Tim Mee Toy Hercules AC-130 Plastic Army Men Playset

Final Hour Livestream with Q&A
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 05:13:49 AM

There's just a couple of hours left for the BMC Toys Plastic Army Women crowdfunding and it has been an amazing experience!

I'm going to be Livestreaming on Facebook for the final hour. You can ask me questions and I'll do my best to answer in real time, or I'll just talk about the project if there's no questions. The livestream should start at 11:00 pm Eastern on the BMC Toys Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bmctoys

We reached Stretch Goal #8 a couple of hours ago, so now every backer who pledged $25 or more is getting a Rosie the Riveter plastic figure:

I hadn't planned much beyond this but came up with another pretty cool stretch goal for the final hours:

I like this reward because it's a nice little something extra for everyone, but if we don't get there it's not a big let down. I really tried to keep the stretch goals on point with the mission to make a great set of women toy soldiers for kids to play with and adults to enjoy, so I'm really happy with where this has finished up today.

I'll see you on the Livestream!

Tanks' again for all your help,

Jeff at BMC Toys

Doggone, it's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 10:35:09 PM

It's here, the less than 24 hours left in the Kickstarter for the world's first ever full set of Women Toy Soldiers in the style of Classic Little Green Army Men. My goals for this campaign were to get enough pre-orders in place to have a solid initial production run and maybe expand the set a little. I think it's safe to say that the mission and secondary objective have been accomplished.  With your help I've expanded the set from 6 different figures to 14 plus a stretcher accessory. That's a highly respectable number of different figures as most sets of Plastic Army Men have 6 to 12 different figures in the plastic injection mold. I had always envisioned a set of 12 Plastic Army Women, and being able to accomplish that is incredibly gratifying. The Medical Team stretch goal we just reached is icing on the cake. The cherry on top would be the final stretch goal to add a Military Working Dog and Handler to the set, and we're half way there.  I was so excited about it tonight I booked the sculptor to create the Dog and Handler figures, and added a new reward for the resin prototypes "MWD: Dog & Handler Prototype Figures" for $180. I've also added bonus items to the "General" & "Lt. Colonel" rewards to maybe help us reach that final milestone.

Just a quick reminder, if you'd like more than one Reward just add the amounts of the additional reward (or rewards) you want to  your pledge. For some reason Kickstarter doesn't have a multiple reward  option, so I'll be working with Backerkit after the Campaign to make sure everyone gets exactly the rewards they want. You can also make changes to your pledge or reward selection right up until the campaign ends. 

If you know anyone that might like this project, today is the last day to share it with them so they can pre-order or set, or even just to say they like the idea. I will open up pre-orders for the packs of Plastic Army Women some time in 2020, but they will be at the regular retail price and the resin prototypes won't be available at all after the campaign ends.  

An old friend recently told me I was talking about this project all the way back in 2005, and another supporter emailed me this morning that she wanted a set of women soldiers over 60 years ago. It's not too often you get to help fulfill a Christmas wish from 6 decades ago, so thank you for supporting this long overdue project. I think we can all feel a little bit like Santa Clause today. 

Tanks' a million,

Jeff at BMC Toys

ps Here's some more sculpture photos from their recent trip to Scranton:

EXCEPTIONAL!
over 4 years ago – Sun, Dec 15, 2019 at 07:06:49 PM

Just a couple of days left for the campaign and you have helped unlock Stretch Goal #6! Now all packs and buckets of Plastic Army Women will have Nurse figure and Corpsmen carrying a Stretcher accessory. The medical team is a classic grouping from vintage Plastic Army Men that will help our wounded soldier after the Combat Medic has stabilized her.  One reason this stretch goal was higher than previous goals is that it will likely require a second plastic injection mold be made. That's right, this little project has outgrown the mold.  The sculptor has started work on the Corpsman and Litter (stretcher) : 

Based on some requests and what seems popular I've done a little Resin Prototype Reward reshuffling to make some more single figures available. If there's something in particular you want, let me know within the next day and I'll try to make it happen.  

