Figurines made here are almost human ...
Print Edition
Mydarling Cultural and Creative Development Co Ltd is turning a former elevator factory in Jiading into an emerging industrial park with lifelike figurines.
Each year, this 26,667-square-meter park manufactures 800 pieces of silica gel figurines and relevant products, providing 80 percent of China’s museum models and settings and making over 100 million yuan (US$15.87 million) in annual output.
A tour of times and places
At the park’s waxwork museum, visitors can enjoy a cultural space featuring about 100 wax models related to movies, folk traditions, cartoons and celebrities. A walk through the 500-square-meter space is like a tour of different times and places.
Touching the skin of the wax figurines, one can feel as if it is from an actual human being. “Compared with traditional wax figures, these have been upgraded with silica gal materials, which has a texture like real one,” explained a director at the museum.
A closer look at the figurines reveals more details to the observer. The hair, moustache, eyebrows, eyes and even marks on the skin like wrinkles are as vivid as if the model had come to life right at that moment.
“Making such a wax models would take over 80 procedures and more than a month, from collecting materials to final completion,” said a worker at the museum.
On the other side of the museum, visitors can see the most direct three steps of the overall process — wax casting, hair planting and make-up, which are presented by Mai Art Culture, a company in the park.
Each detail needs to be carefully crafted. “The fingernails, knuckles and the blood vessels will all need to be painted with pigments,” said a craftsman.
Figurine going smart
Meanwhile, techniques for the wax figures are marching to the next stage. President Wang Jiefei of Mydarling has his eyes on the smart market. The company is to join with Mai Art to develop a new type of smart figurine.
“We adopt 3D printing technology to make skeletons with resin for the figurine and our smart system supported by Harbin Institute of Technology has been loaded with Chinese characters as well as facial expressions,” said Wang. “Our final goal is to make a figurine with its own emotions and conversation features.”
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