RIZE announced a partnership to produce full color 3D printed anime toys.
The company has produced one of the rarest items in the world of 3D printing: a full color 3D printer, so few of which exist that you can count them on one hand. Their technology is able to produce brightly colored 3D prints at a reasonable cost.
The new arrangement has clients of Toronto-based Little You able to select, customize and 3D print from a collection of anime characters. Little You explains:
“We’re reigniting imaginations with a user-friendly design platform that lets children create real-life anime figures through 3D printing. By allowing children to design and customize 3D characters, children are able to create a 3D character and customize every aspect of their appearance and identity. Users can select and add different costumes to design their 3D figure, and they also have the freedom to change colour, size and position for different add-on accessories. Little You will then bring the 3D model to life with 3D printing, which can be delivered anywhere in the world, and allow children to see the fruits of their artistic efforts in a new way.”
RIZE adds:
“With RIZE’s materials, Little You-designed custom figures can move off the shelf and into the hands of the creator. Kids can carry their creations anywhere – toss them in their backpacks, carry them in their pockets, share them with friends, or dance with them in the rain.”
This is an excellent application for RIZE’s full color technology, and I believe this could lead to further developments.
The market for full color 3D prints is surprisingly smaller than originally expected. Several companies have attempted to build full color 3D printers and have failed to find sufficient market to float their business, and others who have developed full color tech have found limited market opportunities.
There seems to be only two markets for full color 3D printing at the moment: color prototypes, mostly for fashion or design items, and color collectibles.
This partnership between RIZE and Little You is the latter.
But it is, I believe, the first for RIZE, and could be the first step on a trajectory of color applications. By establishing this first relationship, RIZE will demonstrate their capability to others who may then consider similar arrangements.
The goal of the collectible business is to get into the mass market characters, which are surely the most collectible of all. These character designs are owned by major corporations, who mostly have stayed away from the custom 3D printed collectible market for now.
But imagine in the future if a color 3D printer manufacturer like RIZE were able to land a deal with, say, Disney, to produce their characters on demand. That would be astoundingly huge for RIZE, or whoever gets the business.
Disney isn’t really doing this yet on a large scale, but if one were to have the goal of making that deal, the first step would be to build a network of smaller deals using similar technologies and processes.
Just like the Little You arrangement.
We’d better keep an eye on RIZE for the next while.
Via BusinessWire, RIZE and Little You
