FancyRat asked me this question a little earlier on and I thought it might be of interest to others too, hence another Journal entry:

In most cases for all the lovely big inflatables you've just seen a Company called Jet makes them:

For big production quantities they make screens for painting individual colours and features onto the flat vinyl. Screening is the application of one colour at a time (using vinyl paint), overlaying one colour on another to form the required shapes and patterns - it uses screens [a bit like a graffiti artist uses cardboard shapes to ensure colours are applied to specific regions of the material].Manufacturers can also print, like an old school dot matrix printer, onto the surface of inflatables.

(Screen printing tends to make lovely glossy finishes, whilst this dot-matrix-esque printer gives it a more matt finish).

Note: I have commissioned the talent and skill of both Rawr and DragonAlexia to produce reference drawings from my original sketches, the manufacturer uses these side, front, back (and sometimes top and underside) views to correctly reproduce the shape of inflatable you're looking for

They can also make presses for cutting all the required panel shapes in one go (to save manufacturing time) or they can cut all the pieces by hand.

I haven't seen a method for automatically making these lovely inflatables though - they all need to be painstakingly held together and their seams bonded by either heat guns or more typically now ultrasonic guns which do the same - heat up the joints, semi-melt the vinyl so it bonds with the other surface making the seams I'll try to explain below:

There are two standard types of seam used: your standard Intex beach whale uses Butted Seams - these make those seams that can sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable (where the edge of the vinyl makes a flappy line), whilst Jet uses overlapping seams, so they are perfectly flat and don't cause any uncomfort to the rider.

Your average inflatable is made from approx 0.2mm thick pvc, whereas a manufacturer like inflatableworld.de will use 0.28mm and Jet go for 0.4mm. So butted seams and thin plastic tends to be cheapest, compared with overlapping seams with 0.4mm which is typically the most expensive.

Finally, the more skill the manufacturer has, the easier and more accurately they can produce the exact inflatable you have in mind. There are a lot of manufacturers out there, but typically Jet and Inflatableworld.de produce the best quality for the type of inflatables they make. (also note there are a lot of companies that try to copy these various designs, but none seem to be able to reproduce them exactly - sometimes distorting the dimensions of an inflatable, making it look a little weird, or more typically making inferior products which tend to fail prematurely at badly formed joints)

I hope I haven't put you to sleep? And if anyone else can correct or add any detail to the above, please feel free, as it all helps when people decide they want to have their inflatables made.

Please also feel free to contact me if you're thinking of having your own inflatables made - at the very least I can help advise, but can also help take you through the process too as I have a fair level of experience now.