The World According to Tom

Here’s my history with Testors and the situation as I understand it I think it’s an instructive story from several perspectives.

A couple of years ago Mike Butterworth from Testors contacted me about making 54mm and gaming figures for George R. R. Martin’s ‘Ice and Fire’ series of books. He said it was to be a large project, wanted to buy at least half my time and would pay the going rate for toy work. To be exact when I speak of Testors below my only contact with that organization until recently was through Mike Butterworth.

I was unfamiliar with the books but my wife had read them and said they were good and the characters were basically middle ages costume with fantasy elements. I subsequently listened to them all on tape and agreed with Carin’s assessment, a good read by any standard and outstanding in the fantasy genre. The best part from the view of making larger sculpture was the very strong characters.

From this point my main problem was trying to understand what, exactly I was supposed to make. This is a very common situation. I have worked for companies large and small for over thirty years and the main difficulty I have is always figuring out what the customer actually wants. In the best case, as for example most of the work I’ve done for Hasbro, you are told very specifically what to make and given materials enough to get a clear idea of a project which is sculpturally feasible. Another acceptable situation is where you are given little guidance but the customer relies on your judgment and is content with whatever you make. In the latter case I still try to figure out what they want but I’m generally successful and it’s an interesting problem.

Difficulties occur when the customer doesn’t know what they want and is uncommunicative, wants a contradiction or something which can’t be produced in sculpture, changes their mind or has an organization afflicted with the thumbprint syndrome. The thumbprint syndrome is when managers must approve work and demand changes (their thumbprint) for no other reason than they must be seen to have had some input to justify their salary.

So with Testors I set about trying to grasp exactly what they wanted. The first thing I checked was who and how the figures would be approved, since this turned out to be George Martin I opened a channel of communication. He turned out to be almost too easy to work with, my only difficulty being he was so agreeable it was hard to read his stylistic preferences. He wanted 54mm figures of his characters to be a sort of modernized version of his collection of classic toy knights.

That was the easy part, figuring out what Testor’s wanted was the trouble.

After being asked to reserve a huge block of time I got no order. I was sent some useless scrap (working instructions, models, artwork et.) with no parameters but not given any work order. I was required to invest an absurd amount of time trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Finally I decided it would be less trouble just to make something in the hope that with an actual model to look at Testors would come to some sort of conclusion, I was often called on to make objects for Hasbro just for the executives to pass around at meetings to help them make up their minds, though of course these were ordered by Hasbro.

So I made the figure of Jon Snow and Ghost. The design being a mix of ideas to give an example of different options. Everyone seemed to like it but it didn’t help to resolve anything. Then I got a call to hurry up and make as many 1/48 gaming figures as I could and have 100 samples of them for Gencon in two months. I worked around the clock ( I had my own work for Gencon as well) to make ten figures and cast the samples. My understanding was, there was to be a demo of a skirmish game, but that didn’t happen.

There followed more months of dithering and confusion I made some studies of heads for characters, a horse and other bits (without direction from Testors) in the expectation of these giving me a useful jump when things finally got going.

Then it was decided to start making 54mm figures in kit form as dioramas and individual figures in metal starting at the beginning of the story and working forward. Robert and Reahgar at Ruby Ford is the most appropriate early scene so I made a somewhat compromised diorama (because of the required dual use). I also made the master sets because Testors were unsure at the time who would do the manufacturing.

Then I didn’t get paid for four months, during which time they changed their mind and decided to sell the ‘Ruby Ford’ as a finished pewter diorama, a purpose for which the design was unsuited.

I was finally paid for ‘Ruby Ford’ and told to send on the ‘Jon Snow and Ghost’ study I had done earlier.

Then I wasn’t paid for that for three months… but in the mean time, told to make more 54mm figures (a foot version of Ser Loras at the Hand’s Tourney) and some more 1/48 Night Watch, (halfway through which I was told to switch emphasis from fighters to non-combatants). I made five 1/48’s and half finished Ser Loras and stopped when payment for the Jon Snow and Ghost diorama hadn’t come after 60 days.

Finally I was paid for Jon Snow and Ghost and asked to hurry up and modify the Ruby Ford to make it easier for it to be soldered together (such changes would help some but not solve the fundamental problem of it not being designed for the use). Since the changes were not any fault of mine I required to be paid and given the recent difficulties I told them I expected a purchase order or some other assurance payment would happen in a reasonable time. No such order has been forthcoming and so there it lies.

Since then Mike Butterworth has left Testors and I have been contacted by a consultant retained by the company who seems knowledgeable and efficient (though I still haven’t gotten an order to rework ‘Ruby Ford’). A few days ago I was asked to forward the original ten 1/48 figures to Valiant and despite the situation as regards unpaid outstanding work I did.

My sympathies to all those frustrated by dealings with Testors, I don’t know who’s to blame for the situation but I think it’s clearly not me and as far as I can see it’s not George.

Here’s another 1/48 French and Indian War Figure, an American ranger. With a bit of luck I may be able to do some kind of limited release of these later this month.

This entry was posted by Tom Meier on Monday, January 8. 2007 at 14:04. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog.