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Round 2 Models: How The Magic Happens (Episode 1)
I recently asked for some ideas to post about and it seems one of the most requested bits you want to hear about is how things work here day to day at Round 2 Models. I decided to keep a log of what I did over a four-day period. Why four? Because I got too far into one day without taking any notes.
Keep in mind that more than anything, my job is to “art direct”- give thoughts on the progress of a sculpt, assemble and review test shots, review a tooling plan to make sure every part is accounted for, create or advise an associate on a packaging design or instruction sheet, give management an update on product progress, assemble documents to generate cost estimates and figure out what we are going to do next and who I can find that would best help with that, write these blogs and generally just keep all of the balls in the air or make sure they get thrown into the proper basket complete and on schedule.
I fear this won’t seem like the exciting time you might imagine it to be. All in all, things may seem to happen at a snails pace. I can assure you I always have too much going on to make daily dents in my “to do list”. I’ll try to explain about some things along the way.
DAY 1
7:30 – Arrive at the office. I’m the third person in today. One other creative is usually here by the time I arrive. The other person is from accounting. Our day doesn’t technically start until 8:00. Most people are out by 5, but a devoted few tend to stay past that most days.
7:30-8:30 – Check email. This usually eats up most of my morning and it gets checked regularly during the day. Some days email completely distracts from actually getting the work done that I might have intended to do in a given day.
The majority of the email traffic is me answering questions or keeping balls in the air on various projects with a few factories and vendors (sculptors, digital modelers, etc). This particular morning covers hearing that pre-production samples of our upcoming Incredible Hulk are on their way. I’ll need to review them. If they look correct, the factory will produce the product exactly way I see it. I will need to note any corrections that might be necessary. I also reviewed the progress of laying out the 1:350 TOS Enterprise tooling. Answering emails such as these can be a huge time sink. I need to capture images and make notes of every problem I see. When reviewing a sculpt or mockup from the factory, this can take up the majority of a given day.
8:30- 9:10 – weekly product development team meeting. With a few people out, this one is relatively short. They usually take 1-2 hours. Our department (10 full time designers) meets to review what we are currently working on. It is a time for the Creative Director to present anything to the department he needs to. We get a chance to see and hear about what each of us are working on and give critiques and pointers where needed. We are each generally pretty isolated to specific lines. As you know, I am the primary line manager for Polar Lights. Another designer splits his time between my line and the automotive line. We have a part time intern assist on the Polar Lights line as well. On the automotive side, John manages that line up. We have one additional designer splitting his time between automotive model product and our new line of model rockets. Everyone else is spread over our Forever Fun, slot car and die cast lines.
9:10-10:10 – I’m back at my desk and continue responding to email.
10:10-11:45 – We have two people out sick in the department and Forever Fun has a huge bunch of package mockups due by the middle of the week for a large retailer. Mockups are basically fake packages. Most of them need to look as close to the final product as possible, which includes putting actual product in the package. It is a huge pain and takes a lot of time. We have one part timer who comes in and does nothing but mockups. With one of the missing people being one of the Forever Fun peeps and the other person being one that would normally pitch in on such a crunch, the effort is short handed. So the rest of us are enlisted to help out. For my part, I cut out a few of the more complicated patterns and assemble the boxes. It is a pain and takes a sizeable chunk out of my day, but we gotta do what we gotta do sometimes. This situation rarely happens, but we are all prepared when the call comes.
11:45-12 – check more email. This time I answer some questions for one of our sculptors for one of the projects he is working on. (details for which will be announced at Wonderfest)
12-12:45 – lunch. I run to a local Meijer supermarket to pick up lunch provisions to cover me for the next couple weeks. Other than this, I rarely leave the premises for lunch.
12:45-1 – You guessed it, check my email.
