifically Red Shadows.

Whether this means they've decided to corner again or not is unclear. But it certainly seems like the Shadows are about to make a comeback.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing what Hasbro comes up with!

But I still think it'd be awesome to see this website (which was the battlefront on which the struggle to revive the Shadows was fought) have it's very own product in the form of brand new (but oldschool !) toys.

So... are Hasbro making Red Shadows? It seems likely.
Does that mean that the Action Force brandname is no longer up for grabs? Possibly.
Either way, there's always Anti Terror Team...
http://toyarchive.de/att/af_germany.htm
I can just picture a bftb.com action figure on a red, white, and blue cardback with yellow stencilled lettering that spells out Anti Terror Team...

I'd love to see that. And each figure would look great posed next to a new Red Shadow!


SPACE COMMANDER
PS. Just checked and I've got about £2.67 in my wallet... so so-much for funding this little project