How to make figures more customizer-friendly

Posted in Custom Workstation

In the Action Figure Chatter section I posted about how I was disappointed with a recent Kickstarter focusing on making blank human figures for customizing. Everyone who makes these kind of figs never seems to address the problems with customizing them. So, instead of complaining some more, I wanted to post ideas for how to rework figure joints so they're more customizer-friendly.

First up is how to make hinges easier to disassemble. These are found at the elbows, knees, etc.

On the left you can see what a typical current hinge rod looks like. On the right is an idea for how to reshape the rod so it can be pushed in and out more conveniently, without the need for heat.



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Another common problem is paint scraping off where the bicept swivel meets the shoulder piece, because the arm slightly engulfs the shoulder (socket swivel). We have a similar issue at the ankles.

This is very easily fixed with these new ribbed pegs and holes since you can now fine-tune the gaps at the swivels.





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This one is really obvious and easy to fix, simply make the rings in hinges smaller to create a small gap to eliminate paintrub.



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Here's an alternate way to make the hinges. The major benefit is that now there's no need for separate pins so money is saved on molds and materials. Also, no more ugly pinholes in the sides.

The elbow piece would be made of ABS, or something equally rigid. It makes it easier to pop in and out of the softer arm/thigh/etc. piece plus keeps the joint from warping sideways, as usually happens to figures strapped into a package with twist ties.

The star shapes would of course be less aggressive, they should have much smaller "teeth".





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Surface Texture
Another way to make customizing figures easier is to give the surface of the plastic a subtle texture so paint can grip it better. The texture will simply disappear after the figure is painted and sealed since it will be "filled in".


Type of Plastic
This is something that's beyond my understanding. I think figures should use a type of plastic that will accept enamel and/or lacquer paints so we can use those more durable paints straight from the bottle. (Although this isn't necessary if the aforementioned improvements alleviate paintrub completely.)


Tolerances
Keeping a figure's parts at a set distance from each other after being mass produced and assembled is tough to do. If there are some parts that are even 1mm off, then they're going to cause paintrub issues. I think a way to combat this is to use a stiffer plastic, or maybe even ship the figures disassembled so parts don't warp in a package.

While it would be ideal to eliminate paintrub problems entirely, I think it's more realistic to do all we can to minimize them so the customizer has less frustrations while working on the figure.

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What do you think about this?