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Kingpin
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 5,263
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I have too much free time. I translated the whole thing on the assembly line.
[1:6] World Map
As a brand based in Hong Kong, Hot Toys tapped into the South Korean designers and Mainland China assembly lines, producing and marketing to the world 1/6 figures. Below are one of their 1/6 movie character figures production pictures, they can well be references & inspirations for local creative industries.
World Market.
North America, Hong Kong, Europe, China, Taiwan,Singapore.
Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Russia
Hong Kong Headquarters
Other than administration management, marketing & sales procurement, Hong Kong headquarter’s important role is product development. Usually, each figure is allotted to one designer for total responsibility, he must take care of market research, design development, raw material planning, product development, and also production dates management.
-Howard and colleagues choose which character to become figures.
-After getting the character licenses from movie studio branch offices in Japan, Howard & designer will confirm the figure design, this includes selecting which design in the movie, accessories, determine headsculpt quantities(some figures would come with additional different headsculpts);
-Designer will draft out design concept for movie company to approve, and will amend according to their comments and feedback. After that, he will work with Korean Designer to research headsculpt expression, and at the same time collect & amass a large volume of pictures, so that together with mainland China masters, they would begin developing the main components (parts other than the headsculpt);
-After product development, they need to do photography, and prepare packaging design
-Marketing Department colleagues will use the product photos to procure pre-orders, and create publicity through magazines
-While waiting for orders, the company needs to forecast demand;
-After receiving the orders, they will begin mass production, during this time, designer will help out and supervise.
-After that is the creation of the mold, and creating rough plastic parts, to test the whether the mold has got any unevenness or problems.
After the mold is amended, they can officially create the plastic materials.
China: Manufacturing Line
Hong Kong toy companies manufacturing line are usually located in the Pearl River Delta(translator note: a place in Guangdong, China). Hot Toys’s way is to let one designer manage the design and follow the development process, and help out during the process such as materials quality management and technical problems.
Pic 1 Caption: Mainland China toy factories assembly line process: After receiving the main components, technical workers will first scan it and create the digital model, and add internal structure needed for production.
Pic 2: Mainland China factory production process: After that is creating the mold, and trying it out by creating rough plastics, to test the mold and refine it.
Pic 3, Pic 4: No caption.
Pic 5:After the mold is refined, then they can officially make the plastic cast.
Pic 6: After that is the painting process. First, it’s spraying on the colours, usually this is for large areas components.
Pic 7: Then, it will be manually painted. Most headsculpts must go through this process. Other than that, the weathering effect of armours are also done manually.
Pic 8: After painting is completed, begin limbs assemblies, accessories, and packaging the product.
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