#assemblyrequired — Public Fediverse posts

I'm especially proud of the rock creek monster keshi that we've produced because it's my wife's first digital sculpt, and was something of a last minute addition to our #assemblyRequired loadout.

We have intended on making this figure for a while, but hadn't sculpted it yet, and frankly didn't think we'd have the time to.

And then she sat down and sculpted it, and the next day we made some molds and produced the toys. From finishing the sculpt to holding our first physical copy was 36 hours tops, and from initial concept to first sale was about 5 days.

That's an incredible turnaround, and something that I'm really proud of us for accomplishing.

We participated in Assembly Required, the Designer Art Toy Show in Asheville NC this past weekend. It was a blast, and I wanted to take a few minutes to showcase some of the art and artistry on display in the independent toymaking community.

#assemblyRequired #asheville #artToy #designerToy #asheville

A small haul post from #AssemblyRequired day one. We'll be there all day tomorrow.

Hey!

I'm at the designer art toy show in Asheville! I'll be here all day tomorrow and Sunday.

I have Sky Pirates, I have monsters, I have hand made jointed action figures, I have keshi, I have stickers, I have gameboy games, I have comic books, and I have magazines.

We'll sing the songs that remind us of the good times, and the songs that remind us of the bad times.

Learn more https://assembly-required.net/about-us/ or just come see us at Battery Park Hall.

#assemblyRequired #assemblyrequiredasheville #asheville #designertoy #arttoy #toyshow

These are the homies.

#assemblyRequired #assemblyRequiredAsheville #Asheville

Alright, we're on the road towards #Asheville for #assemblyRequired

Well, no. I'm walking to the car. And then we'll be on the road toward the coffee shop, which is in the opposite direction.

But everything is in the car and we will be presently.

Alright, I think this is my last Assembly Required post for today.

Announcing Filibus, The Mysterious Air Pirate.

Filibus is a hand made action figure, based on the 1915 film Filibus. They are a genderfluid airship captain, and the star of my serial magazine The Mysterious Air Pirates.

These are the first batch of our Deluxe Full-color edition figures. They're hand painted.

Future editions will probably involve paint masks, but I didn't have time to do it fast so I had to take the time to do it slow.

There are currently 5 of this Deluxe Edition Filibus Action Figure, along with about two dozen of a show exclusive variant. They will be available this weekend at Assembly Required in Asheville, NC.

After Assembly Required, a second hand painted batch will be available for fedifolk sometime in Feb, and another different edition will be available in March.

#AssemblyRequiredAsheville
#AssemblyRequired #asheville
#SkyPirates #skypirate #SkiesOfTomorrow #revolutionaryJoy #mountaintowntoys

Anyway, as I said in my #shamelessSelfPromotion thread a few days ago, this is how we make our living now. Both my wife and I are full time artists, toy makers, and producers of media.

If you want to support our work, boost some of the posts I've made about #AssemblyRequired or shoot me a message if you want to reserve some of these toys.

When it comes to artistic endeavors, I am forever jealous and proud of my wife.

She decided to learn 3D modelling last week.

Yesterday, she produced her first original injection molded toy.

Meet The Creature from Big Rock Creek.

He's inspired by Kappa, water spirits or monsters from Japanese folklore, and from the almost certainly facetious but persistently reported sightings of a creature emerging from one of the waterways near town.

He'll be available for sale for the first time this weekend at Assembly Required in Asheville, NC.

#AssemblyRequired #AssemblyRequiredAsheville #ashevill #kappa #yokai

Alright! Here's the finished cardbacks for the limited deluxe edition of our new Sky Pirate action figures.

The figure in the bubble is a partially painted test-shot, with some issues that will get resolved tomorrow.

This will be a limited run, with a canvas cardback and a reseelable bubble. They'll be hand numbered, and first come first served at #AssemblyRequired \\ #AssemblyRequiredAsheville this weekend.

There will be another limited run in an alternate colorway towards the end of Feb, followed by the less limited run in March.

Let me know if you want to get on the list.

#SkyPirates #SkyPirate #revolutionaryJoy

We do an annual hand made toy show in #Asheville called #assemblyrequired

This year #assemblyRequiredAshville is FEB 7TH and 8TH at battery park hall on Haywood street. Tickets are $10 and that gets you in both days.

This will be my fifth year presenting at this show.

It is an incredible experience in a great town with a wonderful group of artists and absolutely worth ten bucks.

The final production version of Filibus should be out shortly after #assemblyRequired, I hope. We'll have lots of other things coming down the pipeline over the next few months.

We're still shipping Soledad, and we'll have some convention exclusive limited-edition Filibus Sky Pirate action figures in con exclusive colorways at #assemblyrequired the first weekend in February.

