How Toy Colors are Divided Up

‘Sections’

Vertical divides in the toy running from top-bottom that can have different patterns/colors.

Example: the right side of the toy is red, the left side is black.

Example 2: The right side of the toy is a red-gold fade and the left side is marbled orange and purple

Base Color

A different color/colors at the bottom of the toy.

To avoid risk of later delamination, I pour these at the same time as the rest of the toy, so the dividing linemight not be perfectly straight.

In toys with obivious bases (ice cream, hell puffin, morel, etc), I’ll add the dividing line there unless otherwise specified. In designs without obvious bases (Scaled Wave), I’ll just add a random strip of color about 1″ high unless othewise specified in the order comments.

Drips

Drips of color from the top or bottom of the toy.

Drips are unpredictable to pour, so there may be several small ones or a few large drips. I’ll do my best to accomodate requests to particular drip styles, but can’t guarantee specific results.

The ‘Extras’ Section

Twist

Spinning the mold as silicone is poured in to achieve a barber-shop-pole like effect with the colors. 

Only possible on toys with 2 sections.

Hard Divide

Only available for toys with 2+ sections. 

Pouring the colors from different cups so there’s a clearer divide between the different color sections. 

Soft Divide

Only available in toys with 2+ sections. 

Dividing a single cup into multiple sections and pouring all the colors at the same time. The colors will blend more along the seams since they touch while being poured. 

Pour Patterns

Solid Colors

1 color throughout the whole toy (I have no examples of this yet)

Soft Marble

Soft Marble:

Colors are poured into a cup at random and then dumped into the mold, leading to a very soft, blended look between colors. 

Be advised, colors without lots of contrast will often blend together aggressivly and might be hard to differentiate. Seafoam Green and Metallic Light Purple, for example, blend pretty aggressivly.

Stripes

Stripes/Layers:

Horizontal bands of color going the length of the toy. Only available in single section toys. 

Please note that as I pour everything ‘wet’ to ensure there’s no delamination down the line, the dividing lines might be a bit wiggly and not perfectly straight. 

Ribboning

My personal favorite pour pattern with lots of squiggles in it. 

Softer silicone tends to make smaller, more feathered ribbons while firmer silicone makes larger, chunkier ribbons. 

Also dependent on the model shape & size – large bulbs of overhangs often don’t get the extremely defined ribboning like other models. Pencils are great for ribboning, Grub Heads not so much. 

Please note it’s impossibly to guarantee a particular look of ribboning on a toy.

Fade

Fade: 

A gradient from one color to another from top to bottom in the toy. 

Zig Zag

Only available on toys with 2 sections and a hard divide. 

Cups are poured in alternating quantities to make a zig zag/uneven line running up the toy. 

Hard Marble

Hard Marble: 

Colors are kept in separate cups and then poured into the toy over and over. Results in fairly differentiated, hard lines between the different colors. Imagine what it might look like if someone took a jar of gummy bears and melted them together… This is basically that. 

Factors that Affect Patterning

Silicone Firmness

Soft silicone is waaay runnier than firm silicone, so it’s easier to do things like fades and the details for things like ribboning tend to be smaller/denser. soft marbling also tends to blend together much more in softer silicones. 

The stiffer the silicone is, the harder it is to get totally smooth fades and things like ribboning & hard marbles will generally be larger.

Toy Shape

If the toy is heavily curved, it’s normally the case that complex patterns like ribboning will blend towards the tip of the toy. This happens because the silicone can only be poured straight down and if the toy is curved enough, there’s physically no way for it to reach the tip without hitting a wall first. This effect is also noticible in the tentacles of Squids and the arms of the Angry Cactus.

Flat toys (like the ravioli) tend to not show ribboning or marbles as well in my experience.

If you’re looking for a toy to really show off ribboning, I personally find straight sides and less surface detail/texture very effective for that. The Pencil and Angry Cactus are particularly good candidates for ribboning.

Glow Powder

This should really be called ‘pigment weight’, but it’s mostly a glow powder issue.

It’s physically heavier than all the other pigments and has an unfortunate habit of sinking. To prevent this, avoid adding glow powder only at the bottom of toys (which is the top while pouring).

In my personal experience, lacing more glow powder throughout the toy also helps mitigate this effect. If at least 50% of the colors throughout the toy have glow powder, there tends to be less distortion. Even better, just make the whole darn thing glow

Want something SUPER custom?

Just reach out to me with whatever you had in mind via the Contact Page!

I reached a point with some of the listings where adding more options would just make them extremely over complicated, so for now, I’ve decided that direct-contact is the easiest way to deal with super-custom toys