It’s a new month, so Patreon, Thangs, and Printables supporters are getting the Starwing with Anthromedian Lion Pilot playset premium models this month. Thank you all for your support.
As we proceed across the boundary from one year to the next, we have an opportunity to look backwards in review, and forwards in hope. For me, this past year saw many ups and downs. But I have a plan for 2024, and I want to share it all with you.
In 2023 I met someone who lit a fire in me for toy design. A few weeks ago, in exploration of this, I went to DesignerCon. My video about that will be coming soon, but the thesis of that video is going to be that being in independent toy designer is not only possible, but there’s a lot of people doing it. So I think I’m all in on the toy designers gig. And by all in I mean I’m gonna fit it in around making YouTube videos and 3D print files for y’all, my supporters. I may have to learn some time management skills.
In exploring the things I’ve done from a standpoint of being a “product” that I package up and sell to people (as opposed to a 3D print file that I throw in the general direction of the internet) I’ve found several smaller projects that I could start this adventure with. For instance, some years ago I made a set of cute Lovecraft inspaired characters, which I’m surprised still shows up from time to time with someone printing them and saying they’re their favorite test prints. However, as with most things I do, it quicly spiraled out of control. I’ve long wanted to revisit these designs, give some of them a smaller footprint and others update them a bit. So I did that. And then I thought I could add a few more to them. My first thought was to pump it up to 6, which I did…
And then I showed this to a few people and they said “Hey, how about this-or-that-a-character” and suddenly I’m thinking I could do a whole whole second series of 4, and if a second why not a third or 4th series?
I’m debating whether to package these as single color prints or 4 color prints using the AMS available to me. Or perhaps I’ll do both and see which one’s people are more interested in. But this may end up being my first toy selling project of 2024.
Then there was the idea of hinged playset toys for Chibimals that link together to make an interconnected world. And this is a series that I could really go on for a while with. Heck, I’ve had banging around in my head the idea of 12 biome World of Chbimials for more than 4 years now.
But, it’s something I really want to do right, and so I may experiment with the idea with Low Poly Dinos first. I may even try kickstarting that one. 6 interlocking Low Poly Dino clamshell playsets around a central time traveling museum. A simple idea with simple lore and a simple scope that that I can start and end and experiment with the challenges of making playsets like this.
And, I’d also like to offer official physical PrintABlok sets. The challenge to these is one of packaging. I have no idea where to get boxes for them. I’d like to include building instrcutions. Also, I’d love to commission comic books to go with them to tell the story of PrintABloks.
If I get to all of these ideas in this year, I think I’ll be doing okay. And if any of them are successful I think I’ll be doing really okay.
If any of these ideas tickle your fancy, let me know. I’d love to hear your feedback on these ideas.
