Once again, I shall just summarise the clip for those who either can’t understand, can’t stream or can’t be bothered.
1. The unassembled finished parts are sent to the "Pen You Bu" (Mandarin for Paint Spray Section) for assembly and painting.
2. The parts that have been painted are painstakingly wrapped in white paper to prevent scratches and damage prior to assembly. The example shown seems to be Ureshiko’s skirt.
3. There is quality control (QC) at many stages of production. Each component is thoroughly checked before assembly. This probably contributes to the overall high standards of GSC.
4. The parts that fail QC are touched up with paint if still usable. Those that aren’t are discarded.
5. The painters use normal airbrushes. The type that hobby modellers use. The type depends on the painter’s role. For example, one who does the big parts like umbrella has a much larger airbrush than one who just does the graduations/tones/shadows. Yes, it’s all painted by humans.
6. Now this part is interesting. The mask techniques are surprisingly simple, depending on the type of mask required. Remember how in hobby painting, we use masking tape, which is so labour intensive? These guys use a cardboard box, cut holes in the bottom and stick the parts in, exposing just the surfaces which need to be painted. Ingenious.
7. As for more complicated patterns, for example, that woman’s umbrella, a specialised clamp-like device covers the piece and exposes just the parts which have to be painted.
8. The painters also apply pre-shading to give the effect of more tone. This was sort of made common by Watanabe Max himself, where he sprayed a part black slightly before applying the actual paint coat.
That concludes the spray painting part. The show moves over to the "Yi Yin Che Jian" (Tampo printing Garage). For those not in the loop, tampo printing is a method of painting which is just stamping an ink-covered soft silicone head onto the part. It’s cheap, fast and accurate. I recall having an early article on this.
9. The secret behind PVC figure eyes are revealed! It is not decals as previously thought, but rather multi-layed tampo printing.
10. The tampo presses look like breasts.
11. Almost the entire process is automated here, so the results are very consistent.
12. The eyes and other fine details are done here.
Now it’s the assembly stage.
13. The individual parts are glued here.
14. An extra layer of finish is applied to the panties.
15. Since the parts are painted before they are assembled, the presence of seam lines are inevitable. Here at the assembly stage, some painting is done on the seams to hide them.
16. Another thing is, the colour could be inconsistent for two separate parts. It is also at this stage that a transition paintjob is applied to reduce any obvious non-standardisation in colour.
17. The figures are moved from one station to another via conveyor belt. Like a true assembly line now.
The final stage is packing. Again, it’s all by hand. China does have a lot of people I guess.
18. Each person is responsible for only one step of the packing. Person A puts Takako into her plastic holder. Then conveyor belts it to B who adds the base into the slot. etc etc.
19. That’s all folks.
Most Commented