Why are resin figures so expensive? How are resin statues made? You must be curious to know the answer. Resin statues are wonderful and eye-catching, but many people don’t know how to make resin statues, because the resin statues sold on the market are usually only produced by toy factories.
In the art toy industry, resin statues are high-precision, small-scale handicrafts made from animation, movie, and game characters. Their excellent details and perfect colors make the characters behave realistically and can richly express the characteristics of the characters. Resin statues are high-end collectible statues popular among art toy enthusiasts and artists.
What are resin statues made of?
Resin statues are mainly made of two resin materials, polyurethane (PU) and polystone, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Polyurethane is the primary material used in manufacturing GK models today. "HEI-CAST resin" is PU resin and requires the same weight ratio of agent A and agent B. PU resin has good ductility, strong ability to express details, and good hand feel. Available in white, beige, ivory, transparent, or can be made into unique colors.
Polystone, an artificial stone made from a mixture of resin and stone powder, is often used in statues and has become popular in recent years.
Advantages: 1. Heat resistance and hardness. 2. It is not greasy after sun exposure and feels good when applied by hand. 3. Long life, not easy to discolor and deform.
Disadvantages: 1. Heavy weight. 2. It is brittle, difficult to process and cut, and easily broken.
Why are resin statues so expensive?
In fact, the cost of resin materials does not account for a high proportion of the total cost of resin statues. It also has other costs, such as designer creativity, 3D prototypes, mold production, manual production, packaging, transportation, etc., which all cost money. Brand promotion fees and profits are not cheap costs.
More importantly, the life of the silicone mold is very limited and cannot be reused after more than a dozen times, so only small batches of resin statues can be made, which cannot be as easy as making 500 vinyl figures.
If you want to produce 500 pieces of resin statues, you need to make a large number of silicone molds, which requires spending more money on the molds. In addition, semi-finished statues made from silicone molds have large differences in shape and surface, and can only rely on workers to polish and spray paint manually. The production cycle is long, so the labor cost is also high. This is why resin statues are more expensive than other types of toys.
How to Make a Resin Statue
The main production process of custom resin statues is as follows
Resin mold manufacturing
Resin statue molds are made of silicone, so they are also called silicone molds. The complete resin statue has a complex structure and needs to be taken apart to make multiple silicone molds. Making silicone molds is easier, we only need to make a clay or wax sample, and then copy the front and back of the mold, but silicone molds cannot be used 30 times, so if hundreds of resin statues are produced, we need to make multiple silicone molds.
Silicone mold making
Blank resin statue making
We pour the liquid resin into the silicone mold without heating, and then fix the silicone mold. The resin will slowly solidify and form. Wait for 20 minutes, then you can disassemble the mold and take out the white or colorless resin statue accessories.
Resin statue polishing
The surface of the rough resin statue is usually rough, so we need to use a grinder or sandpaper to polish it until the surface of the resin statue is smooth.
resin statue coloring
Coloring generally uses paint, acrylic, etc., as well as brushes, airbrushes, various brushes and other tools. Due to the complex shapes and different colors of resin statues, which require high color details, the makers need to have a high technical level. Hand-painting skills as well as some professional skills such as flat painting, blending, dry rubbing, lighting, and airbrush spraying.
Resin statue assembly
We assemble fabricated, polished and painted resin statues. When assembling, we need to be gentle with the resin statue parts. With a little force, some slender resin statue parts may break, and then everything has to be started from scratch, which is not cost-effective.
Finally, we put it into a beautiful box, and the whole resin statue is finished and waiting to be shipped from the factory and sold out.
