Hey, I am very happy to see fun stuffs around the world. In the coming Dec, I will take a trip to London, Paris, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Brussels (Belgium). Anyone want to hook up and discuss your art with me in person? As a producer for collectibles toys over 10 years in HK and China, personally admire to work with designers in worldwide. I have years experience in dealing with numerous materials, like vinyl, resin, porcelain, plush...etc and always enjoy to make things happen, as well as make your dream come true. I have union with a vinyl manufacturer and a local sculptor that are rolling up my sleeves to look for more opportunity. If you are interested in, feel free to send your enquiry to escheda@yahoo.com.hk

Hey 3yesore, I'm making some custom toys with resin also (talk about a love hate process!). I ran into the same painting issue you have.

My best solution so far has been to either make custom stencils out of sculpey or cut them out of a sheet of sticker paper. It kinda sucks because I have to recreate a new stencil each time if I use the sticker paper. I have not figured out where to go to have metal paint stencils created.

In terms of paint, I spoke to a hobby shop here in SF and they suggested I use enamel paint and spray it through an air brush. I'm just getting started with my airbrush, but the quality is much smoother than by painting by hand.

I'll post some pictures of my toys later this week when I finish them. Hope this helps!

thanks alot jon for your helpfull insight on toy making. I used Tesselate's tutorial on my first batch but anxiety and those damn airbubbles got the better of me. I still was able to do my toy figures with some sanding and after touches to those troubled areas.

Also I've been looking around for tutorials on how to paint my toys using stencils and achieving identical designs on a series and what paints to use over resin or vinyl but I havent found any, any sugestions??

I'm a make mine with ma HAAANDSSSS, uber hands. not vinyl but resin....
its still a toy. Got the first run a lil rough but the next will be o so smooth. I would like to hear from more people making household runs.

I'm not a company per se, but I'm interested in collaborating on the technical side. I can sculpt, mold, cast, finish and run high-quality multiples in a range of materials: vinyls, eurethane plastics, resins, etc. I maintain my own 'cold foundry' studio but work during the day as a technical assistant to international contemporary artists involved in major midwestern residency program. I'd be interested in modeling, molding, casting prototypes and doing some reasonable small batch runs. I'm located in Wisconsin. My pricing is reasonable and I can turn projects around quickly (depending upon level of complexity).Anyways, if you have a project you'd like to dicuss, just let me know - I'm hoping to pick up several smaller projects for this Summer and Fall. Can provide photos of previous work. jbbarrow@yahoo.com