Shopping Guide
We'd like to introduce the third part of “Modeling Business! The Latent Potential of the Figure Maker,” the 11th episode of the Japanese subculture TV program Japacon TV (broadcast at 12:00 a.m. Fridays via the poplar satellite channel BS Fuji). This time, the focus is on one of the leading Japanese figure manufacturers: Good Smile Company.
Good Smile Company, also known by the pet name “Gussma” and abbreviated GSC, is a company that produces figures of various anime and game characters deformed to about a 2.5 ratio between the head and body, known as Nendoroids. The Petit Nendoroid, which is half that size, has been well received amongst Nendoroid fans and has sold over 3 million units. Limited editions of anime Blu-rays and comics often come with Nendoroids, and it's a popular product that many anime fans have seen.
In an interview with the representative director of Good Smile Company, Aki Takanori, we learned that a Nendoroid can be produced in about half the time it takes to produce a regular figure. However, even if the production time is short, the process of production itself is not simple. Each item the character may have, such as a gun, is faithfully created using CAD and then deformed. This may be one of the reasons why they became very popular.
The prototype is designed with a 3D software, and the data is then rendered by a rapid prototyping machine to produce a completed prototype. If you want to see the machine executing that process, you can check the program!
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.
