Ideally I would like to find a balance between a material that will work in most conditions (80% rule) and materials for extreme conditions. The generic material should support wear, reasonable heat and cold (work inside and outside), wet environments (humidity/rain/snow), UV protection (working in the sun for 12hr). The extreme material should support high heat (firefighter), shrapnel (military), high chemical resistance (disaster cleanup), etc. I would prefer to use one set of molds for the different materials. All materials should be dent and fracture resistant, (should survive a fall or impact).
So far many have recommended glass or carbon Long Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic (LFRT), I also started looking into Bulk Molding Compound (BMC) and Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) thermosets.
The prototype and initial short production run will be produced via compression molding, as I move to larger production runs I will most likely move to injection molding.
Open compression molding questions:
- Required pressure
- Required heat /cooling
- How to mount the molds to the platen
- How to align a two part mold
- Mold design to support required heat/pressure
I will update the blog as I get these questions answered.
Long Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic (LFRT)
Bulk Molding Compound (BMC)
Sheet Molding Compound (SMC)
Mold
SMC/BMC molding process
Sample BMC Part
Humanoid Platform 
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