1-4 – I do some research for a few new projects we have planned. This mainly consists of researching online, checking with consultants and in one case finding the answers in a book I already had on my shelf. I won’t get into specifics, but basically I’m looking for reference images for one kit, a beauty shot of another ship to use for our sell sheet for another project, and determine the length of a couple ships. Among my search I stumbled cross Steve Neill’s YouTube series about his 66” scratch built Enterprise. That ate up a good 20 minutes just checking that out. Fascinating…
4-5:50 – I work on an RFQ (Request for Quote) for a kit coming out in the fall. This document will be sent to the factory for them to determine their cost to produce the kit. The RFQ pretty much covers every aspect of the kit from the parts included, color and packaging. If a test shot is already in hand, tooling revisions or problems will be recorded to gauge the difficulty and cost for necessary tooling work.
5:50 – I’m out the door and on the road for a 40 minute drive home.
Here are a few pics I snapped throughout the day.
A look at my desk the morning of day 1. It would continue to accumulate more mass for an additional week before I break down and come in on a Saturday to clean it up.
This is our mockup area in the warehouse. Mike G. (American Muscle and Custom & Premium) and Ken H. (model kits) stand at the left of the pic. Monica (model kits intern) and Jen (mockup contractor) are seated at the table.
This shows the mockups that are complete at noon. I estimate that this is about half of what is required for one retailer’s request.
This shows a package mockup that has had all of the straight edges already trimmed down.
This shows what it looks like after I trim out the window. The box will go on to be assembled with an acetate window installed and have last year’s product put inside to give the closest indication possible of how it will look on the shelf.
This shows an overall view of a vintage copy of the Star Trek Exploration Set. This photo gets installed in the RFQ to show what parts are needed and an estimation of their size.
Whew. That is a mouthful. I guess I’ll have to write up each day individually. So, to be continued…
Round 2 Models: Whadaya Want From Me?
A few weeks back one of this blog’s voracious readers asked what I was up to. Even a photo of my desk would be enough to sate him. I obliged and readers had fun pointing out objects of interest around my desk.
A couple weeks after that, I posted some of the steps we go through when we clean up box artwork and it seemed like a few people were genuinely interested in the process. I’m in a place right now where what I am working on is new and exciting stuff, but I can’t talk about it until we here at Round 2 Models make a formal announcement about these projects. Stuff that I was working on months ago is almost ready to go out on the shelf for sale. It is all stuff that while at one point, I was excited about, but now I’m on to the next thing.
My question to you, dear readers, is what kind of behind the scenes insight would you like to see on this blog? There are things that I do (nearly) every day that I take for granted that you guys might want to know more about. So, I’m throwing this out there. If there is something you are curious about or would like more behind the scenes dirt on, give me your questions/suggestions and I’ll work through them as time allows. Want to know more about my battles with Batmobile model development? I got plenty to share. Want to see some old control drawings from the AMT and Polar Lights archives? We’ve got some things in a file cabinet that I could pull out. The only things that are off limits are the 1:350 Enterprise and future product announcements. Those will come when the time is right.
Round 2 Models: Things Are Getting Exciting!
Have you ever had news that you wanted to shout to the world but you couldn’t? That’s kind of where I’m at right now. Things are getting exciting here in Round 2 Models-land. We’ve got a couple great shows coming up.
We will be setting up at C2E2, in Chicago, IL April 13-15. I’ve attended the show the last couple of years and I love it personally. The show focuses on comic books, movies and pop-culture of all kinds. We are looking at a show exclusive to sell at the show. We’ll see what we can do. Besides model kits, we’ll be displaying our other lines like Forever Fun seasonal products, Captain Action and Silver Screen Machines die-cast cars as well.
We are also gearing up for Wonderfest in a big way. I cant wait to unveil this year’s product announcements. I’ve stated that I don’t want to announce anything that we don’t have a sculpt or mockup for. I’m working hurriedly to be sure I don’t have to bite my tongue about anything. If all goes well, we will have more new kits out by the end of the year than just the 1:350 scale U.S.S. Enterprise™! I really, REALLY wish I could say more!
Round 2 Models: Muscling Through Packaging
A lot of our development team’s time is spent on our product packaging. It is a key marketing and sales tool and in some cases, it makes the kit much more desirable. If you read our blog regularly, you are probably familiar enough with our products to know what to expect from us in this regard. I figured I would show you some of the steps we go through and what we encounter as we work.
