3D board game miniatures are increasingly used in board games. As a market trend, more and more designers are fond of using 3D miniatures in their games. Maybe you will be in awe as you are not familiar with their production process. Don’t worry about this, WinGo will tell you how miniature dolls are made from scratches!
As for 3D miniatures, the first step is for the modelling technicians to build a 2D document of their 3D designs. This is the basic of the entire process, and the document is usually of STL and OBJ format.
Are the collected documents directly produced in 3D? Subsequent mass production should be considered as long as details of the 3D sample are delivered? Of course not! We will make fine-tuning based on the available documentation while still ensuring that the final products can be as close as possible to the original design. WinGo provides three views of each miniature to show you how it looks like before and after adjustment for your confirmation and feedback. We work to ensure that the cost and details of the products can meet your requirements.
After the fine-tuned version of the dolls in the 3D document is approved, you can finally get 3D printed 1:1 mini-figures! These babies who have just been born from the machine need to be carefully polished by engineers. They finally take the desired shape after engineers strenuously work on them for a long time. Of course, if you already have a sufficiently detailed and mature doll prototype, you can directly entrust it to us for “incubation and cultivation” (mass production).
Maybe many designers have already heard about PVC miniatures and resin miniatures. We have also received many inquiries about them. They are two different production plans based on various requirements of the board game miniatures concerning their production precision, quantity and price.
PVC Miniatures VS Resin Miniatures
Advantages of each options:
PVC Miniatures
- Ideal for mass production
- Great durability and low cost per unit
Resin Miniatures
- Good detail expression, high quality, ideal for small sum production
- Low mouldingcost, short production time
Cons of each options:
PVC Miniatures
- Take about 35 days to produce
- The moulding cost is higher
Resin Miniatures
- More fragile, need special package to protect it such as blister
- Cost per unit is higher
Mould copying of PVC miniature
Before casting the mould, the 3D template will be disassembled and copied so that undercut position that will occur during a plastic injection can be effectively evaluated and improved to make subsequent work smoother. This process is also called “duplex”.
Make an injection mould:
Mould casting is completed through a series of complex chemical, electrical and physical processing using large processing equipment. Many fields are involved and coordinated in this process. It takes a long time of about 35 days. After the mould is completed, it still needs to go through several trials and adjustments. After confirming that the sample is qualified, it can finally be arranged for mass production.
Use moulds for mass production:
The mould will be opened and formed on an injection moulding machine to become the final product. We will conduct a series of quality inspections during the injection moulding process to ensure stable quality. After injection moulding, the disassembled parts need to be re-bonded together. Only after this has a doll completed the entire production process.
Making silicone mould: (Resin Miniatures)
Leave the prototype doll in liquid silicone for a few hours before liquid silicone solidify. Experienced engineers will skillfully cut the parting line and set a hole through which silicone can flow in on the mould. After the mould passes the trial and is confirmed by the designer, it can finally be used for production.
Trimming
Unlike the injection moulding process, the surface of the resin doll will be left with a relatively obvious and unavoidable parting line, so a lot of manual modification and polishing is required, which is also one of the factors for the higher unit price of the resin doll. A comprehensive inspection of each doll is the last but most important thing. After this, these dolls will be packaged in the way you specify.
