A resin portrait starts as a drawing Tedooo technology makes from your photograph, approved before anything is mixed. Then, by hand: the ground is laid, glitter and gold leaf, pearl or a sanded tree slice; the portrait goes on in layers of tinted resin, or as paint on the grain; and one clear flood seals it and is polished.
What happens before anything is poured?
The drawing and the approving. You upload a photograph on the create page, Tedooo's design technology draws it as a resin portrait in about a minute, and you look at it before you pay. Nothing is poured until you have seen the design and said yes.
If it is not right, try different words, another background or another photo and draw once more; every attempt costs nothing until one is approved. Once you check out, the bench compares the approved design with your photograph before mixing, because the approved design is what we pour.
How is the ground laid?
Each piece begins with its ground, and the ground is different for each of the four pieces.
- Glitter panel: glitter and gold leaf are laid into the first pours, so they sit under the portrait rather than on it.
- Pearl panel: the shimmer is poured first, either the mother-of-pearl or the iridescent opal you chose on the create page.
- Ornament: the resin is tinted and set in the round, inside the thin gold rim.
- Wood slice: a real tree round is sanded to the grain with the bark edge left on, ready to be painted.
The bench itself is kept level, which matters more with resin than with paint: a liquid finds its own level, and a flood that settles unevenly would cure that way.
How is the portrait built up?
In fine layers of tinted resin on the panels and the ornament, and in raised colour straight onto the grain on the wood slices. We mix the pigments by hand, lay the colour in stages and finish with the eyes, which is where a likeness lives or dies.
Because each layer sits inside the piece, the colour has depth: a dark coat reads darker, a pale one lets the gold or the pearl show through. This is also why a resin portrait is slow to make. Each layer has to set before the next goes on, and that cannot be hurried without clouding it. How long a piece takes sets out the lead times.
What is the clear flood?
The last pour: one clear layer of resin over the whole piece, tipped across it and left to cure glass-hard. On the ornament it is domed over the face of the disc; on the wood slice it goes right over the bark edge too.
When it has cured we polish it by hand to a mirror gloss. That flood is what seals the glitter, the pearl, the paint and the portrait together, and it is the surface you will dust for years.
How does the piece leave the studio?
Panels leave ready to hang on a single screw, the ornament on its chain with its gold rim fitted last, and the wood slice with its own small easel. Each is boxed in crinkle paper and tracked end to end.
Everything about the pour is ours: the mixing, the layering, the flood and the polish. The drawing is Tedooo's, and every sale goes through Tedooo's checkout, which is also where the money goes. The materials in each piece are listed on the materials page.
Questions this leaves
Do you pour from the photo or from the design?
From the design you approved. Your photograph is what Tedooo draws the design from, and what we check the design against at the bench. The design is what gets poured, so what you saw on screen is what arrives.
Is any of it done by machine?
No. A machine has never touched the resin. We mix, layer, pour and polish every piece by hand. The only part that is not ours is the drawing of the design, which is Tedooo technology.
Can I ask for something specific in the pour, like gold leaf in the corners?
Yes, at the design stage. On the create page there is a line for an AI touch: describe the background or a detail, a beach behind him, gold leaf in the corners, and the design is drawn with it. What you then approve is what we pour.
