Notices by Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)

I got a set of dragon balls for us to sell at the next toy swap.

They're pretty.

Damn y'all, these toys we're making are getting good.

Soon, we'll start making bigger toys, and we'll start doing jointed figures.

"start"

I did my first injection molded piece in 2022. I also did a big handful of resin cast figures in 22.

I learned a lot about injection molding and 3D printing in 2022. We developed a plastics recycling process, we made a bunch of original figures. I was working with a partner, but his life got complicated and things at my day job picked up and I had to put it all back on the shelf for most of 2023.

I did my first jointed figure nearly 20 years ago, and some of the stuff I was doing in 2019 and 2020 was physically larger than anything I've done in the last 4 years.

But 20 years ago I was working exclusively in sculpyy, and for most of the last five years I've been working almost exclusively in resin.

Sorta.

So in 2023 the only toys we made were resin cast. There were some great new designs. I was really happy with them! And I got some of our old designs back in to production, but again in Resin.

I tried to pick up injection molding, but I kept getting stymied by problems with our resin printers and the fact that I am not much of a digital sculpter, and none of my usual contacts were available.

So, between those issues and all the attention my job was taking, I didn't make many toys at all, and definitely not any new injection molds.

And then in 2024 I ended up completely remodeling our cafe and opening a bookstore, and dealing with the fact that I left my day job, and ...

2024 was a mess.

But towards the end of 2024 Sundog and I picked it back up and again and started 2025 with a new line of injection molded toys! And we revived all our previous injection molded toys!

And now things have accelerated.

So we're getting all our old resin cast figures back in to production as injection molded toys.

We're building gang molds for our keshi style figures so we can make 4 or 5 of them at a time.

We found a plastics manufacturer local to us who helped us create a new plastic compound for toymaking, which is just a wild thing to write down and has the potential to genuinely upset the way toys are made, if we can get a few more details worked out.

We've developed a few new techniques for coloring our plastics, and built ourselves a new, much heavier duty injection molding machine, and Sundog has gotten pretty dang good at modeling up new molds.

And we've got a few new designers who have decided to partner with us, so we'll have even more sculpts very soon.

Anyone here have any experience with NY Toy Fair as an attendee or an exhibitor?

We're considering taking Mountain Town Toys to Toy Fair in 2026, both as a way to get our lines in the hands of retail buyers and customers, but also to get our manufacturing services and design services and new plastics in front of other designers, as a boutique option for smaller runs, as an alternative to PVC toys and overseas factories.

This seems like an ambitious thing to try for, but I can't tell if it's Ambitious like a thing we could reach or "Ambitious" like something we shouldn't actually try to do.

So, any experience with toy fair? Wanna talk about it?

And there's so much R&D happening. So much R&D. We're trying new techniques and material every week.

We've got plans to try a bunch more!

Which leaves me with a question:

Watch out spacehawk!

I live a weird life these days.

Spent no less than 20 minutes this morning uninstalling what I can only describe as ransomware pretending to be a trackpad driver.

I'm glad I don't use apple hardware on a regular basis, and even more glad I don't have any windows machines in my personal life.

If you find yourself needing windows drivers for an old Macbook pro trackpad, I highly recommend avoiding trackpad++ which is a scam disguised as a device driver that attempts to disable your system when you uninstall it.

There's a decent open source driver called mac-precision-touchpad. If you search "uninstall trackpad++" it will be the first result. That's telling right?

It's apparently "bring your sorority to the mountains" day.

I would like to hire someone to make some milled alluminum molds into which I can inject molten plastic.

I have had very little luck finding someone who is willing to do this kind of work for toy manufacuring. A few firms who appear to specialize in it ghosted us after seeing our files (which, yes. Okay. They were complex sculpts. But we can go simpler! I'm flexible! Just talk to me!)

I'm based in the US, and would prefer to work with a person or a small business.

Do you know anyone who wants to take on some fiddly milling projects to help us bring some toys to life?

Big old theater a few towns over is doing metropolis with live organ accompaniment towards the end of next month.

I think I might go see it, if I can scrounge up any other interested parties.

Eventually, we'll make things that are playmobil inspired skypirate toys, and skypirate inspired other things, and start making not-playmobil inspired Skypirate toys, and not Skypirate inspired playmobil style toys, and other other things that have nothing to do with either of those things.

Eventually.

But, for now, we've figured out how to make some damn fine toys, directly recycled from consumer trash and industrial waste, and we're going to put them up for sale soon!

All the characters are CC-BY-SA, all the stories we're working with are either CC-BY-SA or in the public domain.

We're going the distance, it's all coming together. I couldn't be more excited.

So! If you want some hand made, recycled, #SkyPirate #actionFigures to bring and spread some joy in your life or the lives of people around you:

1) Keep your eyes pealed, we'll be doing a big announcement post, and a video ad, and some other stuff within 10 days, when we launch the ordering portal on the website.

2) Go ahead and let me know! Reply here or send me a DM and I'll get your name on the list and reach back out when the toys are ready.

ALRIGHT!

HERE WE GO!

We're making action figures! and we're mostly using recycled plastics!

Here's the first release candidate of a #Skypirate action figure for our #Skypirates Playset which we're building for #assemblyRequired, which is Feb 1st and 2nd (leaving in 5 days!!.)