Loek van Kooten, MAThe Japanese word for sculpting a Pokémon figure is the same word your kindergarten teacher used for pinching clay ducks.
造形 (zōkei). "Making form. " Character design, 3D modeling, figure sculpting, art-school assignments. If a thing has shape and someone shaped it, it's 造形 (zōkei). 造 (zō), to make. In oracle bones: wood (木) worked with an axe (斤), a curved stick (巳), a wooden pounder (殳). You were building a boat. 形 (kei), form. Shirakawa traces it to bronze casting: 井 is the frame that held the mold, 彡 is the glossy finish of the cooled product. 形 is the shape that comes out of the mold.
So 造形 (zōkei) isn't vague shaping. It's bringing a finished form into the world. What a sculptor at Good Smile Company does. What a six-year-old with a lump of clay does. 美術の授業で、粘土を使って動物を造形する練習をした。 Bijutsu no jugyō de, nendo wo tsukatte dōbutsu wo zōkei suru renshū wo shita. In art class, we practiced shaping animals using clay. What's the last thing you made with your hands? 造形 (zōkei) lives on learn.japanology.nl alongside 32,500+ other words. We start easy, newcomers welcome.