For this example, I’ll be using our upcoming release of the Incredible Hulk. In the case of this kit we started with what we had, a tattered copy of the kit released in 1978. The plan was to ditch the old packaging style completely and shift it more towards an Aurora style long box but keep a modern sensibility about it. Comparing the proportion of the art board to the long box style, I found we could center more in on Hulk and let the rest of the scene actually wrap around one side of the box to give the effect of “okay, here is the Hulk. He is mad” then as you turn to the side of the box, you get the reveal of “oh, this is what he is mad about”.
In order to start, the old box featured a giant violator that covered a major part of the background. An image of the buildup cut into Hulk’s knee. All of this is besides the fact that our box is nice and worn with plenty of cracks and stains in the image. The decision was made to break it down to just the line art and recolor it as I had done on the Spider-man and Captain America kits. This would give it the updated look I mentioned. The instruction sheet featured the same line art in pure black and white so I figured this would be a great head start. The problem was that the art on the instructions did not perfectly match the box lid. It wasn’t a complete redrawing but a few embellishments had been made to the artwork. A few lines were thicker here or there.
Once I broke it all down and mixed and matched the parts of the line art I wanted from the two illustrations, I set to filling in the gaps created by the violators. The only clue I had to the contents were an overturned car and smoke coming from it and who knows what else. There were also a few building tops peaking up from the behind the legal line on the instruction sheet. I found the look of the TV news style helicopters to be a little ridiculous and decided to embrace that a little bit. I decided to shift their color scheme to a more military look and drew in one of General Ross’ “Hulk-buster” tank on the ground to give him something to really get angry about. Filling in the rest of the cityscape background was logical to complete the rest of the scene.
So here it is, a sneak peak at the upcoming Incredible Hulk packaging. (All images are currently under licenor review and are subject to change) we will feature a build along article by Mark McGovern covering both the MPC Incredible Hulk and Spider-man kits on our website when we approach the release dates.
Polar Lights Model Kits: Be Careful What You Wish For.
I had just completed writing my congressman about SOPA when I received the following message to my last blog post…
Jamie – It’s been 6 weeks since there was anything new here. Can you tell us what you got for Christmas? Screen shot of your work desk? Throw us a bone, please!
I had just been saying I needed to do a new blog post. How could I deny a request like that? 6 weeks? I’ve got no excuses other than the usual… Just been busy. Can’t help that. Anyway, here I am now.
I’ll figure out something more substantial to write about soon but I’m going to fulfill that request with this post.
For Christmas, I mostly received books and movies. Generally through the year I don’t buy much for myself other than a monthly batch of comics so usually by Christmas I have to go through the painful process of determining my wish list. My wife and family usually do right by me. This year, I got the following Blurays- Sucker Punch (still don’t get what people don’t like about it. It has everything a 3 year old boy should be looking for in a flick), Inception, Limitless, Alien box set, The Matrix, Goodfellas, Independence Day (apparently the worst movie I personally enjoy) and 300. I got books by and about Syd Mead, Raymond Loewy, Andrew Loomis, Alien Vault, making of Blade Runner, 41 American illustrators, an overview of the top fashion illustrators, and a novel length comic named, Habibi. I got an awesome looking Gundam kit. I can’t remember his name but he’s got a Gatling gun and rocket pack. I’m sure there was much more.
You should see photos of my desk in its current state. I’ve thrown in some descriptions of what you see there. It is usually not as exciting as it might seem. I have a medium amount of clutter today. I’ve covered anything referring to the 1:350 TOS Enterprise to keep that between the 1701 Club members and me. Btw, The club is filling up. We have right around 200 spots left. Join now if you have been debating whether or not to dive in. You will see a copy of the MPC Incredible Hulk kit on my desk. If you happen to won a copy of the MPC Spider-man kit and happen to have the instructions for it. Let me know if you are interested in lending them to us for a little while in exchange for a few kits. That kit is hard to find. If you look close, you may find some clues or “bones” to upcoming product.
Round 2 Models: Shine On
I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. The holidays come quicker every year, don’t they?
