Foundry
What We Do
You’re probably wondering a few things: Is the process collaborative? How rigorous are the quality controls? What is all of this going to cost? If you're asking these questions, you're in the right place. Some clients come to us with everything figured out—budgets, timelines, deliverables. Others arrive with a literal napkin sketch. Both work! AFA Foundry is happy to meet you where you are.
Who We Work With
Sculptors, architects, designers, creative directors, cities, municipalities, private institutions. We work with anyone looking to create meaningful, enduring works of art.
We’ve completed projects for some of the biggest institutions in the world, including Disney, DC, Warner Brothers, Jim Henson Creature Shop, Blizzard, the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG), the Writer’s Guild, the National Basketball Association (NBA), the City of Burbank, and the City of West Hollywood.
We’ve also produced artwork for some of the world’s top fine artists, including KAWS, Richard MacDonald, Bill Mack, Tom Schomberg, Kai, Antony Micallef, and Mark Strickland.
The common thread isn't budget size or scale. It’s work that demands excellence.
Why We're Different
Swiss watch mentality (the last 1%)
Precision and discipline are standard practice.
We use virgin wax because it captures detail without introducing imperfections. That means cleaner castings, less corrective work, and precise replication of the artist's original vision. We painstakingly match our bronze ingot to specially sourced welding rod to ensure clean, nearly imperceptible seams. We meticulously engineer each gating system to avoid porosity, prevent miscasts, and deliver consistently superior castings.
This is a culture of intentionality. We believe the integrity of the whole relies on the precision of the parts, which is why every step of our process is executed with steady, practiced hands and a refusal to cut corners.
We speak multiple languages
Creative directors think in intent and experience. Architects think in structure and scale. Artists think in form and meaning. Each speak a language as nuanced as the work itself. For more than 50 years we’ve learned to speak these languages fluently, and more importantly, how to translate between them.
Partnership, not just production
We know where projects get stuck. Scale. Budgets. Timelines. We'll tell you what's possible, what's not, and what the trade-offs are. You make the call. We make it happen.
We understand how to navigate complex stakeholder environments. Architects, structural engineers, designers, creative directors, city councils, general contractors, administrators, auditors, lawyers—we’ve worked alongside them all to keep projects aligned and moving from concept to installation. We can help you do the same.
The toolbox is deep
Traditional lost-wax casting. Hundreds of patina options. 3D printing for complex geometry or rapid prototyping. Fabrication. Mixed Media. We're not locked into one way of working and we’re always looking for new and exciting challenges.
Our Process
Our process is nearly twenty-five hundred years old. Yes, really.
Long before modern tools and technologies, the ancient Greeks were casting bronze using the lost wax method. We still use it today. That means the Riace Bronzes (450 BC) and the Charioteer of Delphi (470BC) were created using the same fundamental process as The Thinker (1880) and Rocky Balboa (1982). Time-tested is an understatement.
Where we differ from other shops using lost wax casting, and where we stake our claim as the best bronze art foundry in Southern California, is in the execution.
Across mold, wax, shell, burnout, foundry, knockout, sandblast, metal chase, and patina disciplines, our artisans average an incredible twenty-three years of experience. These are bona fide craftsmen who’ve dedicated their working lives to produce the finest bronze castings in the country.
We take the long view. Done right, bronze outlives everyone who touched it. Every decision in the shop follows from that.
What Happens Next
Take a look at our work here.
When you're ready to start a conversation about a project, request a quote.
Digital Sculpting
Whether you have a sketch, technical drawing, or just an idea, our digital sculptors can help you realize your vision.
We routinely work alongside artists, designers, architects, and everyday people to develop high-quality models designed specifically for our proprietary Voxeljet 3D Print → Lost Wax Bronze Casting Workflow. The result is a model that's both beautiful and purpose-built to cast cleanly and efficiently.
3D Scanning, Sculpting, and Enlargement
Leveraging industrial-grade 3D printers, AFA Foundry's proprietary Voxeljet 3D Print --> Lost Wax Bronze Casting Workflow gives digital artists working in ZBrush, Rhino, SOLIDWORKS, and similar tools a direct pathway toward realizing their work in bronze. Skip the hassle of producing and shipping a resin mold master by instead sending your OBJ or STL file directly to our team. From there, we'll cut and prep the model to cast in bronze cleanly and efficiently.
For traditional sculptors, AFA's 3D printing workflow solves a different problem: scale. A single hand-sculpted maquette can become a half-life gallery piece, a life-size monument, or both. Regardless of where you are in the country, we travel to scan your original, resize it digitally, and print it for casting at whatever scale the project calls for.
Project Management
Large-scale public art and fabrication commissions demand more than craftsmanship. They demand discipline. AFA's project managers are PMP certified, bringing formal training in scope, schedule, and risk management to every commission we take on.
Communication is a core deliverable, not an afterthought. Clients receive regular status updates, direct access to their project manager, and prompt answers when questions come up. You will always know where your project stands.
For commissions spanning multiple disciplines, from architects and structural engineers to artists and designers, our project managers serve as the single point of coordination, keeping every team aligned to the same schedule and specification. That coordination is what allows AFA to take on public monuments and large institutional works with confidence: the scale of the piece never outruns the system managing it.
COLLABORATE
Art, Creativity & a Collaborative Foundry
We support artists and visionaries in bringing meaningful work into the world. If you have a project in mind, we are ready to help you build it — the right way.