I did a fun side gig a while back to build these three nerf blasters, mostly to battle test v8 but also because making toys stuff is fun and the designer who hired me is a good friend I’ve know since college.
The parts came out great and made it to the shelves with very few discernible changes, which is a rarity in the toy world. Usually stuff gets beat up pretty bad in the engineering and tooling process and loses all it’s design nuance, but these fared quite well.
models and the production parts I just found last weekend.
I knew I’ve seen these somewhere before they sell them at the American store here in Sweden called EKO, really cool i will have to check them out next time I visit, great models!
I did work at kenner years ago before they were purchased by hasbro- Nerf was owned by kenner at the time, and everyone was nerf armed to the teeth… daily nerf battles would erupt and delightful chaos would ensue.
years later I worked at Toy biz (marvel’s toy company) and I built a prototype nerf style gun that looked like a bazooka and launched footballs.
testing it on one of the employees kids, it knocked him off his feet…the project was scraped as too dangerous even though the kid actually thought it was amazing and wanted to keep the prototype.
This was the type of stuff that made the toy business a super fun place to be as a designer.
Hasbro did all the final engineering and mold design.
I’m an art school nerd…I do mostly concept stuff and then hand it off to the adults to make production the parts from my concept models.
I have done bazzillions of insanely detailed molds for a miniatures company (https://www.para-bellum.com/) but it was not fun and I try to avoid doing it unless the money is really good. (it was for a while, then it wasn’t, so then it wasn’t fun or lucrative, so I quit)
That project was what led to the creation of the ribbon offset tool which is amazing for doing parting line offsets for the clamping surface of a mold.
@theoutside Looks like we’re in the same boat! I also come from an art school background and I’m a nerd, haha. I started making molds a few years ago, in addition to 3D models. I completely understand you: I’ve also worked at several companies that paid very little. They demand duties but never acknowledge the rights that workers deserve. I really understand you very well.
An example of a mold made in Rhino (with some parts like bolts, screws, and springs being finished by hand).
Very interesting, makes me want to switch career paths instead of manufacturing for military defense contractors I could do miniature military vehicles instead
The toy industry seems saturated to me, just like the footwear sector I work in. There are too many competitors, new brands pop up like mushrooms, and production costs in Europe are too high compared to third-world countries. At the same time, people’s purchasing power keeps decreasing due to inflation.
Moreover, in my case, working from Europe, every time politicians decide to impose sanctions on countries like Russia or China, these end up affecting us Europeans the most, blocking the market. Sanctions almost always weigh on the middle class, while the rich remain unaffected, living in their own separate reality. The crisis, however, is evident in all industrial sectors. Looking at history, it seems that the only way to revive the economy is through wars: mobilizing industries to produce weapons, creating an endless cycle of money and destruction.
Obviously, I hope there are more toy tanks than real ones, but it seems that the European leadership thinks it can have a say against Russia or China. However, this is a historical mistake that many peoples have made throughout human history. It seems no one ever learns the lesson.
the West always sins with pride
caught these in a quick shot in the latest netflix spy series called Black Doves (decent show actually IMO) - always fun to see stuff I worked on in the wild…
