Making great toys hinges on having both artistic freedom and engineering control. Plastic toys are essentially small sculptures with intricate details. They’re also mass-produced items that need to meet specific requirements defined by manufacturing methods. The first type of design work requires organic modelling and the second the precision of CAD operations. Toy designers need both.

When you’re using Geomagic Freeform, you don’t really think about the ins and outs of the program – you’re just working. That’s something that I’ve always loved about it. Eleazar Kim-Carmeli, Director of 3D design, sculpting and the creative resources team. Jakks Pacific.

Geomagic Freeform gives them just that. Bringing together tools for digital sculpting with CAD, it enables designers to carry out a complete toy design workflow, from brief to prototype, in the same environment, and to ensure manufacturability.

The first thing a designer considers when looking at a brief is how to scale. Simply increasing a two-inch figure to six feet or vice versa is not going to cut it. Details are going to be lost or overblown.

In addition, if an element is too thin or too small, it won’t come out right in manufacturing. These errors can be corrected in a further iteration, but not without delaying the delivery. Because Geomagic Freeform gives real-world measurements and dimensions, it’s easy to get features exactly right.

Geomagic Freeform allows Jakks to create articulated toys that work. They can set rotational pivots, check clearances for manufacturing, and create a toy that’s fun to play with.

While these designs are complex, the software is easy to use. “When you’re using Geomagic Freeform, you don’t really think about the ins and outs of the program – you’re just working. That’s something that I’ve always loved about it,” Kim-Carmeli says.

The learning curve is low. Designers master it in a few days. “I’ve been working in toy design long enough to have seen toys done by hand, with early-stage digital sculpting tools that were very difficult, and with Geomagic Freeform. Other tools that have an esoteric interface or a linear method of working. Freeform is a tool that your designers simply pick up and make things,” Kim-Carmeli says.

The ease of use is particularly important today. The toy industry is moving surprisingly fast. Staff produce hundreds of designs a year. Creating high quality designs that work right is what makes the difference. “When people don’t use Geomagic Freeform, they have a lot of trial and error. Jakks creates designs that look right and are manufacturable immediately,” Kim-Carmeli concludes.

Computer monitor displaying a detailed 3D sculpture of a snarling werewolf character

Designer creating toy in Geomagic Freeform

With a comprehensive toolkit for design and manufacture, Jakks creative team will continue to shape memorable creatures and characters, bringing joy to households across the globe. If you’d like to learn about the tools they use in more detail, visit Geomagic Freeform for Industrial applications.

Jakks Pacific raises the standard in toy design with Geomagic Freeform