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As we sell Custom Minifigure we have been asked a few times about the printing quality. Printing has become more affordable and we seeing more and more third party vendors creating amazing custom minifigures.
Without boring you with a lot of geeky printing jargon there are two main types of printing. Pad Printing used by Christo and eclipseGrafx and Laser printing done by Minifigs4u and Green Pea Toys. The printing quality of both is excellent so we thought we would do a comparison using the pad printed War Machine and laser printed American Armored Patriot.
The printing of the War Machine is equal to LEGO printing and to be honest you wouldn’t know the difference. When you run your finger over the minifigure you can just feel where the printing lines are. The printing on the American Armored Patriot looks sharp however when you run your finger over the minifigure all the printed lines are raised. You can see the difference in this photograph.
In conclusion pad printing is much closer to LEGO quality although the minifigures are usually more expensive, and laser printing while not as smooth, the lines do seem to add more depth. This is really noticeable on the head where American Armored Patriot does look more 3D.
I really do recommend you buy a custom minifigure from one of the mentioned vendors, as the quality is very impressive. To be honest some of LEGO’s printing is not that exceptional depending from which country they come from, but that’s another guide!
