How to Make Anime Figures

We often watch cartoons, comics, and anime films, the characters are deeply engraved in our minds, which is a good memory, because we love these characters, we also want to have some anime figures in reality, as decoration in the home. So, how to make anime figures in the factory? turning them from comics to collectible anime figures.

What Are Anime Figures Made Of

Anime figures can be made of resin or PVC plastic. The anime figures made of resin are heavyweight and have good color absorption, so the coloring effect, but the texture is fragile and easy to break when dropped.

The anime figures made of PVC plastic are not easy to break but need steel film to make, the minimum order quantity needs to be 1000, and the factory will accept custom, so that the unit price will be the lowest, lower than the resin and vinyl make.

How to Make a Anime Figure

The production of a custom anime figure requires six steps: 2D design, 3D modeling, 3D printing, sample confirmation, batch production, coloring, and packaging, the whole process takes 3-6 months.

Before the use of 3D printing technology, the creator needs from the idea, painting, clay model, prototype model, polishing, coloring, and finished figure, such a very long and repeated verification process, and the emergence of 3D modeling and printing technology can greatly reduce the process from creativity to anime figure development so that all this process becomes very simple.

How to Make Anime Figures

The mass production process of anime figures is rough as follows:
Design
Prototype
Steel mold making
Molding
Coloring
Assembly
Packaging
Here, let’s take a closer look at the specific process of mass production of plastic anime figures:

Confirm The Project with The Client

First of all, we should confirm the quality and coloring effect of the anime figure sample with the client, determine the number of anime figures to be produced, and determine the size of the anime figures. We will make a quote based on the design provided by the customer before the prototype starts production.

During this period, the client will learn about: sample making, bulk production, packaging, quality level, specific mass production date, delivery date (at least one month to allow sufficient time in case of accidents), delivery method, payment method, and terms, etc.

According to our finalized plan, the brand’s client advertises and pre-sells at this stage, and determines the order quantity and the release date.

Prototype Stage

3D printing prototyping: 3D modeling, output as .stl/.obj/.stp format, due to differences between the 3D model and the design, the 3D printing effect should be carefully checked, not in line with the design and needs to be reworked and adjusted. The base design and center of gravity should be considered before the prototype is completed, and later PVC production will design the base jack as needed.

Confirm Prototype Disassembly

In order to better paint and color anime figures, disassembly is a very important step when making anime figures. During the design disassembly stage, our engineering team will carefully consider it. When disassembling the parts, pay attention to the size of the interface, and whether it can be smoothly closed without loosening, we also need to consider the ease of painting and injection molding.

Steel Mold Casting

Steel Mold making needs a CNC prototype, according to the degree of difficulty and number of anime figure shapes, which will take a long time, usually 30-40 days. Steel mold polishing: When the inner surface is polished smooth, the fit and shape of the polished parts will change a bit.

Carry out the layout of the steel mold, to consider the strength of the parts, volume distribution, injection molding difficulty, and the color of the parts (usually unified white, color all for painting, but the character skin parts to be designed separately, sub-part). This stage involves coloring the mold, and color designation using a Pantone color card.

Initial Sample Confirmation

Steel mold on the machine for initial injection, carefully check the first sample, and prototype comparison, including interface connection, water outlet location, whether the sub-part is reasonable, whether the face and hair weak parts are deformed or missing, appropriate baking to see whether deformation cracking.

Whether the pose of the anime figure is shrunken and deformed, stand test on it to see whether it can stand firmly and where the center of gravity is.

Spraying Mold Production

Spray paint molds need prototype coloring anime figure samples for reference, spray paint mold is related to the quality of spray paint for anime figures, anime figures’ eyes, and other complex and important details that can be achieved both with spray paint, but also with pad printing.

Spraying mold must be required to spray paint the anime figures clamping, not loose so that the spray paint surface is completely exposed. The effect after painting does not spill color, not stain paint, and the pattern position is accurate and clear.

Bulk Production

Starting from mass production of a small part of the original PVC anime figures, painting and pad printing, and final assembly, it also needs to be confirmed and adjusted by the brand’s client to finally make the shape, color, and pattern of the mass-produced anime figures consistent with the prototype samples.

In this project, process evaluation and final quality level confirmation are performed, and the quality and quantity of the bulk production are decided according to the contract, which is confirmed by both parties and kept on file.

Packaging for Shipment

Finally, we need to confirm with the customer the size and form of the package, the material of the carton, the thickness and grammage of the paper, whether to add blister, open window, whether to add a bright strip, special packaging, and other issues. We also pay attention to the fit of the blister and the packaging, so that the anime figures can fit perfectly and the box is the right size.

We produce high-grade PVC animation characters, which will be in the prominent parts such as hands and feet hair on the set of small plastic bags to ensure that no hanging flowers or damage. At the same time, according to the determined packaging size, we determine the number of boxes per box and customize the external shipping carton.

Final quality check before packing, choose air or sea freight with a time block when packing for shipment.

Why Are Anime Figures So Expensive?

We know that anime figures are not a wide range of toys, it is a limited edition collector’s figures with limited quantity, especially resin-made anime figures, usually, only 100-200 of them are sold, which will make the cost of making them will be very high, only by mass production, such as 5000 pieces at one time, can we reduce its unit cost.Therefore, the price of anime figures made of PVC plastic is much lower than those made of resin.

In addition, The price of anime figures is also proportional to the size of the character, the difficulty of production, production time, quality level, and labor costs. Some anime figures have expensive licensing fees, so all these extra costs add up to make the final anime figure expensive.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, it takes money to do everything, otherwise, no one would want to spend a lot of time turning anime figures from movies and comics into real characters that can be collected, bringing joy and satisfaction to anime lovers.

Conclusion

How to make anime figures? making anime characters is not as easy as you might think. It takes a lot of time, from the beginning to the completion of a project, it takes two to six months, constantly communicating with the client and waiting for the client to confirm before the next step can be taken.

After each step is completed, we will check carefully to ensure that we meet the customer’s requirements. We strictly ensure that the anime figures we produce are of high quality, the client’s success is our success.