http://www.fdoll.com/index.php?main_page=page_3 Just heard about this one. I know nothing about their terms or quality. Supposedly they will cast very small quantities.
Fantasy Doll is the company I've chosen to have cast my Kitpandi. As far as I can tell, their dolls are of good quality (based on their feedback on DoA), and their terms seemed reasonable. I'm starting with a prototype, to be followed by 15-20 dolls, however many good casts they can pull from the first set of molds -- and I do appreciate that they're limiting the run by quality rather than quantity. I can also say that their communication has been very good, as they've answered all of my questions promptly. Beyond that, well... I'll let you know how it goes!
I've also been in touch with Michael at F-Doll - they are super friendly prompt to communicate and do very high quality stuff. Buff had her Chibi Headbacks cast by them and the resin match to Fairyland was near perfect. I agree with Morgan that their terms that I agreed to while different from hers were reasonable and they agreed to my terms that my intellectual property be protected any miscasts they guarantee will be destroyed and no third party would be able to produce my dolls without my express permission. My agreement entailed limiting numbers regardless of the mold cost - even if multiple molds were required to produce the number of dolls I ordered.
That's a good point... now that you mention it, I was the one who decided to do the first run with a single set of molds, rather than ordering a specific number of dolls. So clearly they'll go either way. I'm just a cheapskate who doesn't want to pay for any additional mold-making until I've sold a few dolls.
One thing about Fantasy Doll... they sand the seams on their tan dolls, but it does discolor the resin: At this point I'm considering Weiju for my (future) human dolls, since I'd like to offer a range of skin tones.
I thought they color the whole bucket of resin to create skin colors now? Why do tan bodies still have problems sanding? Or do they do something different for the tan colors?
The colourant is throughout the resin, not just on the outside; however, sanding will still in most cases cause sanded areas to appear lighter. In the case of the Fantasy Doll above, the sanding looks incomplete and rushed/poor and given that this resin really shouldn't be sanded at all I don't know why they do it, but I'm sure you could request that they only sand the gate marks. I have tested on Dollshe resin and even the shiniest polish I can achieve does not restore the original colour on the tan resin they use, which is opaque. Weiju uses a different type of resin (semi-translucent, aka "environmental") which can be sanded even when coloured, although the texture will be different, which is why they prefer to sand the whole doll and not just the seams. When I cast my dolls, I only sand the seams and they become more shiny than the surrounding resin, but I would not want the whole doll to be glossy, personally.
Yeah, I didn't post this until I got some Novus 2 and tried it out. I got shiny discolored resin. :P And I don't like seams... and I do like the translucency of the "environmental" resin (what exactly does that word mean in this context, anyway?), at least for human dolls. I feel like it would be a little strange on an anthro -- and it's too much on the teeny-tiny dolls, IMHO. The details get lost. Shiny, though... not a huge fan of shiny. Would a layer of MSC on top of the sanded resin make it matte again?
Is the lightening a result of surface texture or a matter of the resin surface curing to a different color from the inside? I guess what I'm trying to ask is, if I can match the texture of the sanded area to the surrounding area, will the discoloration disappear? (But your post makes me think this is nearly impossible..) Another scenario: if I sanded the resin all over after I took it out of the mold, and then later do a mod, will the modded part be a different color? Is the discoloration a result of yellowing?
It's not yellowing, and it's not texture. The sanded resin is just lighter than the surface; I mean it could be the texture but not on a level that you can affect by any level of sanding or polishing. You can sand the parts all over to get an even colour, and do a mod later, I don't think the colour would be any different. You might be able to blush the colour back into the sanded areas if you don't polish to a gloss first, so that the blushing has something to stick to. Morgan, a spritz of msc would certainly dull down the shine. Wouldn't want to have to spray the entire doll though as the msc will wear off in high friction areas very quickly and obviously wouldn't stick as well to a glossy surface as a matte one, if for example you were coating for the purpose of prepping and then coating some sort of blushing; in that case, having sanded only the seams might be a better solution.
Not a cheapskate honey - SMART I've paid my deposit but I dont expect to see my prototype for months yet as I've had to ask Michael to throw the breaks on my whole project until further notice..... House + water = no dolls for now.... Sucks. Good news is the deposit is good regardless of how long they hold onto it. I'm hoping for 6 months tops by then we should have everything here repaired from the water damage.... my poor compressor was a casualty It was too heavy for me to lift up off the floor onto a shelf by myself.... Regarding their Tan resin - I noticed something similar on a restring I did on an Amber same as yours Morgan.... It resin is coloured right through but I have noticed depending on the actually resin - some seem to have a greater depth of colour on the surface. I had to replace 6 Alexis Rose dolls cast in a darker flesh tone that for some random reason seemed to have a colored "shell" that was darker than the internal resin - the mix was uniformly done and cast in near pristine conditions but the actual resin composition did it regardless of what color was added - it only became apparent when the owners sanded the surface somewhere on the doll and I didn't know to warn them that there could be a disparity because I didn't know about it.... I was lucky enough to have the molds line up just right almost every time and the seams were close to invisible and didn't really need to be fiddled with...
Twigling: Good point... I'll keep that in mind if I ever get as far as casting with Weiju. Whitewings: Aw man, I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck with your repairs. I still think it must be a surface texture issue, just because I can't see why the dye would be stronger closer to the surface. Why it can't be fixed with fine enough sandpaper / polishing, though... yeah, I really don't know.
