Not really a toy…
I have an idea for a series of little rubber animals that would be attached to keyrings that I could sell. My thought is that I would draw pictures and maybe design little clay figures as models. I’m looking for a manufacturer (in Asia, I am guessing?) who could use my design ideas to create this product in rubber (or some similar substance) and produce them for me at a wholesale rate. Any ideas re. how I might go about investigating this process?
I can’t help you with a manufacturer, but it sounds like the kind of thing you could do at home if you can’t find one. There are tutorials and products out there for making your own miniatures using two part rubber moulds and resin casts, and I wouldn’t expect it to be difficult to modify those instructions to make what is effectively a three part mould: the two rubber moulds and the rubber cast.
My wife was a toy reviewer for a while, and went to the International Toy Fair held each January in New York. Toys are a big business. I would expect that a major manufacturer in China would want an order of 100,000 parts or so in order to justify the setup time. That is not an approach you want to take.
Assuming you don’t want to try to sell your idea to an existing toymaker (which is probably a good idea) the way to go about it is to find a local manufacturer who can do small production runs, and then try to get some local stores of the type you think might sell your product to take some on consignment. Yes, the local manufacturer will be more expensive, but for small runs it won’t matter. I assume you know the costs for your toy and a reasonable price point?
Even better, the Toy Industry Association has a web page just for toy designers. You aren’t the first person with this idea, by a long shot.
My dad owns a toy business. You don’t just ‘have an idea’ and go test it out. It’s expensive to make new molds…I’d try writing a Hallmark card instead. 
I wish my dad had owned a toy business…
Echoing others who say that is an expensive process.
As Voyager says, you don’t want to try to use an Asian factory, but not only because they will require a huge quantity but you will not likely have the expertise to deal directly with them.
Unfortunately, the process of designing new products isn’t cheap. Expect a lot of work ahead of you.
Cool. Ever been to Toy Fair?
The bottom line here is that the main problem for a new toy is not making the toy, but selling the toy. A common thread for a number of successful toys and games is their placement in retail outlets and high sales. That leads to reorders and gives you some evidence when you approach other stores. It is hard to convince a store to allocate valuable shelf space for an untried product - especially with no licensing tie-in.
That depends on the material you’re using. Steel moulds for plastics are expensive, but rubber moulds of the sort often used for resin or metal casting are a hell of a lot cheaper.
If you can actually make the figures, you could mold some yourself with simple materials available from arts&crafts stores. You can’t efficiently mold just anything though. The shape has to be simple enough to form and remove from a single mold or split mold. That problem remains whether you do it yourself or the factory does it. In addition molded items are all one color. Different colored features like eyes have to be added to the mold in a seperate step, or painted on later. You might be better off finding existing figures and painting or decorating them to make prototypes.
Your problem is selling these, either individually or en masse to a toy company. In either case, your line of figures has to have unique qualities that seperate it from all the other key chains out there. It also has to be protectable through copyright or patent, otherwise the manufacturers and distributers don’t need you as a partner, and could just steal your idea if they see you successfully selling it yourself.
If you do want to partner up with a company, you need more than drawings. Make a set of figures one way or another. Come up with some kind of theme for the product and a packaging idea. You don’t have to go too far with that, a company may rework the look and feel, but they will make decisions based on what they can see. Then, you need to get your copyright and patent work done. You can do that yourself, but you should contact a lawyer before approaching an outside company.
My father-in-law was a toy company executive. He had a lot of prototypes of toys developed by independent inventors. I don’t think any of them caught on. I also have some contacts at a local novelty company. They buy novelty key chains and similar items in bulk from China at a price that barely covers the shipping costs, and they resell them for only slightly more. A single line of keychains could hardly be considered a viable product line on it’s own.
I done know where the enchanted land is, but anyone can attend the Toy Fair held in NYC every year in February. This is when the toy manufacturers make their decisions for the products they will concentrate on for the Christmas season. It’s a good place to learn about the process of developing, manufacturing, marketing, and distributing toys.
Patents are expensive and take forever, and just from the OP I’d have a hard time seeing novelty, so having a patent granted is far from certain. Copyrighting the images is a lot cheaper and faster, and more likely to stand up. If these things are going to be sold under some brand name, trademarking that would be useful.
I doubt you’d even need a lawyer for a copyright, but if one was involved anyhow it wouldn’t hurt.
Voyager - Yeah you’re right. I was just referring to the idea of protecting the idea in general. And the importance of a lawyer is for dealing with the company. I’m sure copyright of images would be sufficient to prevent direct duplication of the designs, which is all that design patents protect anyway.
JillGat - I should have added before that you can do more than just make the key chain figures. Create a storyline around the figures, give them unique, themed names. Make a comic book about them, T-shirts, stickers, magnets, etc. That’s the type of material marketers can work with.
Jillgat, I work for a company that designs and makes rubber dog toys. I can certainly look at your design and answer any questions. I can provide a NDA too.
My email or pm is in my profile if you like.
the surb
<hijack> MY dad worked for a company that made paper products…including cardboard/corrugated fiberboard boxes. We had all the boxes that we ever wanted, big ones, little ones, waxed ones for sliding down a hill…I tell you, cardboard/corrugated fiberboard boxes are just about the perfect toy. </hijack>
I am an engineer who designs and prototypes inventions… toys, automation parts etc. The solution to your problem is very easy. I have done this before for people. A die costs thousands and making your own mold is too messy unless you an artist of sorts. Truley what manufacturers want to see is an actual working prototyp that looks feels and functions like the real toy. This brings up the interest a lot. The way to do this is simply make a drawing or rendering of your idea with rough dimensions such as heights width etc. Explain what its made out of and all the colors should be displayed in your drawing. These drawings will not be seen by a manufacturer so you can suck at drawing but give a general idea of what you want it to look like. Then an engineer will make a 3d model of the toy with all the colors etc. This is what I do for a living. Its the cheapest answer. I then would creat a rendering of the model and submit that to the inventor until he or she is happy with the design and then using a 3d printer I would quote the price per part. something that small would just be a few dollars. The 3d toy is then shipped to you and it will look feel and function exactly like it does in production. The only limitations is size. Pretty much if it will fit in a shoe box then I can do it. I also can help and manufacture packaging. Having everything together for the toy manufacturers will help them jump on your wagon. The printer I use is an Objet. The same 3d printer used to design the Iron Man 2 suites for the movie. Just so you know a little about it.
Hit me up for some samples if you want. You dont want to outsource to China and you definatly dont want to try and make a bunch of tiny molds and do things that way so your painting etc. The objet color impregnantes the material
email me if you need anything
email me if you need anything
oh yeah. about the patents, You can easily have a N.D.A for filled out and signed before presenting your ideas. Every manufacturer and big toy business that accepts outside inventions will fill one out. This protects you from them taking your idea even without a patent. They some times offer to purchase the idea with you ever getting a patent. This is the best option because most toy ideas are just that… ideas… fill out a for. or ask for one thats all you need for legalities. Unless you invention is something like a product that will change modern day life… like the fingernail clipper or something. lol