What is a resin kit? It is a model kit made of polyurethane resin (a heavy plastic like material). It comes in parts that have to be sanded, glued and pinned together, primered and then painted. The original kit is rough and it takes a lot of time and patience to build one. Resin kits are not meant for a mass market. They are specifically designed for model kit builders.
What goes into producing a resin kit? The process involves the following. Someone, a fan, wants to see a kit of a particular subject matter, something that no main stream kit manufacturer (and we're seeing less and less of those every day) would ever dream of doing because they know damn well that the audience for such a kit is so small that it isn't worth their time. Why does the fan move ahead and produce it anyway? Because he loves the subject matter. After coming up with the idea, the producer hires a sculptor to sculpt the figure. Once the figure is complete, the producer makes a set of molds off of the sculpt. The molds can yield between 50 and 70 castings of a kit. Unfortunately, so many of the parts don't come out, that the producer can really only count on getting 50 complete castings out of set of molds. You see, the resin heats up as it hardens and that burns the rubber and after 50 or 60 pulls the molds begin to crack and tear.
Who makes resin kits? Fans. Fans make these kits for other kit builders. They were never intended for a mass audience. These are NOT pre painted statues produced in China in numbers over a thousand. If someone contacts me about buying a resin kit and they've never built one, I'll try to discourage them from buying the kit. The kit was never intended for that individual.
How many kits do producers sell - and here's the bad news for all you want-to-be kit producers. The average resin kit will only sell between 50 and 100 castings. If they luck out and come up with a very popular sculpt (like Steve West's latest sculpt) they might break 150. Unfotunately the sad reality is that most kits sell less than 50 copies. That's why so many kits become discontinued so quickly. The molds burn out after 50 to 70 pours (or just get old and fall apart) and the producer knows there's no point in making another set of molds. The really sad news is that if the kit is a stinker, you might only sell 5 or 6 and never recoup your cost of putting the kit into production. You should also know that it might take you five or six years to sell those 50 or so kits.
Why are these things so expensive? The major reason is the cost that goes into putting a resin kit into production - along with the fact that the kits are made by hand and not factory made (which also explains why the quality of these kits aren't always the easiest to work with). Here's a brief run down on what the costs are:
$500.00 to $4,000.00 for the sculptor - hell of a range,
isn't it? But that's what's out there. You go with a sculptor
like Mike Hill or Steve West, and you're going to be paying a lot of money.
$100.00 to $300.00 for the Rubber.
$15.00 for resin (per kit - the resin is fairly inexpensive)
$3.00 for the box (per kit)
$2.00 for packing for the kit (per kit)
And these numbers don't take into account box art, advertising, time, etc. But let's set up a scenario to see exactly what the costs are. Let's say you make a kit that you sell for $100.00. Let's say you're only going to go through one set of molds (and that you're lucky and get 60 kits out of the molds) and let's say you use a reasonably priced sculptor. Here's the breakdown:
$2,000.00 - for the sculptor
$ 200.00 - for rubber
$ 900.00 - for resin (60 kits at $15.00 per kit)
$ 180.00 - for boxes for 60 kits
$ 120.00 - for packing for 60 kits
$ 60.00 - copying box art for 60 kit at $1.00 per color
copy
$3,460.00 - Total cost for putting a run of 60 kits into
production
60 kits x $100 = $6,000 - and that's assuming you can sell them at full retail and don't have to sell them to a dealer like me at wholesale. So you subtract $3,460 from $6,000 and you get $2,540.00. Now lets look at time. Let's say each kit takes 2 hours including pouring and boxing. That's 120 hours. That comes out to $21.00 dollars an hour. Not exactly a huge profit and still not taking into account all of the costs.
So what's my point here? Anyone who thinks there's a lot of money in resin kits needs to think again. THESE KITS ARE PRODUCED IN VERY SMALL NUMBERS FOR A VERY LIMITED AUDIENCE.
Why are most resin kits unlicensed? If the resin kit producer paid the ridiculous amounts of money wanted for licensing they would go out of business. As a matter of fact, the major companies who did have licensed kits have gone out of business, Horizon, Screamin and Geometric come to mind.
If that's the case, how come the Godzilla kits are all licensed? In Japan, they have a very reasonable outlook on licenses for resin kits. They realize how few of these are produced and come up with an amount that is acceptable for the resin kit producer. I've heard the per kit license works out to be about $10.00 dollars per kit. The licensing fees here in the US can be anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 dollars to do a character. No resin kit producer could possible afford that and keep producing kits- at least not if they want to sell any. If the license holders offered something like a 10% fee per kit I believe that every resin kit made would be licensed. The problem is that the license holders don't get the market. They don't understand how few of these kits are actually produced and sold. And of course there's the greed factor.
How do these producers get away with making these kits?
Well, a lot of times they don't. They'll get slapped with a C&D.
But more and more of the larger companies have come to realize that resin
kits are such small business that it's not worth their time. One
producer told me a story about how he approached Universal to try to get
a license - when he told them he only wanted to make 100 kits, they showed
him the door. It wasn't worth their time. What's really sad
is when you see the license holder of some obscure less popular subject
make a fuss about a resin kit. As opposed to being happy that there
are fans who care enough about the subject to make a resin kit, they'll
often try to shut down the producer or dealer of such kits. Oddly
they're only hurting their own fan following, and word of that sort of
thing spreads quickly, especially on the internet.