How the heck are people printing directly on the figures?

[BrickG]

A lot of custom minifigure places have custom printing directly on the figures. No decals or anything like that.

Who, what, when, where, why? I'm sure it's absurdly expensive but I'm curious. What kind of machinery do you need? How do they pull it off?

[Brandon Miller]

It's done by pad printing.

[JopieK]

Well a Roland VersaUV can do it:

http://www.rolanddga.com/resources/images/pr/2013/sgia/Roland_VersaUV_LEF-20_Benchtop_UV_Flatbed_Printer.jpg

Twice the price of our Roland Versacamm unfortunately!

[ReplicaProfile]

I have seen users talk about services that print for them but I am not sure of the price.

[LuxorV]

Here's a discussion on machine printing. Please use the Search function before opening a new topic. Thanks.