Home → Keychain Help

step 0:

own keychains

How can you make good keychains if you don't know what you're looking for in a manufacturer? It's important to know what a good vs bad keychain looks like to you. Questions you should know personal answers for include:
  • Which clasp do you like the best? what is pretty vs functional?
  • what size do you think is practical?
  • how much are you willing to pay for a keychain vs what do you think is overpriced?
  • Do you like a certain finish? there is:
    • clear epoxy
    • glitter epoxy
    • holographic
    • full bleed
    • no extra finish
    • (from left to right) glitter epoxy, full bleed, colored acrylic, water effect

    step 1:

    starting to manufacture

    there are lots of keychain manufacturers, but if you are a beginner, I recommend Vograce. unlike alibaba (another good resource), you don't have to talk to anyone.
    vograce
    vograce is the main keychain manufacturer that I use, but here are other companies to look over that I have used and would recommend:
    • kuien (fast shipping and bright colors)
    • lollipoppins (specialty keychains)
    • juno creatives

    step 2:

    design your keychain

    Keychain designing means prioritizing the following:
    • sillouette
    • contrast
    the final design will come out way smaller than the canvas on your computer, so try not to prioritize details to overall composition

    working with an angled canvas:

    especially when drawing humans, specific height can be important. if you've ever seen a speed draw or work in progress for one of my keychain designs, you've probably noticed that I have the canvas at a 45° angle. This is so I can maximize the size of the final keychain design without paying for a larger acrylic piece

    Below is an example for how big of a difference the Pythagorean theorem has on designs (math is important!!!)

    45° angle
    0° angle
    size comparison
    both designs printed as a 2.5" acrylic keychain

    making characters taller or shorter:

    the girl in the red skirt is supposed to be taller than the girl in the orange kimono. in order to properly portray this in the keychains, I moved the pose and position of the taller character to reach the top and bottom corners of the canvas as much as possible while leaving significant room on the shorter character's canvas

    here is a ~2:00 video of my design process if you are interested!

    @dizzyleopardshop

    drawing tsmugi from danganronpa v3

    ♬ Sunset Street - Official Sound Studio

    step 3:

    check your proofs

    keychain proofs will show your designs, quantity, and clasp for each design
    make sure to double check proofs. once you approve them, it's difficult to get changes made

    step 4:

    unbox your order

    Hooray, your keychains have arrived! make sure to count your keychains and that the epoxy side/clasps match with your proof