I didn’t want this to get lost in my update post. We were asked to supply artwork and figures for a movie being made with Ron Howard. There are scenes in the movie from toyfare from the 1980’s and scenes from a modern day toyfare. The movie set designers created a Strike Force Alpha toyfare booth for the movie. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that our scenes make the cut!
I wanted to give everyone an update of where things stand with the Strike Force project. There has been a resurgence of O-ring projects in the last year, and we are glad to be a part of it. Matt and I want to thank everyone that came to Joefest and met with us.
Strike Force Alpha has become a big part of our lives and we appreciate all the friends who stopped by to look at the samples and chat with us. We made some new friends as well and we look forward to hanging out with everyone again next year.
Strike Force Alpha is hitting the big screen. We were asked to provide painted figures for a new Ron Howard production. The production crew loved our figures, and they made a great Toy Fair booth with our products for the movie. I’ve attached a picture from the set. Thanks Kelli Mix for thinking of us. The booth has a great 80’s feel to it and we hope we make it to the final cut. We will provide more details when we get them.
The part of the update I’m sure everyone most wants to hear is when will the figures ship? The short answer is the figures won’t be shipping in August like we estimated. When we started the project, we used past production experience and the information we had available at the time to come up with a timeline. Manufacturing was tough to mitigate a year ago and, in some ways, has become even more challenging. Delays and cost increases have unfortunately become the norm. Covid outbreaks in the factory, supply chain issues and electrical blackouts in the manufacturing areas in China have also been an issue.
Things have been moving along quickly over the last few months and we’ve gained a lot of ground. Unfortunately, the delays we experienced in the beginning have put us behind. The scanning technology used at the first factory wasn’t accurate enough to take our physical prototypes and turn them into digital files that could be used and there was a conflict with the original factory. These 2 issues caused us to start from scratch both with re sculpting all the figure parts digitally, converting the figures to O-ring, and then moving the project to another factory I’ve been using for a few years.
These issues caused a significant loss of time and money.
The new factory has been moving pretty quickly on this project and I think we gained a lot of lost time. The molds were originally supposed to be finished at the beginning of July. Then I was told by the end of July. I was hoping to get the molds finished before the update, but I didn’t want to make anyone wait any longer. With only a few days left I don’t think they will be finished by the end of July.
I’ve been in touch with our project manager in China almost nightly, and she has been pushing the mold factory to quickly finish these molds. The issue has been the mold makers have also been working on other projects and there are only 2 CNC sparking machines to make close to 200 molds for this project plus the molds for other companies.
There are 3 types of parts being molded for this project: PVC, POM, and ABS. The PVC molds are done, and they are working on the ABS molds now. The pictures are from molds they were making last week. The sample parts from the molds have all been turning out great, you can see some in the pictures. I will check back in a week on the molds and start updating more frequently until production starts.
The fact that you all have invested your hard-earned money in helping us bring this project to life is very humbling and we feel a great sense of responsibility to ensure we don’t let you down. This project will be completed, and you will be happy with the results. Everyone has been extremely patient, and Matt and I want to get these figures in hand just as quickly as you do.
Production has been going quickly on other projects I’ve been working on so once we get the molds done, we should be able to come up with accurate date for the completion of this project. Stay tuned and I’ll let everyone where things stand in about a week.