We, at Round 2 Models, continue to see what we can do to improve our product wherever we can and one thing we’ve been keeping an eye on is the appearance of our chrome parts. I don’t usually deal with as many chrome sprues as John does with the car stuff but back when we were working on the Pilgrim Observer, I made sure to pay special attention to the chrome parts in that one. There is a fine balance we need to strike to hold the details and also keep a nice shine on the parts. Compounding our concern is that the nature of applying the chrome and gloss coat is environmentally sensitive. (heat, cold and humidity, etc all have to be carefully controlled) We have done our best to strike that happy medium for keeping detail and also having a nice high gloss shine.
As I compared the old Pilgrim Observer vintage example to the fresh new test shots, I found that the detail wasn’t quite as nice but it was sufficient in that if you didn’t compare the two side by side, the new ones still looked pretty good. The new ones were very shiny though. Actually, they were too shiny for my taste. I think such high gloss on chromed plastic looks a little too “toy-etic”. Besides, the nature of the gloss, itself, hides or at least camouflages details and I really picked up on that. The gloss had greatly lessened with age from the vintage example and I personally found them much more appealing. They looked more scale accurate and I didn’t think any ‘70s era space agency would go through the expense of chroming parts to a high gloss just for the sake of looks. The parts might have looked like bare metal be it stainless steel or aluminum but not chrome plated. In any case I settled for what we had and let it go.
Fast forward a year or so… I’ve begun taking a look at the AMTronic kit and I was wondering if we absolutely HAD to use this high gloss coat on the chrome parts. So, I asked the factory about it this time to see if they could do a semi-gloss or flat finish on the chrome parts. They said “sure” and ran a few examples. I really like the results. The semi-gloss finish looks scale accurate. They look almost like the aged vintage sample we have on hand. The detail is all nice and crisp. The matte finish copy is also very intriguing. It really looks like brushed metal or aluminum at scale. I am very excited by the possibility of using this finish on the retro-futuristic AMTronic.
I passed the idea along to John and showed him the examples. He really liked how they looked. He agreed that the result was more scale accurate and showed detail very well, but he was concerned that if we included what looked like 30 or 40 year old chrome parts in our kits that some modelers might not appreciate it as much as we do. I felt that was a valid concern as well.
In the end we figured we’d show you guys and get your feedback on the idea. By no means would we want to use these finishes in every case but sometimes an aluminum wheel is more desirable than a polished chrome one. So, take a look at the photos and tell us what you think?
Round 2 Models: Product Preview
I gave a quick overview of our iHobby booth last time and touched on several Round 2 Models products that will make their way to workbenches in 2012. I’ll give a more in depth product preview of some of our early 2012 sci-fi and genre kits.
First we are offering up something we consistently get requests for- our Universal Dome Base. Though not a groundbreaking achievement, many have found it to be just what we intended, a nice clean method for displaying a model. It is suitable for pretty much any space ship or aircraft model. The dome is a perfect sphere section that can be painted as a planet if desired. The metal rod and ball joint will also be included. It should be available in January. If this one sells well, we’ll look at bringing out our larger version.
Next, a few Star Trek favorites are returning. From the old three piece Adversary Set, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and Ferengi Marauder return in their own mini ship set. We are adding widow decals for the Marauder that will also include clear orange engine parts. Though there aren’t much to them, once built, they make a couple sharp looking little models.
Also from the old Adversary set comes the Romulan Warbird in its own box. The kit includes a dome display base and new window decals. The engine parts will come injected in regular clear and glow-in-the-dark options. The buildup Jim Small did for us is very striking.
Those knuckleheads, the Three Stooges are coming back again. Why so soon, you ask? We are starting an initiative to bring some model products to market that give some decent results to more casual modelers that don’t have the time or skill to put all the work into them that most of our core consumers do. So this time, the Stooges will come prepainted in shades of gray. Facial detail like eyes etc. will have enough detail to give a nice look with no paint required. They will be great for beginners and just require some glue to hold them together.
These Round 2 Models products will kick off 2012 for us. We’ve got a few others in the works too. More on those as we get further along. Some exciting new projects are in the planning stages and we should be moving into development with them very soon.
