Toy Fair is for the toy trade only. Although small toy stores send their buyers to Toy Fair, generally the large toy companies favor the Big Buyers: Walmart, Toys R Us, Target, etc. (We used to call them "the Marts", because K-mart was included, but K-Mart is a much smaller buyer now). Toy Fair catalogs are really hard to come by. If you work for one toy company, you can't get a competitor's catalog, for obvious reasons. It's because Toy Fair is in February, and the toys don't generally come out until fall, before Christmas. No one wants their ideas pilfered!
Prototypes are made for a few reasons: the first is to have something to photograph for the catalog. It needs to look just like the toy will when it's manufactured. Another reason is to have a model for internal review and changes. We modify our designs all the time, and generally, a model is made with each major revision. Sometimes they will need to be re-photographed.
Mouse is right about who goes to Toy Fair. So, buyers, the press, inventors, representatives from the Toy Industry Association, are some of the attendees. I have gone to many many toy fairs... sometimes as a representative for my company ( I have worked for 6), sometimes as an inventor, sometimes as an assistant for a freelance account. Generally, the years that I went as an inventor it was very difficult if not impossible to get into the Hasbro or Mattel showrooms. (Toy Fair is different today than it was a few years ago... the large toy companies no longer have the huge presence they once did. But that's another story)
As far as Bratz/ MGA/ Mattel goes, I do know the story of how the whole mess came to be, and it's not exactly as Mouse says... the inventor never presented his concept to Mattel. If he had, it would have been much simpler to sue MGA and win. However, "technically" he did some preliminary sketches on Mattel paper, while he was on unpaid leave, trying to decide what to do with his ideas. But this is a very long story, and I don't think it's really my place to tell all of the details. (I'm leaving out his name on purpose here).
Mouse is also very correct about who owns the prototypes. I have very few prototypes. I wish I had them all, but as was said before, they belonged to my employer. I did manage to sneak out a few of my drawings, to put in my portfolio. I have quite a few packed away in folders in my garage. Nowadays it's so much easier, as all my artwork is done on the computer! But back then, everything was drawn by hand and colored with markers and paint. Some of my old drawings haven't stood the test of time very well... fading, tearing, etc is pretty common with these old drawings. Today, I work for Spin Master, and we do dispose of a lot of old stuff. I recently threw away the original prototype for the Liv Lodge that I designed... it was a mess- broken, chipped, warped. I mean, who can haul around that old stuff? LOL!
