A Half Year in Review @RM - 170611

[Rubicon Models]

A Half Year in Review @RM

It is three more weeks before Q2 new releases getting shipped.  Box arts, waterslide decals, and the assembly instruction sheets are all done and scheduled to get printed.  All the moulds (8 in total for this batch of new releases) are officially signed off and ready for their first production run.

It has been a long wait for many of our customers; the motorcycle project is a year old!  We had spent over a year to setup our digital sculpting workstations, and to refine and improve our sculpting skills – not an easy task if you already have lots of projects on hand.  The bottleneck had always been mould making; making figure moulds need a very different approach than doing vehicles, and take more time to finish.

During the first half year of 2017, we had been struggling to get all projects up-to-date; trying to wrap up all outstanding ones so that we can start afresh with new projects.  Here is a review of what we have done so far…

- Completed about 50% of all our 2016 projects.
- The remaining 50% should be all done by Christmas this year.
- Set a deadline of 9 months (from start to finish) for all new projects.
- Creation of digital libraries for common multi-variant tanks, such as the M4 Sherman, Panzer III, and Panzer IV will continue.
- Our digital sculpting team had doubled its size to handle our current and new workload.
- Our vehicle design team is also expanding to include more talents to handle new projects.

Plans for the Rest of the Year

- At least two new product ranges in 1/56 (28mm) scale before Christmas.
- With the purchase of several Neucraft resin kits in May, we are looking into producing more resin products to complement our existing plastic range.
- We are going to phase out some earlier item codes and replace them with new designs.  This will include the M4 Sherman and the Panzer IV.  The Panzer III will be next on the list!
- Some existing item codes sell far better than expectation, and we are already scheduling new production runs for them.  We might remaster some parts to further improve the overall quality of our products.
- Continue creation of figure templates and digital libraries for various WW2 countries.  We will not do any plastic miniature box sets until we had fully mastered the art of multi-part figure design.
- Prioritise our Forum Wish List and incorporated some of the vehicles into our current production list.

Plans for Next Year

- Too far off to start a list, but we are expecting a physical location in Europe, much like what we did for North America last year, to handle our sales and marketing activities.
- Hint Hint - Rubicon Models will not bound ourselves to simply focusing on 1/56 scale or WW2.  We are a design studio and will do what we are best at - Create & Design!

We are very open to suggestions, and your feedback are always welcome, but might not get answered due to various reasons.  We are glad we had the chance to meet a few of you at shows and conventions; we hope we will be able to do that as often as possible for the remainder of the year!

[tyroflyer]

You have come a long way in a short period of time. I am particular impressed with the Sherman, Panzer III & IV projects. The comprehensive nature of these is great.

I'm interested to see your interest in other scales and non WWII periods. From a wargamers perspective I think it is important to note we are likely to choose models that fit the army we are trying to create. In other words if an Italian force in North Africa is your thing you would like to obtain every vehicle available to the Italian army of the period in the scale of your choosing. I suspect a modeller is likely to be much happier with different models from different countries at different periods of time and various scales than people whose motivation is primarily wargaming.

Just an observation. Many may disagree. Keep up the excellent work.

[Screamin Eagle]

- Hint Hint - Rubicon Models will not bound ourselves to simply focusing on 1/56 scale or WW2.  We are a design studio and will do what we are best at - Create & Design!

It would be great to see some of these same offerings in 15mm (1/100) for use in FoW, Art of Tactic, or Tanks!

[tyroflyer]

Rubicon have indicated an interest in 1/72 and 1/35. I'm a bit surprised at the larger scale. I'm not likely to be in the market for 1/35 but if I was the attraction of the larger model for me would be the increased accuracy of the model (just as a larger soldier enables a more detailed figure). A low parts count being less important as the size increases. It will be interesting to see how successful this approach is.

[EarlyWarGamer]

I don't see why Rubicon would go larger and enter the 1/35 scale market, when there are loads of kits already out there in that scale for modellers.  Tamiya pretty much owns that scale, with other manufacturers contributing models as well.  Also don't see why Rubicon would go smaller and enter the 1/72 market. Lots of kits already available in that scale, and the competition would he fierce to carve out any sort of market share.

Whereas 1/48 and 1/56 are the two competing scales for many 28-32mm figure wargamers, and other than Warlord, there is nobody else trying plastics.  Seems to me that Rubicon's best shot at financial success is to stay in the two scales they currently run with, and continue to expand those lines.

I can see Rubicon branching into other wars, just not other scales.

[ultravanillasmurf]

On the subject of scale, there is a growing market for 15mm and 1/48 scale models.

The larger scales do seem to have multiple manufacturers bringing out models of the same vehicle at the same time.