Going to try this again, since I didn't get the order correctly last time round, hopefully it's a bit more coherent this time:
Figures Company Steps to Making Quick Cash out of Consumers:
- The Negotiation
- The License
- The Legal Date
- The Sculpting and Revisions
- The Master Mould Production
- The Master Painting
- The Approval
- The Materials Gathering
- The Templates
- The Mass Production
- The Painting in Numbers
- The Quality Run
- The Promoting
- The Final Step
The Negotiation
The first and foremost step in every figure/ scale model production, acquisition of sole rights/ copyrights for mass reproduction of said item. With a lucrative deal in profits to be made from both sides of the companies, Hot Toys would have to compete with other companies on getting rights to reproducing Marvel's franchise characters. This is actually a standard process where most companies will present their portfolio to the intended company in the hopes of securing a production run. It's up to the tenderer, in this case Marvel to review and award accordingly based on their needs and directions.
The License
The license is as it is, a legal document that binds both company to an agreement, under which most of it is not revealed to the general public, but will cover a lot of items including release dates and limitations of the licenses. It is usually on paper an agreement that the awarded company can use the tenderer logo on their promotional materials. In short, they are free from any legal issues arising from using Marvel's logo, characters, etc so long they stay within the the agreement. The license is something Hot Toys have to pay for usage, and that does not comes cheap. The more companies tries to obtain the license, the likelihood of the licenses going through the roof.
The Legal Date
To prevent squatters (companies who sits on the licenses awarded) and I'm sure Marvel has learnt its lessons following from Fox Pictures and Sony Films, Hot Toys would have a date to work on the materials, and subjected to cut off dates. Marvel also has the rights to review the dates and adjust accordingly it sees fits. This is important so that Marvel do not have to wait a long time for the production turnover and prevent them from getting more profits than intended, as the initial surge of interests dies off after a while.
The Sculpting and Revisions
The main sculptors of Hot Toys (The A-Team) would reference from materials provided by the studio, run a 3D face scan of the actors/ actresses (or whatever they need to create a accurate sculpt) and create an accurate sculpt of the character. This is not something that is done within a day, week or month. It's probably a long process between the 2 studios as they attempt to communicate the best they can while revising the sculpt. For example, a Robert Downey Junior likeness for Iron Man 3 may run for a few revisions before it is agreed by Marvel and RDJ to go ahead for the Master Mould run.
Thus, to get it right and reduce the amount of time spent on each figure, the A-Team have to be accurate or quite accurate on the first revision. Sculpting is not as easy as it seems and it really involves a lot of time and redoing. The A-Team besides being talented in the first place, would need to spent years honing their skills, and those are not achievable by just themselves; and most probably they have to go on training, courses to improve their skills. All these? Supplied by Hot Toys of course. Wouldn't you balk at the idea that you have to take your money to further improve yourself if you are good enough to be recognized in the industry?
It doesn't just ends here, these sculptors are most likely poached (or tried to) all the time by rival companies, in an effort to get a star talent to head their projects and you know, provide better argument for The Negotiation. Hot Toys will have to spent a bit retaining the talents, while at the same time nurturing and discovering new talents to add to their pool. Ideally that's how a good business will be run.
The Master Mould Production
As suggests, its basically a final run before mass production of the sculpt. This is usually accompanied by minor revisions again, adjusting and inputs from the studio/character portrayals, etc. But in short, this is pretty close to production stage.
The Master Painting
The painting would also be done by the main sculptor first, again, based on their reference materials. It used to be slightly simpler which the face layer has just a few layers of painting and you call it done, but with wax like quality figures in recent times, it's layers and layers of adjustment painting. Did I mentioned that not so long ago most figures eyes are mostly just decals? It's not so simple now with recent headsculpts.
The Approval
The completed prototype would be subjected to the final approval from the studio and such. This prototype will be the basis for the remaining runs, and usually they called it the Master Kit. It can be... a few similar kits produced together depending on the situation (bigger production runs = more Master Kits needed) The approval is the crucial step because that's when the Mass Production can truly began. (No sane company is going to do a complete production run and only to get disapproved by the parent company, imagine the massive losses.)
The Materials Gathering
The materials are the first thing to be secured, this can be the plastics, , metal, resins and even the cloth needed for the costumes. The more complicated the figure, the more time and money is needed for securing these. Raw materials have steadily risen in price over the years and this will inadvertently affect the final pricing of the figure.
The Templates
These range from the body production to cloth production. All these need a template. The body, headsculpts and most accessories run through a Master Mould, which is basically a male and female mould containing the shape of the item usually, and hot resin/ plastic is passed through this mould.
A Master Mould usually costs quite a bit, cos as it suggests, it's the master and thus it shouldn't be discarded just after a few runs. HOWEVER, they do have a lifespan, since wear and tear happens, which would explain very much why Hot Toys in general have limited production runs for each figures.
There are a few explanations for this, namely it's cost prohibitive to produce another Master Mould after the initial production since the likelihood of obtaining maximum profits from the first run is not going to happen, after the interests dies off.
Keep the quality high for each figure run, which is very true for most Hot Toys figures.
And the least possible reason, keep the aftermarket price; since it's considered limited edition, ideal for collectors or hoarders.
Maybe in the early days, these are not so important since Hot Toys need to survive first, and they probably run till the Master Mould wears out and down but they have a reputation to keep now.
The clothes are another issue, since some costumes can be very intricate, there's a need for templates to be made, which reduces the overhead time and keep a steady rate of production. These are drawn up by artisans who will maximize the usage of the subject material space and plan properly.
I have to share though that the current 1/6 scale clothings are not easy reproduced, my mother who was a seamtress do not appreciate the fact that these are small to work with and normal human size templates scaled down to 1/6 just does not work. She speculates that some of the details of the clothings are probably specially engineered by a specialized machine/ template or even both to get the desired quality and fast production.
The Mass Production
The mass production is as suggests, production in high numbers, the machines will churn out the items, and the workers will get to work on the manual stuff, such as putting on the clothes, facial painting and detailing, things that machines will have a tough time or unable to reproduce in accurate amount.
The Painting in Numbers
The Master Kit is used as the defacto reference for reproduction by the factory workers. These are normal day to day workers who work long hours hoarded up in a factory painting your figures, applying decals, weathering, etc. They are your heroes, producing figures so that you can argue online whether it looks like Robert Downey Junior in actual hands.
The painting is usually true to the Master Kit, with small slight differences. They are very very labour intensive since these are small details the workers have to take note of. Compared to the Master Kit, which has spent a considerable amount of time on the input and output, these mass produced figures will pale in comparison, but damn if it still doesn't looks good. Except for a slight slipped up or two at times.
Most of these workers would have to undergo basic training on painting and assembly, and they will also be subjected regularly to training, similar to the A-Team. Most of the A-Team got their start from the bottom of the food chain, which is here. They get recognized, whether through their talents or efforts and moved up the career ladder.
It is imperative Hot Toys pays a lot of attention to these group, since they are the main driving forces before the final figure is packed into the box to be shipped. Retaining skilled workers and recognizing new talents is probably the most crucial thing for Hot Toys here.
The Quality Run
At this point, it's mainly quality checking and ensuring each figure looks almost identical to each other. This includes the packaging and materials. Most of the packing are outsourced usually to save time but the figures themselves would undergo some form of checks before packing.
You will have the occasional slip ups but it's understandable since the amount of figures and time needed to check each figure can be time consuming. Not to mention some issues don't get spotted until its out in the market. The good thing is Hot Toys do allow exchanges and are reasonable usually.
The Promoting
This doesn't really belong here, since by this time the promotion would have been long over by Hot Toys. MOST companies though, will run a promotion on their latest releases, followed by an expected shipping date. Usually this is within a few months ahead or just days ahead as they neared the release date.
In the case of Hot Toys, the prototype is used for the promotion first, followed by actual production runs, shipped to a few select known reviewers for their assessment and photography as additional promotional materials.
The Final Step
Finally, the shipping. The logistics, I shall not delve into as it's mostly debatable. BUT Hot Toys is just the producer and the distribution rights are maintained by them to the distributors. I noticed that certain figure has a higher markup than other countries and that could be usually due to the shipping logstics, taxes, distribution agreement (Distributor only took 1/100 of the production run, thus running higher in costs of the figure) stuff like that. It's really up to the distributor at this point in time.
Unless of course you are in Hong Kong. Then you can get from Hot Toys direct.
On a small side note: I reside in an Asian country, got my start in scale modelling first before collecting Iron Man figures, followed by a long break, and then restarted on this from DX 11 Joker and DX 12 Batman.
You are free to disagree with the processes, as I mainly took reference from the scale modelling industry largely. But these 2 areas run in a pretty similar fashion, I really don't see an difference from them except that the end product caters to different groups of enthusiasts.
Is the rise in cost justified? It is, to an extent. We may not know everything, but there's a lot of factors at play when it comes to rising costs. Many of use are new to the hobby and it seems we have a completionist attitude, which further drives the point that Hot Toys or other companies can charge whatever they want as there will be people taking it up, case in point, Iron Man Midas which is an convention exclusive and we see hoarders jacking the price up immediately after purchase. This is the same situation happening in sneakers release right now (The Air Jordans are the prime example)
My only advice to those who dislike the prices, don't place an order. NO DEMANDS, NO SUPPLY. Make a calculated decision before placing that order. Hot Toys or other companies are not taking a gun to your forehead and forcing you to buy. You have a choice, answer them with your wallet and naturally the price will be adjusted, in a while.
Now if I can have a dollar from everyone who seen this post it would be great.
TL : DR, Hot Toys priced this figures because they can, if you choose to ignore all the above stated points
