How to find your place in the sun?
After the release of the two previous materials, probably everyone who read them took and figured out: "What if I should do this?" But it is clear that 99.9% decided that "yes, not bad", but "I feel good already" and "it is hardly worth changing anything!" And … right! Because organizing production is difficult. Even if they are soldiers. Therefore, today we will focus on the actual production and distribution of "your" products, since this is a very important component of the business. Even the most important one can be said. Because everything can work out for you, but in the end you will be sitting on a heap of boxes with soldiers, but no one will buy them from you.
A set of polystyrene figurines from the Japanese company Tamiya, depicting characters from the history of 47 legendary samurai (top right). Below is a diorama in which the samurai from the kit kill the insignificant cowardly Cyrus.
That is, as already mentioned in the two previous articles, a lot depends on the choice of topic.
When, in the 90s, I published my magazine "Tankomaster" in Penza, and then in Moscow, I turned to its readers with an offer to help them set up their business, and … many turned to us with this. Moreover, some of the readers' ideas were very promising and funny. But most importantly, they were profitable!
This is how the packaging of the "Tankomaster" conversion kit for the T-60 model of the "Zvezda" company looked like. The set included a new turret, white metal track links, spoked wheels, an exhaust pipe, spare parts boxes, a ventilation grill and a tankman figure. The reamer was printed on a color printer and glued onto a cardboard reamer, which was then folded and connected with a stapler. Cheap, pretty and effective enough!
For example, someone named Dyatlov decided to produce bricks for dioramas on a scale of 1:35. Real clay. White and red. To arrange "ruins" and "rubble" yourself. However, he wanted to have a package with the name of his company … which would contain his surname and at the same time would orient all this to the West, and … would also indicate the nature of the production! So the "firm" "Woodpecker bricks" - "Dyatlovsky bricks" was born, and on the box was a pyramid made of bricks, on which a woodpecker was sitting. How he did them, I do not know. But the products were good, so they could be bought and sold.
Collectible quality polystyrene figurine of a knight in tournament armor of the Japanese firm "Imex" on a scale of 1:12. However, such figures can also be cast from epoxy resin in vixinth molds, and small parts can be cast from "white metal".
Another master from the city of Kamyshin figured out how to make reeds on a scale of 1:35. Truly, our land is rich in talents! Even now I can't imagine how he "spun" them, but these were real reeds on a thin wire. It only remained to stick them where necessary and paint the "stem" green, and the inflorescence brown. The leaves were not included in the set, but the instructions in English said that they can be cut yourself from thin paper or metal foil and bent at will. I only remember that an order for $ 1,000 came from Italy alone, and we were tortured at customs to pack 99 bags in boxes, because 100 by law were already a trade party, and a duty had to be paid for it. Then the production, as far as I know, stalled. But no one bothers to repeat it. In any case, judging by the advertisements in Model Grafix, such products are not offered in the West. And how to advertise "there"? It's very simple! First, make a diorama: a tank (American, German, Russian) drowned in a reed swamp, and tankers on and around it decide how to get it. By the way, I had such a diorama, it seems, in the same magazine "M-Hobby", however, there the emphasis was on how to show water on it as realistically as possible.
A piece of a page from the magazine "Tankomaster" No. 3 for 1997 with a story about how to produce stands for dioramas with a photograph of one such simple diorama with a figurine of a Finnish army tanker and a captured T-26 tank.
The Leaves project was very interesting. Its essence was that many diorama modellers themselves make trees for their dioramas. Modeling magazines have written a lot about how to make barrels. And the leaves? Today they are made from thin metal using the photoetchet method. Palm leaves, ferns, "burdocks", a lot of leaves … We decided to make them from paper of three colors - green, red, yellow. We made a cutting shape of leaves on a scale of 1:35 (birch and oak) and began to "knock", cutting down several leaves with each blow. Then all this was packed and sold wholesale and retail, but mostly, of course, to the West. To be honest, I can't imagine how you can attach … all the necessary leaves to a model of a tree at a scale of 1:35. But enthusiastic people, they are all a little … like that, so they did it, and I saw the results myself in the photographs. Of course, it was necessary to mechanize the process, but there was simply no money for it.
Ready photo for packaging! It was planned, but not done, to begin the production of a peasant hut from a photograph of the Bundesarchive, in which German tanks enter the Russian village, as well as original plastic podiums for dioramas using the vacuum form technology, for example, a piece of the Atlantic shaft with a concrete base for the T-tank turret. II and Renault.