In case you missed it here's the special Rosie the Riveter figure our sculptor is making to help out the campaign:

At this time she's only planned as a resin figure, but I think she'd make a great toy figure someday, maybe even part of a "We Can Do It" figure set of women workers. There were a few folks that were unhappy with the Rosie Reward amount of $100. I totally understand, but there is a good reason for it. One of the  things early supporters of the Plastic Army Women Project told me was that the women toy soldier figures should cost the same as other similar packs of soldiers (no pink tax). I wanted to honor that and keep the toy versions at the same price as other BMC Toys soldier sets, but it also made it tough to cover any of the development costs, even more so when I further discounted the multi-pack rewards for the Kickstarter. The resin prototype figures really helped fill in that gap, and are the reason I'm able to expand the number of figure poses with stretch goals, otherwise the expanded figures would have been beyond my resources. BMC Toys has been around for a long time, but this is the first original  figure set I've produced and the first new figure set from BMC Toys in a few years. 

So what's next? Well, I guess we're approaching the next milestone of 400% of the original funding goal, which I'm pretty confident we'll reach. The next stretch goal to add a K9 team of Dog and Handler is still pretty far off, so I don't know if we'll get there. The last couple days of a campaign can get wild, so we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.  No matter what happens, it's been a great experience and has really solidified my confidence that there are enough folks that want a set of Plastic Army Women to make 'em. I'm already thinking about what a set of Naval and Air Support Plastic Army Women might look like! 

What happens after the campaign ends? Within the next few days Kickstarter will collect all the pledges. After that I've enlisted the the help of Backerkit to help me make sure everyone gets the rewards they want. Backerkit is a crowdfunding service I've had experience as a Kickstarter Backer so I felt they would be a big help. Backerkit is where you'll let me know your color preference or if you pledged for multiple rewards. It's also where you'll be able to get extras like the Plastic Army Women Buttons, extra packs of figures, and few more things I have in mind but couldn't get ready in time for the campaign (like the WAC boxed playset I've mentioned--there's just no way I'll finalize all those details by Tuesday).

I'm really grateful for all the supporters that have helped with the project. If you know anyone who might like this project, now is a great time to shoot them a link. I've set up PlasticArmyWomen.com to go right to the Kickstarter.

Let the countdown begin!

Jeff at BMC Toys

ps

I'll leave you with some new photos from a few of the of sculpts recent trip to Scranton:

We Can Do It!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 11:27:21 PM

The BMC Toys Plastic Army Women crowdfunding campaign has passed $41K with 6 days to go. We just might reach that next stretch goal to add the medical team. I don't know if we'll get to the K9 and Handler reward, but you never know---I can't wait to see how it all plays out!

A while back I mentioned that our sculptor wanted to create a special figure for the campaign. I liked his idea, but wasn't certain it would fit into the Plastic Army Women project. I mentioned it at the Kitchen table and was immediately overruled. This figure won't be part of the Plastic Army Women figure set, but I'm adding our Rosie the Riveter as a Kickstarter Exclusive cast resin figure reward. Here's the in-progress sculpt:

When complete, Rosie will stand on a base with a rivet gun and "We Can Do It!" slogan. She'll also be a little larger scale than the Plastic Army Women (about 1:30 instead of 1:32). We're planning on making these resin figures in 6 colors: OD Green, Tan, Pink, Red, Blue and Off-White. 

If you want to add a Rosie resin figure to your reward, just add the $100 amount to your pledge and you'll be able to select your color after the campaign. 

Speaking of the campaign, our pledge total is getting up there pretty good, so you may be wondering where all that sweet cash will go. Most of it will go to production and fulfillment of your rewards. A little will go for the Kickstarter fees, and the rest should help out with some of the stretch goal sculpture expenses. I don't think there will be anything left after all that, so the plastic injection tooling will come out of my equipment budget and will probably take a couple of years to break even. 

We're in the home stretch, great job everyone!

Jeff at BMC Toys

BUCKET BRIGADE!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 12:36:52 AM

I've just released the 2 Bucket Rewards. Both Tan vs. Green Buckets are 86 pieces and include figures, vehicles and some accessories. One Bucket has a Mix of Men and Women Soldiers and the other is all Plastic Army Women:

If you want more than one reward just add the amount of the additional reward to your pledge. I don't know why Kickstarter doesn't have this functionality built in, but we'll be using Backerkit to make sure everyone gets all their goodies after the campaign. 

Tanks' for your support!

Jeff at BMC Toys