Production Outsourcing Casting Company Recommendations and Reviews

I've been hearing good things about Harucasting, it seems there are a number of independent artists using them for casting small runs of dolls. You can follow them on tumblr: http://harucasting.tumblr.com/ They are always posting progress pics of their casting processes on various doll jobs. Their price list is here: http://blog.naver.com/PostList.nhn?blogId=haru_resin&from=postList&categoryNo=8, and also their order form and such can be accessed through that blog. As to your questions I don't know, but they are willing to answer questions via email.

 

And there's also Weiju. As for Dollshe I was told that they are quite expensive and you need to send the doll in super good conditions to cast it (other companys might change the insides for you for better casting, in case of Dollshe they'll probably send it back to you or charge a lot for doing it)
There's also a super long thread about casting companys here: http://www.bjd-artists.com/showthread.php?5411-List-of-casting-companies
And also a review by Kat: http://littlerebel.net/archives/1341

 

Can anyone share recent experiences with casting companies, especially those that produce small quantities?

 

MiroDoll helped me cast my first 1/3 sized head.

They had sprayed a clear smooth coat on the master sculpt (Dark gray) and casted two heads for me in NS and WS.

 

Can I ask what they charged, and what the process was like? Harucasting seems to be the popular recommendation, but when I emailed him for color samples I never got a response, so I'm looking for other options.

Thank you

 

They charged me something like $350. That's not including the shipping costs.
It was pretty expensive for me, but other people might be able to afford it.

 

Ouch I think I'll try again to contact Harucasting, in that case. Thank you for the response!

 

I could be wrong. Why not email them and ask? It wouldn't hurt.

 

@Elysion gear what did you think of Mirodoll's quality? Your heads look nice.

 

@Alewife : They are professionally cast!
No bubbles, the resin is smooth and the color is even all the way through.
MiroDoll also finished the castings. No trace of the gates and minimal seams.

 

@Elysion gear that's good to know! Thanks!

 

My 2 cents.

I used DollShe for casting my own head sculpts and never had any issues with them. My sculpts are perfectly smooth and properly primed so they never asked me to do any additional work on them. When a peg broke off during transit they fixed it at no cost though I asked several times how much I have to pay for it.

The price is on a higher side but not ridiculously high, you get what you pay for - a great quality.
The prototype always returned in a perfect condition.

Also I casted another head at FDoll. The services are about 25-30% cheaper than DollShe, and the quality is nice overall, but the head cap shrinked more than the face part and was noticeably smaller. If it's a standard issue for them I could only wonder what would happen to the whole doll, because I make my joints pretty fitting, and if the outside part would shrink more than the inside it would break the joint.

It seems like they cast in a very small quantities if needed, because they told me the price per 1 head. If you need to cast 2-3 heads try to contact them in the first place.

Also I didn't mention that I wanted my prototype back (used to it at DollShe) so I had to pay extra for the shipping. The prototype had dents and chips and it needs restoration now.

My smaller dolls were casted at Weiju, their casting quality is superior, no visible seams even on fantasy skintones, perfect fitting and so on, I'd rank them even higher than DollShe, but they're SLOOOOW.... All my smaller dolls were distributed through JPopDolls so I rarely communicated with them directly.

After I requested my prototypes back they were in a perfect condition.

I also tried to cast a head at Haru Casting but failed. Maybe it's because I wanted to cast 10 heads only, but I was promised that my order will be accepted, and when the head was ready I was consistently ignored. My customers who ordered a head contacted Haru and had more luck, but the communication was so poor we decided to bring our money to a service with a better support - FDoll.

The price was the lowest of all 3: DollShe comes first, then FDoll, then Haru.

I also contacted Resinsoul, and they asked $70 per head so I decided it's too much for me))

All above info is valid on 2017-2018.

 

@ira_scargeear Thank you for such detailed report on companies!!

As for Haru, I found that it's easier to get a hold of him on Instagram. He's often online there posting updates, so you can get at least answers to your questions within few hours if not immediately. So far I only got samples for resin from him, but the whole deal was solved through Instagram private messages in under 2 hours.
So I guess in short: if you want to talk to him, you have better chances to do so on IG.

 

@oione, thank you very much, I'll try to contact him there!

 

These links are now not working, any way of updating them?