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squeakscience In reply to TheInflater [2016-05-03 16:16:51 +0000 UTC]

Unfortunately my design process is fairly decoupled from the manufacturing process. I design a model in Blender, render it out into a reference sheet showing all angles of the item and send that to the manufacturer, they use that reference to build another 3D model with different software (some CAD stuff) that can then generate the cutting pattern for the final toy. I've seen mentions that Ameroth of AmmyDerg can provide 3D data directly to the manufacturer, I don't have that capability. Other toy designers just draw 2D images to be used as a reference, that works too.

The manufacturers I use are Jet Creations (jetcreations.com/ ), Hongyi (hongyitoys.en.alibaba.com/ , used here) and Scaleworx (scaleworxcreations.com/ ), the latter of which acts as a front end for Latex Catfish and Angeldis (you can probably contact those directly instead).

Jet is the high end one, best quality and service all around but pricy (I've had anime doll designs go as high as 2400 USD in a quote from them...). If you get enough people together to order a few dozen of a design the price drops a lot and becomes much more affordable (Puffy Paws does regular runs using Jet and they sell fairly large toys for like 350$). You get something like 3 prototypes before they make a finished product though so you can be sure to get exactly what you want.

Hongyi is the lower quality one, apparently the quality can vary based on how well the worker worked, they do simpler seams that don't look as good on the toy's paint and they don't make prototypes for you to request changes on, if they produce a duff  toy they won't let you change anything. So far every order with them has come out at 700$ for me with shipping and a 100$ Paypal surcharge (yes I know PP doesn't like that but fuck them, if they had their way we'd always have to pay that surcharge and it'd just be added to the base price). You can ask them for their 3D model and request changes on that before they start the production though. They're not the best at likeness but not terrible either.

Latex Catfish and Angeldis seem to be pretty similar. They work with latex, not vinyl. Prices have ranged from 300-600$ for me in total depending on size and complexity. Latex toys can have fingers, for example, those would be too small for vinyl (too stiff and such). Unlike vinyl there are no pinch seams on these toys but of course the material is extremely soft and stretchy so without a lot of chambers added these toys will squash flat under you. They show you the finished toy and let you make adjustments before it goes out. They're not very good at likeness though, I've seen the biggest inaccuracies with them. Also colors are limited with latex.

I believe Hongyi has only minor discounts for large orders and I haven't heard of large order discounts on latex toys.

Confused yet?

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TheInflater In reply to squeakscience [2016-07-27 08:46:15 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much for your excellent explanation ... and sorry for the very belate reply (reasons: see my recent Journal entry ). And no, I am not confused. More like a bit astound about the prices and shocked about the »artistic freedom« the makers claim about the creations. Looking forward to any new experiments.

One last question (which should probably explained in a separate Journal entry): How do you come to this? It's kind of unusual. And what do you do with your creations?

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