Hello From Max's Mom

[juliespu]

Hello, I'm Max's Mom.  All Max has ever wanted to play with or do is "Legos".  He cannot read or write very well...  or build on his own anymore.  So I build kits we get for him.  His hand eye coordination isn't that great so I paint legos he shows me pictures of. I help him research, build, paint and make legos.  Now Max is 15 and he wants to make custom legos. This requires me...  It's a full time job... but I don't know where to start.  Max is lucky, because I have an art background.  I can draw anything.  I have illustrated/drawn images and printed them on stickers, but really wish I could help him with pad printing or UV printing.  (this is the depth of my custom knowledge)... I research a bit, but have no idea how to obtain a printer to print directly on legos.  Max's used only like Ninjago... he always wanted me to recreate all the little background mini figures he would see in the videos.  Now Max is a DC Batman and Batman villain fan. so we spend our time researching batman villains and trying to find people who have made them.  But now... all his friends are starting to drive, get jobs, get busy... so he wants a job making legos.  He wants me to help him.  I'm hoping I find answers here. Thank you for any advice on materials, printers, and well everything custom.  

[Peppermint_M]

I think the Custom Minifigure section of the forum could be a helpful section for you. I am more of a mix-n-match than custom printer but plenty of people know about the more technical parts in there.

[Gorilla94]

I made a lot of characters Lego didn't release in physical form. That includes custom printing, new 3D-printed-parts, parts created by cutting and gluing stuff together as well as painting.

I can't help you with doing the printing yourself. I just know flat surfaces work well with pixel grafics, too. If the surface is curved you need vector grafics which is just annoying at the edge of painfull to do. Metal colours seem to be a problem for every printing service I talked to. One Eastern Europe printer solved the problems by painting a piece for example silver by hand and then print on top of that. There are some 3rd party companies offering printing your designs on minifigs. Their prices and quality varries very. I never researched about the American market.

If you want to glue Lego you will have to look some time for a glue that works with ABS-plastic.