Custom Toy Contest?
 

I brought this up in another thread and I think it'd be a fun thing to do over the summer. Would anyone be interested in joining in on a custom toy contest? I've seen this done on gi joe forums and he-man forums before and I think it'd be lots of fun.

How it would work: First we'd have a thread deciding what universe/theme to use. Archie, old toon, mirage, new toon, robo-turtles, bad guys, whatever. Then whoever joins just makes whatever figure they want from that universe/theme and sends me a picture of their custom figure before the deadline. Then I'll post all the pics in a thread and every forum member, those who participated and those who didn't, will vote on which they like the most. It's all good natured so no one will rip on anyone's work that is entered. The competition sort of helps motivate into getting it done.

Then whoever wins I'll send a prize to. If anyone else wants to donate prizes that's cool too, otherwise I'll decide the prize before we start.

I'd like at least 5 people to enter, otherwise it's no fun. I'll enter too unless anyone objects.

And trust me, I have no skill. So if you're worried you wouldn't make something good enough, don't. This would all be for fun.

The only rules I can come up with are: only 2 entries per person. That way if we only get the minimum 5 people at least we can see 5-10 different custom figures, but anything more than 2 would be too much. Becuase if a person only enters 1 and another person enters 10 it's not fair. Also all figures must be made for the contest, no entering previous made figures. No stealing other people's work either. That's about it.

If anyone's interested let me know by posting here. If no one cares then this thread can just die a slow death. I thought it'd be something fun to do over the summer.

Color me intrigued.

What about groups - IE customs of the Justice Force, etc?

I been waiting for something like this. Count me in.

Okay we have 3 people so far, one being myself. Just need 2 or more to get it going.

Slash: It's 2 figure entries max, however that doesn't mean you can't include other action figures/customs in the photos you submit. This just means that only 2 of the 4 would be entered in the contest.

well I allready told you id do it in a pm.

I'll join!!
I love to make custom figures anyway,and I just started work on a few tmnt ones.....so sign me up'!

As for theme/universe,I'd like to make something out of either the movie(s),new toon,mirage comics or the archie universe....but I'm up for anything really :D

Ok we have 5, and I think TMNTerminator will join too though he hasn't posted in the thread, so that would bring us to 6. I'd like to get more people to join but if that doesn't happen we at least made the bare minimum!

Cowabunga: You made the figure already and want to submit it? If you can pm me and talk to me in detail then we'll see. I wanted everyone to make something during the contest so it's fair, that way we all have the same amount of time.

Also another rule I forgot to add is that you should keep your custom idea secret. When you finish pm me your pics but don't tell anyone what you made. That way when we vote on the figures it won't be a popularity contest. Then at the end we'll reveal (at your request) who made what. If you want to remain anonymous then just let me know.

As of right now we only have 6, so I might take the suggestions of other posters and just allow any universe/theme, just so no one drops out because a theme was picked that they have no interest in.

I'll let this thread run a little big longer, try and get more people to join. Then I'll start another thread with all the rules in one post, what the prize is, and then we can begin!


Edit: If anyone is reading this and isn't sure whether to join or not, because you don't know how to customize toys or whatever, here's some tutorials:

Figure Realm - This one has a lot of great tutorials. I used the wolverine's metal claws and it really worked, highly recommended!

Action Figures on about.com - A page google search brought up, has a lot of sites I've never been to. Might find something.

Jin Saotome - A very popular customizer of marvel legends. I haven't used his guides though I have read over them and some are helpful! Has a good tutorial on what supplies you might want to buy with pics.

Raving Toy Maniac- A very nice website with a couple tutorials.


And if you still have questions just post in here and I'll do my best to help!

This sounds like fun...and it's something I've never really done before. I did try it a few years back, but having eleventy billion small pieces laying about, and four month old kittens just doesn't work out somehow. They're all grown up now...so I don't feel as bad about punting them like gnomes. ^_^
I'm in!


P.S. I love my cats, and only make idle threats.:D

Yea I'm down Ecto as we discussed earlier...

Though keep in mind I have ZERO experience/skill in this sort of thing so the results may be tad less than stellar... :D

Should be fun!

Yea, I think he wants to give it a bit more time to gather interest (and hopefully more participants)...

I'm interested, but only if there are no limits on theme/universe--I want the TMNT source material I can draw from to be very open-ended. I assume you will allow figures made completely from scratch as well as modified toys, yes (I only work from scratch)?

Yeah, making it from scratch is a-ok, better even! And yeah I think we're going to go with make any figure idea you want. If we do future contests we'll choose a specific topic and go with it. That way we know we made it for the contest y'know, otherwise there's no way of telling if the customs were done years ago or not.

Oroku, we'll start in like a week, and I think we'll go to about august 10th. That gives us a month and a couple weeks. If anyone has any objections about the amount of time please speak now or forever hold your peace (I always wanted to say that).

I'm working on the start up thread with all the rules in one place, and a list of all the members who are participating. I'm pleased with the amount of people we have so far.

I will only need two weeks, at most, to complete mine, but I work fast, so a month and a half or so seems fair to me.

I'm already looking for my victims on ebay :evilgrin:

Okay...how in the shell do you start from scratch? o.0 I do have some clay around this house somewhere (yanno...somewhere), but for me that'd be more of a sculpture type thing, and not a toy.

An action figure is nothing but a sculpture/model with articulation. I just make the different parts of a body individually and then hook them all together with wire joints.

Well, aren't you special...:P

Oooooooh.
Yeah the articulation was what I was wondering about there. I am very much "teh noob" at this, so please forgive any stupid questions I may have, and thank you. ^_^

Here's some mid-construction photos of the last custom figure I sculpted (Katt from the Breath of Fire II video game) to show you what I'm talking about visually. Sometimes I sculpt a limb in its entirety and then cut it apart at the knees/elbows etc. to add joints, but usually I make each piece individually and them hook them together. There are many ways to make joints beside wire (pins, hinges, pegs, etc).

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...2_kattFABa.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...2_kattFABb.jpg

She looks good Patraw! ^_^
And thank you for the info, though I'm not sure I want to start from scratch for my first experience here. I would probably screw something up very badly...and Polymer clay is expensive. Or at least it is when you have so many mouths to feed.