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

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!!.)

We still have a bunch of work to do to finish assembling and painting the action figures, getting the playsets in order, and doing all the packaging, before the show.

There are still some minor changes to come, both before this upcoming show and after, but this gives you a general idea of what the figures will look like.

We're injection molding these action figures.

We're printing the molds in water washable resin (hopefully, one day soon we'll graduate to something plant based, but that's for another day.)

The toys are based on characters from 1910s literature and film. You can see some of those films on our Television network (which is powered by, among other things, peertube. Hi @video)

Check the playlist: https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/p/nQmSoz1U7RUUVqSLQdeGn2

These action figures were designed by @djsundog and manufactured at the #EllijayMakerspace.

The action figures are made out low density polyethylene, that's the stuff Milk Jugs are made of. Sometimes we make them out of milk jugs, sometimes we make them out of industrial regrinds, sometimes we make them out of fuse-beads (which are themselves made out of industrial regrinds.)

If everything goes to plan, tomorrow I should have the final #handmade #ActionFigures finished and ready to package.

I might still need to do some cleanup and detail work. We'll see how long my wife wants to hang out at the studio, and if I manage to finish it all.

That leaves Tuesday for finishing whatever I don't finish tomorrow + designing and printing the packaging. Then Wednesday and Thursday will be about finishing up our promotional materials, assembling the playsets, flashing our gameboy games, building the landing pages, making our business cards, and designing our table displays.

Anyway, if you're looking for some #revolutionaryJoy,

Sundog and I have built a whole universe of skypirates. We have action figures, we have an in universe newspaper, we have dossiers on pirates that have not been produced yet.

We have plans for video games (and I thought of a method for building a second today that ... well it's almost too good not to do. If I don't forget, I've probably nerdsniped myself in to it) and I have half a board game finished that I'll revisit soon.

We have 100+ year old movies, including #filibus, which you must see if you haven't. It's an absolute delight.

And we're going to make many more things. Maybe more videos, maybe comic books, maybe a short story collection, or even a pulp novel?

I went looking for ways to give my energy, attention, and money to real people instead of billionaires.

To keep that money, energy, and attention in my community, rather than letting it be exported.

And ...

Well, I found some ways to do that! But they were small. I was still mostly dependent on Google or Netflix or fucking Amazon for entertainment (and even when no one was getting paid, I was giving my time and energy and attention to things that were produced to reinforce ideologies that I find repugnant. Copaganda is a problem, and it's everywhere!) I was still mostly dependent on some big box retailer for books. I was still eating at corporate owned restaurants.

It was hard.

So, you know, be the change you want to see in the world.

Now I run a bookstore, and I stock a *ton* of self published books (hell, I even published a few myself!) I run a record label, and I help people release music. (People like @DoctorDeathray who's music you should listen to), I make food for our community, I run a television network, and I make toys. I run a pottery studio, I host a market for local artists. I buy my stuff used when I can.

I do these things because it means that other people can spend their time and attention and energy and money on the things I help to release instead of enriching a billionaire or spreading their ideology.

(It's not perfect! Some of the things I use still come from billionaires. No ethical consumption under capitalism, right? But I'm doing my best to provide more ethical alternatives.)

I feel much better about toymaking today than I have any day since last week.

We still don't have the bodies for our action figures ready, but I think we have a technique that will get us some tomorrow.

I finished cleaning the keshi figures and getting them ready. I haven't packaged them yet, but we've got several dozen that look good. 15 - 20 that look okay, and 20 or so that I'll end up shredding and reusing.

We have 25 gameboy cartridges with packaging. I have 40 in universe newspapers about sky pirates. I have posters on canvas, and cheaper posters on cardstock.

I still have about 25 resin cast toys in packaging left over from the last show.

We're making new action figures. I have good heads and good legs for our action figures. We should have bodies soon. We have boats for the playsets, and we've started painting them. The paint looks really good.

Tomorrow, we should have bodies and arms, and then we'll start to work on accessories. Swords, gliders, grappling hooks.

We're doing good! It's going well!

Now, if we can't get torso's figured out tomorrow I'm going to start resorting to wacky measures. There are some alternative ways that we can go about making the bodies.

I think what we're planning right now is our best option. It's the one I've been the most confident about one of our mold designs.

But, if it doesn't work, there are some techniques that I've used in the past that do work. I don't think the results will be as good, or as fast but I know it'd work, so if I have to go that route I will.

Either way, we'll have some action figures by Monday and they'll be great!

(I'm real grateful to @djsundog for his design work, printer wrangling, and moral support. I absolutely would have thrown my hands in the air and given up several times over without him egging me on.)

Things in the US are bad right now. I haven't talked about it much recently, and I won't talk about it much for a while.

Not here anyway.

If you want to engage with politics, I am writing a *lot* of political stuff, but it's mostly going up on New Ellijay Television.

Healthcare, for example: https://vod.newellijay.tv/videos/watch/6dd820e1-0b52-427b-bcbc-e40690073715

But there's a lot more coming down the slopes. I don't write all of it, but I write a lot of it.

Right now I'm talking politics elsewhere.

Here, I'm focused on revolutionary joy.

So the toy stuff is going well, and we're thinking about the future.

Let's talk about the present for a second, and then we'll talk about the future.

I make things! I help other people make things. I let other people help me make things.

The act of making things is, by itself, radical.

But I'm trying to take it step further.

I'm centering my values and I'm focusing on joy, on things that bring me joy, on things that create joy for others.

I'm focusing on replacing the things in my life, in the lives of other people, that enrich billionaires or promote harmful ideologies or wreck the planet with things that don't.

This is why I make toys! It's why I run New Ellijay Television.

When I talk about #Skypirates I frequently mention the film The Pirates of 1920 (released in 1910, available now from New Ellijay Television.)

It's great!

It's also a sequel of sorts, to the 1909 film The Skyship Destroyer. I didn't have a good copy of that one until today! But now I do, so you can too: https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/uNf5YWCLtWgeb42sejjoxZ

There's a third #skypirate film in this proto- #steampunk trilogy called The Arial Anarchists, but it has been lost for around 100 years.

It's based on a book, though. The book is called Hartmann, the Anarchist; Or, The Doom of the Great City by E. Douglas Fawcett

That's on PG and Librevox. I haven't read it. I might not ever read it. Who knows?

But if you wanted to watch a 115 year old science fiction film about sky pirates... well, go watch The Pirates of 1920, it's a much better movie than The Airship Destroyer.

But if you wanted to watch a Second 115 year old film about #skypirates... Go watch The Aerial Submarine, it's a much better film than The Airship Destroyer.

But if you wanted to watch a THIRD 115 year old film about #airship pirates... well, The Airship Destroyer is now available.