Round 2 Models: 2011 iHobby Recap
Hi guys. It’s been too long (again). I wanted to take a few minutes to give you a 2011 iHobby recap. This was the national hobby industry show where companies of all kinds displayed their wares with everything form trains to remote controlled vehicles to models. We always have a big display of all of our hobby lines of 1:18 scale American Muscle die cast cars, Auto World slot cars and of course our Round 2 Models line.
I’m sure more details are available elsewhere, but I’ll give a real quick recap of our automotive products before delving more deeply into our sci-fi/genre stuff. Our display case was filled with a ton of great buildups and box proofs and mockups. On display were…
1:25 1966 Batmobiles of all three varieties, the snap, glue and deluxe versions were all on display. The snap and glue versions are available now. The deluxe version will be out by December.
’76 AMC Gremlin X is being brought back as the first in our line of Original Art Series where we are scanning original box art for our packaging.
Munster Coach and Drag-U-La individually sold kits. Each includes a cardboard backdrop. Drag-U-La is part of our Katch the Kat program that offers chase variant body colors.
The Meyers Manx buildup arrived bruised and beaten (thanks to a customs inspection) but John and a friend or two helped put it back together again. The kit is also part of the Katch the Kat program and also includes a cardboard backdrop.
1:16 Street Charger is being brought back for a limited run under our 1 Run of Fun program. After one production run of the kit, the tooling will be backdated to turn it back into the Petty Charger kit that modelers have been asking about for a while.
Chevy 100th Anniversary collector’s tins bring back the ’51 Chevy Fleetline and ’57 Chevy that will be struck from the Mueller-era Pro Shop version of the tool. The kit features an opening trunk. The kit includes detailing foil, engine wire and photo-etch parts.
The Dirty Donny Vantasy Chevy Van offers several decal mural options.
The Diamond Rio Tractor was on display continuing our line of popular big rig kits.
Buildups of the Dark Shadows Vampire Van and Looney Tunes Roadrunner & Coyote vehicle kits made an appearance along with the Chevy Caprice as well as our new tire sets.
Looking ahead to 2012, the Hot Curl and his pals will be back riding the waves. The AMT version of the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 will be coming back as will the Monkeemobile, Arnie Beswick’s Super Judge GTO, Superwagon and Vantom Ford Van. The AMTronic makes a comeback as well. It will come in reproduction packaging and include the original cardboard backdrop and clear green and crystal clear window options.
Outside of kits, one exciting product was Auto World’s new line of men’s apparel including classy button up shirts and vintage looking racing jackets. I’ll need to see what I can do to get one emblazoned with a Polar Lights logo. I think everyone that saw them wanted one. They will be available exclusively through autoworldstore.com.
Across the booth, our lineup of Polar Lights model kits was on display.
U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-C will be available in December. A printout of the battle damage decal sheet was on display as well.
2 piece Adversary Set will be offered with glow in the dark engine parts and window decals for the Ferengi Marauder. Like the cadet series model kits, these little ships will not include bases. This set will be out early in 2012.
The Klingon Battlecruiser with all of its revised parts was on display. The version of the kit in cardboard packaging will be out by Christmas.
The Yellow Submarine kit will be out in early 2012 in a tin package. Reproduction box and prebuilt versions will follow later in the year.
The Yellow Submarine figures and KISS figures will be available as prebuilt models in 2012.
A lunchbox tin collector’s edition of the 1:1000 scale Enterprise will be out in early 2012. The box graphics will be reminiscent of vintage Star trek lunchbox decoration.
A big hunk of gray resin had its unveiling. Most things look good. Some things need work. For more info sign up for our 1701 Club to get updates. We have around 350 spaces left to reserve your kit.
Romulan Warbird previously of the 3 piece Adversary Set gets its own release. New window decals and dome base will be added to the kit.
Deep Space 9 will be a late 2012 kit. It will be injected in clear plastic for lighting and also include window decals for those that don’t want to bother. We are looking into another extra add on for inclusion in the kit. More on that whenever our plan for it is finalized.
MPC Hulk and Spider-man kits will make their way back to modelers workbenches. Most people that saw them confessed to having never seen them before. They must have had very short releases back in the day. Though some parts seem wonky, they are nice sculpts overall. They will come injected in color with spots of prepainting. They are snap together kits so they will be great for kids.
