Custom Action Figures?, that are not expensive? Options

[novaburst]

Does anyone know of someone that creates custom action figures?
I'm pretty sure this will be very expensive, but it would be nice to find someone out there doing it that might be affordable. That is why I am asking. I thought maybe someone here might know.

[ART BOWSHIER]

Does anyone know of someone that creates custom action figures?
I'm pretty sure this will be very expensive, but it would be nice to find someone out there doing it that might be affordable. That is why I am asking. I thought maybe someone here might know.

There' a guy on the Classic Horror Film Board named Jethro something that does figures. They are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!Mabe not movesble, but, awesome....

[Decapitated_Dan]

I know someone on Facebook who does them.

[novaburst]

There' a guy on the Classic Horror Film Board named Jethro something that does figures. They are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!Mabe not movesble, but, awesome....

I just searched and found some of his work. Very nice!!
I'm not a member of that board. Do you know how I might get in touch with him via e-mail possibly?

I know someone on Facebook who does them.

I'll shoot you an e-mail Dan. Thanks!

[Ringtail Cafe]

It depends on what you're really asking here.

Do you honestly mean "action figures" in the true sense, as in you could find this kind of thing at a Toys R Us...

Or do you just mean figures, in the sense of a rendered work of your character.

Let me give you a quick break down here.


Action figures are usually made of either Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS plastic, like GiJoes, Transformers) or Polyvinyl chloride (PVC plastic. the Starwars Heroes, or Marvel/DC chibis are made of this stuff).

A lot of figures you see people custom create, are first rendered in a form of sculpting media (Sculpy, Green Goo, Clay etc). Some people stop here, and simply paint what they have. This makes them one of a kind, unique works of art.

If you go a step further, a lot of people will take that sculpted media, and turn it into a mold, usually with a binary, or two part mold. Those are most commonly cast into a resin (the same kind of stuff they use for model train scenery, etc)

While they are nice looking, those are really not meant for play (and should not be given to children). They are however excellent for things like heroclix style miniatures.

From here they could, they can be cold cast or press molded into statues. Those are usually then painted.

If you want to get into true action figure type levels, you need to find someone who is capable of the following. Often times these may be the same place, or these may be different stages.

1) You need the original sculpt, in whatever media that takes.
2) You need to create a negative, or mold.
3) The item needs to be cast and or painted.

When it comes to being cast, there are a lot of different processes. Injection molding, extrusion molding, rotary molding, etc. It comes down to the kind of product you're trying to make. (example. A Gijoe and a rubber ducky...notice how one is solid and one is hollow?)

The problem is, creating a mold and doing the engineering is typically rather expensive. Sometimes you'll get lucky, if you can have a mold produced a factory might use it to produce figures for you, but you run the risk of losing or having your mold damaged. And not a lot of factories will do this anyways, since the mold has to work with their systems.

So, once they have produced the mold, they have to do a lot of setup, preparing the materials, getting the mold in place, starting the process, then doing the clean up.

It's frankly, not worth their time to do "small" runs. The typical low end for a factory is somewhere around 5000 copies of something.


Can you tell I've done the research?

So, to summarize. If you're just looking for just a few dozen, or hundred copies of something than your best bet is to make some resin castings.

Hope this has been...illuminating.

[novaburst]

It depends on what you're really asking here.

Do you honestly mean "action figures" in the true sense, as in you could find this kind of thing at a Toys R Us...

Or do you just mean figures, in the sense of a rendered work of your character.

Let me give you a quick break down here.


Action figures are usually made of either Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS plastic, like GiJoes, Transformers) or Polyvinyl chloride (PVC plastic. the Starwars Heroes, or Marvel/DC chibis are made of this stuff).

A lot of figures you see people custom create, are first rendered in a form of sculpting media (Sculpy, Green Goo, Clay etc). Some people stop here, and simply paint what they have. This makes them one of a kind, unique works of art.

If you go a step further, a lot of people will take that sculpted media, and turn it into a mold, usually with a binary, or two part mold. Those are most commonly cast into a resin (the same kind of stuff they use for model train scenery, etc)

While they are nice looking, those are really not meant for play (and should not be given to children). They are however excellent for things like heroclix style miniatures.

From here they could, they can be cold cast or press molded into statues. Those are usually then painted.

If you want to get into true action figure type levels, you need to find someone who is capable of the following. Often times these may be the same place, or these may be different stages.

1) You need the original sculpt, in whatever media that takes.
2) You need to create a negative, or mold.
3) The item needs to be cast and or painted.

When it comes to being cast, there are a lot of different processes. Injection molding, extrusion molding, rotary molding, etc. It comes down to the kind of product you're trying to make. (example. A Gijoe and a rubber ducky...notice how one is solid and one is hollow?)

The problem is, creating a mold and doing the engineering is typically rather expensive. Sometimes you'll get lucky, if you can have a mold produced a factory might use it to produce figures for you, but you run the risk of losing or having your mold damaged. And not a lot of factories will do this anyways, since the mold has to work with their systems.

So, once they have produced the mold, they have to do a lot of setup, preparing the materials, getting the mold in place, starting the process, then doing the clean up.

It's frankly, not worth their time to do "small" runs. The typical low end for a factory is somewhere around 5000 copies of something.


Can you tell I've done the research?

So, to summarize. If you're just looking for just a few dozen, or hundred copies of something than your best bet is to make some resin castings.

Hope this has been...illuminating.

Wow, you know your stuff! Well, it would be great if I could have action figures that I could actually sell. However, like you said, that would be expensive. I don't think I would be able to make that happen. It would be great though.

I think I am going to have to settle for just having a couple of action figures made of two of my main characters. The guy that Dan mentioned can do this and he does nice work. However, he does it all by hand. It isn't like he can mass produce them. I will probably just have to keep these for myself, because I know as soon as I sit these on a table kids are going to want to buy the action figures.