But the Japanese magazine "Armor Modeling" tells its readers about such dioramas. That is, you make an impressive diorama with your figurines, send them to this magazine and ask them for your address. They agree and … "the wheel has turned." By the way, if anyone needs Model Grefix and Armor Modeling magazines, please contact us. There is no better modeling manual or information source on the state of the international fashion market! 10% of the text is in English, so it's not hard to figure them out!
Today, when you can produce any figurines, I personally would release a series of "Knights' Tournament". It would include a podium with a stadium, stands, tents, and figures, starting with a dog driven by a page and ending with a lady who tore off her sleeve from her dress to throw it to the victorious knight. It can be stylized as "traditional" and then you will have to color them. Or - "paint yourself" and then, as an application, you will need a colored instruction with options for decorating the knights' clothes. However, all this is on VO today. The set is advertised and distributed using the De Agostini technology with preliminary advertising in well-known fashion magazines. Long-term work and long-term money. Not very big at first, but then more and more.
Figures on a scale of 1:12 in the interior of the "dollhouse". Such dressed "dolls" with a spinning head and bent arms and legs cost tens of euros abroad!
Models-copies of historical cannons, and made in such a way that they can shoot, can become very original products! The device of such a weapon can be very simple: in the bore there is a sting isolated from the walls from an electric burner. On the bed of the carriage there are two terminals. The gun (or rather, all guns of the series) relies on a "palnik" - a handle with batteries and two contacts for terminals on the beds. You put gunpowder or "match sulfur" into the barrel. Then the "core" (on a scale) or "shell" is laid, after which it remains only to touch the terminals of the terminals with the contacts and press the button that turns on the power. Naturally, the volume of charge will need to be measured in advance and written that more than what is indicated cannot be poured into the barrel. Also, be sure to write “Only for adults” on the packaging. But again, demand will be guaranteed all over the world! Chokhov's cannons and Russian trophies on display at the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg alone will give you samples to work with for many years. And again … someone will "pester" you, you can easily contact the public and the authorities in charge of helping "small business". They say, I am engaged in a patriotic cause, I promote the glory and pride of Russia around the world, I conduct historical education of the masses … and me, and me … "I need help," and everyone will be on your side, including the president himself, because this is the truth!
A ready-made sample for making a "historical set": the "Lion" pishchal. Photo by N. Mikhailov.
Pistol "Haste". Everything is! Take measure, take pictures, make a master model and cast! Photo by N. Mikhailov.
The most original project - which, by the way, I don’t propose to anyone - but which was offered to me, and I even made packaging for it and developed the very first commercial sample, concerned the production of diorama sets based on … literary works! The first diorama was supposed to be a "piece of Mars" from Alexei Tolstoy's novel "Aelita" - the very moment where Elk and Gusev in leather jackets and with Mausers on their side emerge from their landed "egg". The most original was the "egg" material. It had to be real (and well packed!) Shells of goose, turkey, and ostrich eggs. Smaller eggs - diorama scale 1:72, but the ostrich egg shell made it possible to make a diorama in 1: 35 scale!
The interior of the dining room of a standard De Agostini dollhouse. The chandelier above the table has been removed to reveal a mini-light bulb.
The base is "sand", on it is "an egg covered with carbon" (with rivets and seams of metal sheets!), Red cacti and figurines of Elk and Gusev that have crawled out through the open hatch all around. We made one such diorama with a goose egg shell and sent it to the USA in the "Fine Scale Modeler" magazine. There they appreciated her and were very surprised that in Russia in Russia a novel about a flight to Mars was published back in 1922, although “there” it was published twice (!) In English. But … somehow "it didn't go", although I made a very nice package for this set.
Finally, this is a very fertile field for activity today: the production of accessories for doll houses. These can be chandeliers, table lamps, candlesticks, dishes, furniture, and, of course, figurines. It's all worth it. And there are a lot of companies that produce all this. But … you can find your niche too. The interiors of the "house" of the era of the novel "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy, fortunately in the West this novel is well known, "the interiors of the world of Turgenev's young ladies", "the interiors of the" Silver Age "- there are many things you can think of. Again, come to an agreement with museums: Lermontov in Pyatigorsk and in Tarkhany, Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana - but how many museums we have associated with names of world significance? These are all "tips" for the creative mind. But, of course, before you get down to business, you need to think well and get acquainted with the situation on the market. Well, what can "go" here in Russia, we will tell you in our next article.