Bigfoot is another snap together kit. He, along with the Strange Change Vampire and Strange Change Mummy model kits, will be part of our 1 Run of Fun program and these three kits were made here in the US. They arrived in our warehouse last week so look for them on store shelves soon.
Dark Shadows Barnabas is available now and The Werewolf will be available soon if he isn’t out already.
Psycho House will be another in our line up of pre-built models.
Strange Change Time Machine will be out in 2012.
Also on display was our Captain Action lineup. Or first release of was represented, as was a preview of our second release, Thor and Loki.
Our iHobby display of Polar Lights model kits might not have offered many surprises but check us out at Wonderfest where we hope to have several new projects to announce.
Prepping for then working the booth at iHobby is always a lot of work. I’m still dragging a few days later. But, it is always good to get a chance to talk to modelers and get a sense of their excitement for the product. That is reward in itself.
Round 2 Model Kits: DO… YOU… WANT… TO…PLAY… A… GAME…?
This may not turn into “Global Thermal Nuclear War” (well at least I hope it doesn’t), but I always like to post about things I’m kind of jazzed about when I’m working on Round 2 model kits. Usually when there is a lull in posts, it is because I’m busy working on a package or instruction sheet. Both are major time hogs but generally aren’t much to talk about. So when inspiration hits, I always try to write something out real quick.
Anyways, I’ve been working on some decals this week that have been pretty fun. Rather than come right out with it, I figured I’d make a game out of it. (Michael, our new creative director LOVES games. I hope he is proud of me.) So, the pic shows what I’ve been up to. I’ll give you twenty guesses as to what it is. Whoever correctly guesses first is the winner. I’ll send the winner a proof of the decal sheet when it arrives.
UPDATE: OUR WINNER… CHIANGKAISHECKY
I knew it wouldn’t take long but I figured I would have to drop at least one hint. We are bringing the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-C back out by the end of the year and it will feature a nice size decal sheet featuring ALL NEW battle damage decals based on the original filming model. When I first started figuring out how much I would be able to include, I discovered that the ship was pockmarked with relatively small spots of damage. Once I had a map established, I discovered that if I concentrated on the hull opening itself but not include the black burn marks, I would be able to include every spot I could detect in the reference I had on hand. I figured most modelers could handle the little bit of freehand airbrushing that would be needed to complete the look. Even without the additional airbrushing, they look pretty good on their own. I’m showing one of the decals below along with the reference shot and how it will look with a little airbrushing.
Besides revised Enterprise-C registry markings, U.S.S. Yamaguchi registries will also be included. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I will have room on the sheet for the U.S.S. Excalibur registries. The sheet size is determined by the bottom of the box and it looks like it will be pretty well packed. We will have a product page up our website soon.
Round 2 Models: Get ‘em While They Are Hot!
Sorry for the long gap between posts but it has been a busy month here at Round 2 Models. We have been super busy wrapping up our new model kit catalog and our national sales meeting. With all that behind us, it is back to work.
One thing dawned on me while working on the catalog… Well, two things actually.
1) The Bigfoot and Strange Change Mummy and Vampire are in production as I type and they are being manufactured here in the US. With a couple hiccups overcome, I hope to see pre-production samples soon. We hope to have the kits released by the end of October. That leads me to…
2) We are starting a new initiative that we are calling “1 RUN OF FUN”. Basically, what we have found is that there are certain kits in our tooling banks that we get requests for that are too cool not to bring back out, but they won’t necessarily appeal to everyone. So we will be running the kits once and that is it! In the case of popular kits, we might do several runs as our inventory gets low and sales on a kit continue steadily. We have seen some cases where we soon find out that after the first batch, they will never be run a second time. With history on our side, we can predict which kits will likely fall into this category. In a few cases, there are kits that we might run because we want to backdate the tooling to an earlier version so we’ll first run it one last time in its current condition for anyone looking for a later version. Then, we’ll rework the tooling to its original condition with no hope of changing it again. So, from now on whenever you see a 1 RUN OF FUN sticker on one of our kits that means “get ‘em while they are hot” or you might miss out. The Strange Change Mummy and Vampire and Bigfoot are our first kits released under this program.
