How Standard Pro is Transforming the Development of Anime Figures

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

     2025.12.11                          NextShapes,Standard Pro,3D Printing                ＜1 minute                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

 

In the world of anime character and figure creation, turning a concept sketch into a tangible prototype has always been a core challenge. Traditional workflows rely heavily on hand-sculpting, which brings long timelines, high costs, and limited flexibility—barriers especially daunting for independent creators and small studios. Today, a team of seasoned digital artists and prototype specialists is leveraging NextShapes Standard Pro Resin to deliver a new, integrated workflow that accelerates the journey from inspiration to limited production.

 

“For a small team full of imagination like ours, diversity and uniqueness are the norm. Standard Pro allows us to rapidly and accurately bring intricate designs to life with minimal upfront cost. It has essentially become a catalyst for our creative process.”

— Art Director

 

With nearly a dozen color options, excellent strength and hardness, balanced toughness, and superb surface smoothness, Standard Pro has become an ideal choice for concept modeling and figure paint-testing. Its fast curing speed, high rigidity, durability, and ease of cleaning make it perfectly suited for rapid prototyping, early design iterations, art and design workflows, and education.

 

 

 

From Digital to Physical: Accelerating Validation and Iteration

 

 

Traditional prototyping depends heavily on manual craftsmanship; each design requires substantial time to finalize, limiting exploration of multiple concepts in early stages. For dynamic anime characters packed with fine detail, even subtle adjustments in pose or proportion often require extensive rework.

 

 

The combination of desktop LCD/DLP 3D printing with Standard Pro is reshaping this process. After designing in digital space, creators can obtain hand-held, testable prototypes within hours.

 

“In the past, producing three physical samples just to compare different weapon designs was nearly impossible. Now, with Standard Pro and the high-speed layering of LCD printers, we can print all options in a single day, allowing for immediate visual and tactile evaluation. This is not just an efficiency boost—it's a fundamental change in how we make design decisions.”

—Technical Director

 

The team is also building a reusable digital asset library containing dynamic poses, hairstyles, accessories, and more. Creators can mix, match, adjust, and print these elements for rapid validation, expanding both creative breadth and depth.

 

“We want every bright idea to become reality without being constrained by traditional craft or cost. High-performance resins like Standard Pro dramatically lower the barrier to high-quality prototyping. We hope to help more creators bridge the gap between digital design and physical products.”

—Art Director

 

 

Balancing Precision and Performance

Anime figure prototypes make strict demands on material performance: enough hardness to support complex overhanging structures (flowing hair, dynamic clothing), extremely smooth surfaces to reduce sanding, and sufficient toughness to prevent breakage of thin parts like weapons or ornaments.

 

Many resins on the market struggle to deliver this balance—some low-cost materials compromise on strength or toughness. In contrast, others optimized for hardness might fall short in surface quality or reliability.

 

“Standard Pro is a balanced, all-round performer, carefully tuned for desktop LCD/DLP printers,” the Technical Director noted. “Optimized for 405 nm curing, it offers excellent success rates, precision, and the mechanical properties we need. Its smooth finish requires minimal sanding before painting, saving us time to focus on creativity.”

 

From a creator’s perspective, color consistency also matters. “The wide color range helps at different stages—neutral gray for form studies, pure white for paint testing. Its color accuracy far surpasses other materials we’ve used, letting us better predict final results even at the prototype stage.”

—Art Director

 

 

Empowering Extreme Detail and Efficient Paint Testing

 

 

When developing characters with complex shapes, the team experienced firsthand the strengths of Standard Pro. These figures often include fine embossed details, micro-scale cutouts, and delicate dynamic elements—areas where LCD/DLP technology combined with a high-performance resin truly shines.

 

“The millimeter-scale carvings on armor and hair-like micro-patterns are perfect showcases for light-curing 3D printing,” the Art Director explained. “Standard Pro’s high-resolution capability ensures crisp reproduction of these details, while its strength and toughness keep fragile areas intact during handling and painting. It provides an ideal canvas for direct color work.”

 

For paint tests, the material’s compatibility with model paints is crucial. Standard Pro parts, after standard cleaning and curing, bond excellently with various paints, allowing multi-layer shading and weathering tests.

 

“We can now use multiple printers to batch-produce identical head sculpts, enabling painters to test different skin tones and makeup simultaneously. This has completely transformed our workflow and collaboration speed.”

 

 

Reliable Small-Batch Production on Desktop Printers

For original characters, fan-made works, and market-testing runs, production volumes of dozens to hundreds are common. Traditional mold-based injection manufacturing is costly, with high minimum order quantities, creating a barrier for many creative projects.

 

“Our projects naturally require customization and small batches. Using desktop LCD printers with Standard Pro gives us a flexible, cost-controlled production route,” said the Technical Director. “The material’s consistent performance and validated print profiles ensure uniform quality from the prototype to the hundredth limited-edition piece. At this scale, desktop resin printing is unmatched.”

 

Their education partnership is a strong example: the team produced hundreds of articulated figure components for animation courses. “The accessibility of desktop printers and the cost-effectiveness of Standard Pro let us keep per-piece costs extremely low, making large-scale hands-on training possible.”

 

 

Opening a New Chapter in Anime Figure Creation

The Technical Director also highlighted industry trends: “High-quality figure prototyping is rapidly shifting toward digital workflows. Standard Pro—optimized for LCD/DLP printers—strikes a powerful balance of speed, precision, strength, and surface quality. It allows small studios to reliably achieve craftsmanship that once required large factories, pushing the industry toward a more agile and accessible future.”

 

By optimizing their own pipeline, the team represents a broader movement toward a more open, efficient, creativity-focused era in anime figure development. Desktop light-curing technology is becoming the closest partner to imagination, bringing bold ideas to life with precision and durability.