Advice on HQ Printing

[ThousandMoon]

Hi, I've been collecting and customising (SW) Minifigures for around 4 years - my customisation hasn't really gone beyond 3rd party parts, some print removal, stickers and the odd bit of basic modification.

However there are several designs (both within the SW theme but also several other 'non-Lego' themes) that just can't be achieved with existing parts. Therefore I've been considering the possibility of investing in a quality printer to bring my ideas to life, and perhaps starting a custom Minifigure side line business to make it financially viable. However in all honesty I don't know the first thing about the printing process or costs, technical skill involved etc, so I'm after some advise to determine whether it's a realistic pursuit or not.

I would want to produce between 50-100 figures for each design, with the quality, detail and range of colours to be of the highest standard, so I suppose a finish akin to Citizen Brick and the like, or indeed Lego. What sort of printer would be best, and what sort of prices are we realistically looking at?

Is it a case of a few practice print-runs before nailing the technique, or does it require a significant amount of experience and technical skill to produce 'professional' results?

Apologies for the fairly loaded questions, but I felt this was perhaps the best forum to start on, and any advise will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[deraven]

The first thing to decide is your printing method.  If you want the highest quality (Citizen Brick or Lego-level) they you're talking about pad printing.  That's going to start at a few thousand dollars for a decent quality multi-color pad printer, plus you need some way to do the plates.  Pad printing is not like inkjet or UV printing where you pull an image up on screen and hit the print button; you actually need an engraved plate for each color/process step of your pad print.

Unless you already have a high-resolution, precision laser engraving machine that you might be able to use for making steel plates, I would suggest looking at the process to make photopolymer plates (which should hold up well enough since you won't be doing high-volume printing).  If you can get that sorted out and feel comfortable with it, then it gets easier from there.

[ThousandMoon]

3 hours ago, deraven said:

The first thing to decide is your printing method.  If you want the highest quality (Citizen Brick or Lego-level) they you're talking about pad printing.  That's going to start at a few thousand dollars for a decent quality multi-color pad printer, plus you need some way to do the plates.  Pad printing is not like inkjet or UV printing where you pull an image up on screen and hit the print button; you actually need an engraved plate for each color/process step of your pad print.

Unless you already have a high-resolution, precision laser engraving machine that you might be able to use for making steel plates, I would suggest looking at the process to make photopolymer plates (which should hold up well enough since you won't be doing high-volume printing).  If you can get that sorted out and feel comfortable with it, then it gets easier from there.

Hi, thanks so much for your response. So I've done a little research today, and am I right in thinking:

Pad printing is a better finish/quality than UV printing, or at least more akin to Lego?

Pad printers: generally cheaper than UV printers, but the process is more laborious?

[deraven]

9 hours ago, ThousandMoon said:

Pad printing is a better finish/quality than UV printing, or at least more akin to Lego?

Some people might debate the quality, but I think most would agree and pad printing is what Lego uses.  UV printing, especially on non-flat surfaces, usually results in lower quality (resolution) prints especially when compared side-by-side, and at least I personally don't like the texture that it ends up with on the finished parts.

9 hours ago, ThousandMoon said:

Pad printers: generally cheaper than UV printers, but the process is more laborious?

Very generally, yes.  You can spend a lot on either, but ultimately the pad printer is just a printing press and isn't nearly as costly from a technical perspective.  Now, you can pay a lot more for automation and multi-color setups (which is usually were you want the automation to ensure you get proper alignment between all the color passes, etc.) but an entry-level pad printer can certainly be found for less than a lot of UV printer setups.  But you do have to take into account the cost of everything related to the plates for pad printing, and if you're doing quantity and a lot of different designs you're going to have a lot more time in setup with pad printing compared to (basically) just hitting "print" on the UV printer.

I'm no expert so perhaps someone else can chime in with more detail if they've done print runs with both options.  Another quick thing to mention, depending on how many designs you're looking to do, in what quantities, and how often, it might be cheaper to have your custom designs printed by some place like Citizen Brick.  Eventually the cost of equipment and time would be offset and come in lower to do it yourself with enough production (or if you're wanting to only run off a few prints of some designs), but for 50-100 each of a few different designs you might be in the middle ground where you could go either way.

[ThousandMoon]

Hey thanks again for all your advise - really helpful and hugely appreciated!

I've been comparing some parts and figures of mine from various sellers (including Citizen Brick), and I can see the difference between pad and UV - I've got some great figures and parts that are clearly UV printed, but the pad printing is certainly smoother and therefore more like Lego. It also appears to have a greater coverage / depth on curved surfaces like arms and heads (correct me if I'm wrong?).

I'd probably want anything between 1 and up to possibly 6 different colours on some parts as well, so I think for the desired finish I'd need to look into a multi-colour automated pad printer, right?

Do you know any more about the plate making process? Is steel only preferable for it's durability (if doing large/continuous volumes), or would a high-resolution, precision laser engraving machine / steel plates produce better results?