Footage from Chinese "Sofubi" Factory?

3 days back and I'm getting rage flashbacks... SERENITY NOWWWW!!

Of course slush casting has been around forever - but not when it comes to producing vinyl toys outside of Japan.

I don't know why so many members defend the blatant bullshit that's taking place within the sofubi scene recently.. whether if it's Hirota's paranoid sales methods or the swiping of production methods and styles (robots, gorillas, zombies) left right and centre. I was attracted to these toys because they were unique and had a certain charm about them. Unfortunately the bullshit is far outweighing the good stuff atm - no wonder the fugly thread has been so active.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but your premise in this thread seems to be that what is shown in the videos is representative of something brand new happening in Chinese factories. It's not. Chinese factories have been using Japanese slush casting techniques for a long time.

There are Bandai Ultraman kaiju figures from the late 1990s made in mainland China that have identical properties to the ones made in Japan. M1GO made a figure in China around 2001, it felt just like their other figures. Marusan's TEDEROS figures were made in China. Going way back to 1978, you have Mattel's Godzilla's Gang toys, made in Taiwan and feel just like the Popy King Zaurus toys from Japan.

I'm not defending anyone's bullshit, I'm just disagreeing with what I think is your thesis statement here.

 

Ok fair enough - however I think it's the same kind of grey area that has been discussed on the boards previously in other areas. Would there be so many new gorilla/mecha gorilla/vintage robot kit vinyl toys around if HxS wasn't so popular? The same defense could be made.. gorilla sculptures have been around for thousands of years

But seriously, you've supplied some good info - and at this stage I feel like I'm coming off like the Bagel Shop Guy when it comes to chinese production. I've had my own personal issues with quality control with the Cheestroyer vinyl toy etc so there are definitely personal things there that get my blood boiling.

 

Maybe part of the issue with this discussion is that I know nothing about "the scene." I collect the old Marusan and Bullmark toys and their direct descendants, that's it. It's a pretty severe case of tunnel vision but it keeps my collecting focussed.

I do see that a lot of modern sofubi makers like gorillas (sometimes with extra heads) but I have no idea who "Hirota" or "HxS" is. There's definitely an experience gap at work here. ;P

 

Seems like it @Roger - you may not be hip to the current state of affairs but your 'old-school' knowledge has been a great resource for the board on several occasions. And by no means Japanese vinyl is perfect either...

On a related note I showed your post about the blank cheap Bear Models to Yoda during dinner when he was in town - he believed that they were defective samples. Hope that helps in some kind of way!

 

A little late to the party here. How do you guys feel about the Soft Vinyl factory that's being built in Texas?

I'm still in the larval stages of my collection, so my opinion may not be worth much here. I personally don't care where it's made, if it's a nice-looking vinyl kaiju toy, and if it's made in similar style to the classic stuff. That being said, I know that every collector has a different criteria for what fits within the collection, and I understand country of origin being important to some folks.

The only thing I'm a bit concerned about is the chemical makeup. People have mentioned here that some of the chemicals used in the Japanese workshops are strictly regulated, here. I haven't looked into this personally. If that's true, could that mean that the chemical makeup of USA vinyl would be different from Japan vinyl? If so, it could take a very long time to see the flaws in the new material. I've had to deal with bad plastics in Transformers & Legos before, and it's no fun.

 

Here ya go http://www.skullbrain.org/bb/index.php?threads/american-soft-vinyl-producers.50793/#post-975254

 

Thanks, Patrick. Sorry I missed that. I swear I used the search function, but I didn't search thoroughly enough. Apparently in that whole thread, nobody called him by his full name, haha. I should have just searched "Texas" or looked up the company name first. Please disregard my previous post.

 

Another video from the Jester factory in Shenzen. Can anyone tell what figures are being pulled here?

 

It’s probably something with lost of postules and a severed penis.

Or maybe some homage to hitler/trump that will go out in a joker colorway

Also, maybe you have better context. Is most of the large sofubi done in China. I mean the ones that are several feet big

 

That’s pretty wild. It’s almost identical to Japanese factory pulling. The liquid vinyl looks super thin, though.

 

yup the liquid vinyl looks like they cut that shit with something to make it go further lol. also, to each his own, but there is absolutely no way i'm doing this without gloves on.

 

@eckotyper Honestly, gloves only came into play for me when I had to pull the vinyl from the molds, so I could get a good grip on the pliers. It’s probably a general good practice when dippin’ the molds into the chemical bath, but it’s not a very splashy process.

 

Great video, thanks for sharing Roger!

 

just saying, ive learned the hard way after always thinking i dont need safety glasses... lol now im responsible

 

@eckotyper Touché! I guess I’m lucky as hell I didn’t learn anything the hard way during my factory time. Other than making toys kinda sucks, even with how cool the end result is. Shit’s hard!!!