The Art of gifting: This Chennai company makes miniature dolls to make occasions memorable

Prior to the launch of MCM, Hari and his team mostly used to work on stone sculptures for home interiors. 

"The carving and chiseling are different in both materials, that is in stone and clay. But people are more interested in the miniature form because it is more life-like," he adds.  

Chiselling stone also takes a longer time than doing the same with clay. 

It takes around 10 days to completely finish one figure and the delivery can take around five to six weeks.

"Each month we take around 200 orders even though we get many more orders."

That is because, Hari says, they are facing a staff crunch. While the eight-member team intends to scale up, hiring sculptors on a long-term basis is proving to be difficult.  Most sculptors are freelancers, and work on life-like sculptures including bigger moulds.

The self-taught sculptor says that making smaller figurines, while not specifically tough, needs some practice. 

Customers are required to send the pictures based on which they want the miniatures. Currently, the mini dolls with readymade body models and a customized head come at a price of Rs 4,000, whereas for the fully customized ones people will have to shell out Rs 4250. The figurines also come with a warranty.