This is what prep for #assemblyRequired #Asheville looks like!

How Donald Trump is Selling America's Future to Billionaires
#AssemblyRequired w/ #StaceyAbrams
#US #Politics #Economics #Project2025 #MAGA #Republicans #Trump #TrumpRegime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqb0cFy5nqs

In early January I was talking about a theoretical max speed for our injection molding machine of one part every "2 minutes or so"

see https://retro.social/@ajroach42/113783936233043451 or https://retro.social/@ajroach42/113827614810081603

This is a theoretical maximum that assumes peak efficiency, no problems, and 10+ molds in circulation. It also doesn't really account for the actual amount of time it takes to cycle a mold (remove the old part, clean the mold if it needs it, reinsert and reinject the mold.)

It was entirely theoretical though, because we've never actually had 10 molds in circulation, and while our actual peak throughput could absolutely reach 1 part every 2 minutes, our average throughout was one part every 10 minutes or so, due to interruptions, dicking with the molds, cleaning the parts, etc.

The most we did in a single day leading up to #assemblyRequired was about 50 parts.

Armed with this knowledge, I set out to bootleg some art toys.

At #assemblyRequired, I spent the weekend demoing our 3D scanning rig, showing off our molds, and demonstrating our PE toys.

We lined up a couple of toymaking contracts! And we got permission to bootleg a bunch of toys too!

I put together a little web page about our efforts.

https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/custom-counterfeits/

It's #assemblyRequired day!
Come see us at battery park hall in Asheville NC.

I have expedition sasquatch cartridges and floppy discs. I have sky pirates. My wife has ceramics. And 40 artists more talented than I am are also here.

At some point tomorrow, I'll figure out how to use it well enough to get scans of a few pieces.

Ideally, we'll be able to get them molded, made in to molds, sliced, and maybe even injected in LDPE before I have to drive to Asheville for #assemblyRequired.

That could be really useful.

I had intended one of the pieces I molded to be a little bigfoot toy, but I left that at my friends house where I had dinner.

ALRIGHT!

HERE WE GO!

We're making action figures! and we're mostly using recycled plastics!

Here's the first release candidate of a #Skypirate action figure for our #Skypirates Playset which we're building for #assemblyRequired, which is Feb 1st and 2nd (leaving in 5 days!!.)

I'm working on some posters for our #skypirates for #assemblyRequired

Here are some posters, tell me what you think!

The first is inspired by futurist art, because it was the futurist anarchists that everyone assumed would take control of the air in the 1910s (They didn't, WWI happened and the futurists mostly became fascists, and they mostly sucked shit, but some of their art style was interesting and the Russian constructivists and Russian Futurists took up their style and made it in to something much cooler, and that's where I'm drawing this inspiration.)

The second is Fred the Baker as a sky pirate.

For #assemblyrequired, my wife made a ceramic BattleCat.

@gbevin Are you going to swing through #assemblyRequired next month?

@jgeorge neat! My mom was out in Cleveland before she passed. That's how I ended up in ellijay.

I'm Swamped until after #assemblyrequired but I'd love to get together after that and talk old computers, lasers, and injection molding.

Toy making is going so well that I'm back to trying to figure out if I can have another video game done, if not before #assemblyrequired then at least before #toylanta.

I want to build something that would feel at home on MS-DOS. If it'll actually run on DOS even better.

My principle inspiration is Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

So now I'm looking at game creation tools for MS-DOS.

I was working through some ideas about the possibilities of building a simple DIY game console in time for #assemblyRequired in another thread (https://retro.social/@ajroach42/113806601692106740 )

I was trying to come up with a way to do it for under $15, but none exists off the shelf. It is absolutely possible for me to write some software that will enable me to turn a $5 microcontroller a $4 SD card in to the console that I want.

But, as I talked through it, I realized that for an extra $5-10 I could do something much cooler.

This is a #CommunityEntertainmentSystem thread.

I have looked at a Lot of hardware options for the Community Entertainment Center, but I think the best option is the Radxa Rock 2f.

It's $20.

It's an SBC in the style of the pi model a, with onboard wifi and bluetooth 16GB EMMC and two USB A ports.

I can't get them in time for #assemblyRequired probably, and even if I could I don't have the software for them ready.

But until this moment I forgot that I had already made this decision.

Okay. Time is running short, but I have a few more projects I'd like to finish before #assemblyRequired and I'm turning to the fediverse for advice about one of them.

(This is a thread)

@requiem Yeah!

We shred old milk jugs and dye them with mica.

Sometimes we also use perler beads, because I need a specific color. that we don't have dye for and I can find them locally.

I've been posting about it under the #assemblyRequired tag (that's the name of the hand made toy show we're going to in threeish weeks.)

I might have a photo of our injection molder around somewhere..