Note:
The toy figure images shown on our website are intended solely as references for customization and are not available for purchase. As a professional ODM/OEM toy manufacturer, we focus on customizing and producing toy figures of comparable style. If you have an original figure design you’d like to produce, please reach out to us for a quotation.
| Material | Best for | Tooling cost | Unit at 500 pcs | Direct-supply note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rotocast vinyl (soft vinyl) ★ | Hand-finished designer and streetwear characters, 3 in to 12 in | USD 3,000-8,000 aluminum tool | USD 4.20-9.50 | Tooling is low enough that a direct buyer can own it outright on a 300-piece run. This is the material that makes factory-direct economics work at all. |
| Injection PVC | Larger runs, sharper undercuts, small mechanical parts | USD 12,000-35,000 steel tool | USD 2.10-6.00 | Lowest unit cost of any route here, but the tooling floor is exactly why some buyers use a trading partner to share a mold. Own it only above roughly 1,000 pcs per design. |
| PU resin, cast | Numbered editions, highest surface detail, runs of 30-300 pcs | USD 400-1,500 silicone tool | USD 8.00-32.00 | Silicone tools are consumables with a 30-80 pull life, not assets. Budget mold replacement into the edition size rather than treating it as a one-time cost. |
| ABS | Articulated joints, hard mechanical shells, snap-fit parts | USD 14,000-40,000 steel tool | USD 2.40-7.00 | Normally paired with vinyl or PVC rather than used alone, and joint tooling is a separate line. If you only need one material, ABS is rarely it. |
| PVC plastisol (soft PVC) | Squeeze toys, keychains, soft-surface figures and low-cost promos | USD 2,500-7,000 aluminum tool | USD 0.90-3.60 | Lowest tooling of any process on this page, which makes it the most common entry point for a first direct order. Surface detail is the trade-off. |
| Plush | Soft art toys, licensed character plush, gift-channel product | USD 600-2,500 pattern and die | USD 6.50-24.00 | Sewing is labor-bound, so unit cost falls slowly with volume and volume discounts here are the weakest of any route. Tooling being cheap does not make the run cheap. |
| Stage | What happens | What you approve | Failure mode if it is skipped |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Sculpt and reference lock | 2D orthographic views from your reference images, then a 3D sculpt built from them | Silhouette at 32 px, at arm's length and at full size | Proportions drift through the whole run and every later approval is measured against a moving target |
| 2. Master and tool making | CNC master cut from the approved sculpt, then an aluminum or steel tool built to it | Tool drawings, parting line position and draft angles | Seams land across a face, or an undercut makes the piece uncastable and the tool is scrapped |
| 3. First shot | The first casting off the new tool, unfinished and unpainted | Surface texture, seam position, sink marks, shrinkage against the sculpt | A tool defect surfaces after 200 pieces are already cast, turning a fix into a rerun |
| 4. Casting run | Rotocast, injection or slush depending on the material and wall thickness | Shot weight and wall thickness tolerance | Walls run thin at the extremities and pieces crack in transit, discovered by your customer rather than by us |
| 5. Prep and prime | Gate and seam removal, sanding, washing, primer coat | The finish standard for primer flatness | Paint sinks into sanding scratches and the piece reads cheap at arm's length no matter how good the paint is |
| 6. Paint | Masking, base spray, then hand-painted face and detail work | The paint master, one physical piece that becomes the reference for the run | Color drifts across the run and piece 1 no longer matches piece 500 on the same shelf |
| 7. Assembly and accessories | Chains, caps, bases and inserted parts fitted and checked for retention | Fit tolerance and accessory retention force | Accessories fall off inside the box, or the base does not sit flat on a display surface |
| 8. QC, packing and handover | AQL sampling, drop test on the packed carton configuration, carton marking and documents | AQL level, sampling plan and carton spec | You discover breakage and mislabeling at your warehouse, with no leverage left on the batch |
Send a reference image, the intended height and the edition quantity. Within 48 hours you get the production route, a tooling estimate and a realistic date. No charge, no deposit, no obligation.
We build orthographic views and a 3D sculpt. Two revision rounds are included before tooling starts, which is where nearly all the fidelity is won or lost.
The sculpt is 3D printed, then finished into a painted prototype. Approve it in your hands, not on a screen. Screens flatter proportion and hide seam quality.
The tool is cut from the approved master and a first-shot casting is pulled before the run starts. You see the parting line and the seam before it is duplicated a thousand times.
One piece is painted and approved as the physical reference for the whole run. Every later color question is answered against that piece, not against a memory of a render.
AQL sampling with the raw sheets handed to you, drop testing on the packed carton, then documents, production dossier and mold custody record at handover.