Would anyone be interested in a casting company in Austin, Texas U.S.A? I'm going to be casting my own doll, although I'm new with casting and pressure pots, getting all the equipment is not an issue. I'm interested to hear peoples thoughts on what would you like in a casting company, whether it be a minimum of 1 casting order or different resin colors, etc.
I'd be interested. I would like for a company to not require a minimum of say...5, 10, 15+ dolls per order. Also, resin coloring would be fantastic. I have some odd colors in mind, though.
I would really love a company that offered a low minimum quantity, and no minimum quantity per color. That would be ideal, especially for a US-based company.
I would like to see you having done some full production runs of your dolls, with lots of good examples of different colours (and that they're well blended and not terribly marbled), good quality casting that's true to the original without too much dust and crud, casting techniques done so that minimal finishing work has to be done to the copies, and how the masters come out after casting (i.e. as undamaged as possible) first. Low minimums, colours, etc., are all important, and I am sure there's tons of folks who'd love to be able to send their stuff to somewhere in the US rather than internationally... But knowing that I can trust someone with my master copies (after seeing the horrible things that have been done to masters by apparently professional casting companies), someone who can keep up with communication even when things are going wrong, someone who has a good workflow and can say "I know from experience that I can cast about X dolls in Y time - I currently have several jobs ahead of you so I won't actually be able to accept your doll for casting until 3 months from now," rather than taking on too much work, being swamped, and things going late. That being experienced and established is, to me, more important than colours and quantities.
I do plan to cast my own doll but I'm not going to do a full production run until I'm experienced with proper mold making and casting. Id much rather send it off to another casting company to be honest. XD I was thinking to make resin bjd hands on a keychain that come in different colors and use that as my resin samples. Shouldn't every company aim for good quality casting anyway? I wouldn't mind having 1 minimum order. That be cool. However i don't know if that would be more expensive for the customer. I imagine its a lot cheaper to cast in bulk sense you can buy casting materials in bulk a lot cheaper. I don't know exactly what you mean by this, but if its a master copy then you can always make another copy. That's why its good to send a copy and not an original. I have someone else for that actually XD id much rather go and cast stuff and have someone else hop on the computer or whatever and reply to people, etc. I would probably have maybe 3 slot orders to fill to stop people from ordering until a slot is free. That way id be able to handle the orders and not get swamped. Its one of my pet peeves of dollshe tbh. XD
I didn't mean to come off as negative - just that those are the things I would like to see from a casting company, especially a new one. With there being so many different casting companies, having really good examples of one's finished work would be essential. Of course casting companies strive to get good results... but not all of them do, and especially being new to casting, there's a lot of things that might be stumbling blocks... especially if you're casting others' work who maybe don't think to sculpt for molding, or make possible, but very difficult to cast pieces... I'm thinking of things like... a head that is too enclosed to make a proper core mold (or, rather, too enclosed to get the core mold out intact!), or a really difficult hand pose that would be tricky to mold and vent without getting excessive bubbles. By the master copy, I just meant the master - sorry, was unclear. While many doll artists do cast a copy to send as their master, many others do not have the equipment/money/time/skills to do so, and send the only copy of the doll they have - the original. So any damage or loss of it is a serious issue - there's a doll artist I follow on Tumblr who sent her original to a professional casting company, did not get the casts she ordered (and those that they did make were poor quality), and received only part of her doll back (missing its arms) and with major damage due to incorrect casting techniques. Of course, a good part of that is just the company being careless/incompetent, but... if you're going to cast dolls for others, you will likely be entrusted with their originals from time to time, and being able to show people, "Here is the great work I can do with your doll, look at all this stuff I've casted already, with these high-res close-ups showing the casting quality" would go a long way toward having folks willing to trust you with their precious doll parts. Also... might be worth looking into if you can source resin additives... I know a lot of folks would pay a premium to have additives that would slow yellowing/greening, especially if you could get it enough in advance to do an extended test (like, three of the same resin colours, one with the additives, one without, placed in a sunny windowsill for 6 months or a year to show the results - and the third kept in a dark place to compare).
I understand and I totally agree. Every company should focus on preventing things like air bubbles and marbling, etc. I'm sure I will run into some difficult mold making but some stuff can be prevented to avoid some issues like a head that is too enclosed. That could workout depending on the elasticity of the mold or by making a 3 part mold or injection molding. Keeping the original as intact as possible during mold making will definitely be a challenge, but for now I'm just considering if I should make a casting company. Either way I'm still going to use the equipment to cast my own stuff. That's definitely something i feel iffy about. Personally I wouldn't care if my original got destroyed as long as there's a mold and a casting copy that came out of it. I mostly fear the original getting lost in the mail and not having a copy, then id loose all my hard work. I don't know why any company would have missing pieces of an original. If it broke or got destroyed in the molding process then they should still have the pieces. That's just horrible and wrong. I wouldn't want that to happen to me. Always put myself in their shoes. That's why i feel iffy about it, because accidents do happen, but when its done on purpose and they try to cover it up or not even care is obviously crappy customer service. Im always happy to see great customer service wherever. Its one of the reasons i love dollshe. That sounds like a neat idea. I know i will be testing and experimenting with casting so i will have to try this out.
I think this is a great idea, go for it! Once I finish Agrboda, I want to send her off for casting, but don't want to send her overseas. I'm looking at Karlyl creations in California, but Texas is so much closer to me. Good luck, I can't wait to see where you go with this!
