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Court of the Dead

Feb 9, 2012

Geoff Soderberg's Crustacean customs... and Mickey!

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I'm like Keithing- I love toys based on sea life. There are so many wonderful sea creatures like jellyfish, crabs, the kiwa hirsute, and all those weird-ass animals that live around the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the sea floor... they all make for super-interesting collectibles when artists choose to use them. It doesn't happen often. So when Geoff Soderberg sent me some images of his customs, I was stoked to find several of his pieces look like custom crustaceans. Not sure if they're actual painted crab shells, or they're just great sculpts, but I love 'em either way.

Geoff also does non- crustacean pieces, like the Mickey Mouse piece below:

MeSmithy KayNid Anubis and Winter Kitsune

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We'd like to welcome our newest advertiser, Megan Smithyman, to our blog! MeSmithy is an artist working in CA, utilizing stitched leather to create her unique custom toy designs. In my opinion, once you start incorporating old-school materials in a custom toy, it starts to make that transition from "toy" to objet d'art. It feels legit, for me, maybe because I frequently have to explain that these items are not in fact toys, per se, in the normal definition of the word. Still, a painted piece of plastic is seen, by many people, as a toy, no matter what you say. Throw some leather on there and I think most of those people wouldn't need so much convincing. Handcrafted leather items seem to hold more weight in traditional society, and I think MeSmithy's customs are a wonderful crossover type of product that help legitimize our obsessive toy collecting. 

Plus, I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Just sayin'.
Check out MeSmithy's website here. For some really unique custom art toys, keep wtaching MeSmithy's shop. The Anubis figure (top) is for sale, in addition to other pieces.

Feb 6, 2012

A Challenge for Nico Deacosta

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A collector named Willem recently got in touch with us and wanted us to feature his (still unfinished) custom series he commissioned from Nico Deacosta. While this is very interesting, this is not the usual type of post that I write, so I will let Willem tell the story:

I got addicted to vinyl by a colleague from work.
He introduced me with the dunny's.

And within a month i gathered several dunny's, from different series.
And when i got familiar with the KR boards, the hobby/collection got even bigger...

I got to know some very good artists, who made custom dunny's.
These were even better then the original..

So i started to collect customs.
Fuller, Matt A, Rsin, Ardabus Rubber, Fail2Evolve, Nikejerk and many more..

Then i got to know Nico Deacosta aka Likhang Pinoy.
A very good artist..

I asked him if he could do a theme, a set of 12 3"dunny's
And he accepted the challenge..

And i must say, his work came out better then i could dream...
Gratz for Nico!!






Sounds like Willem has good taste in customizers! These Dunnys are pretty sweet. I'm diggin that Carnage one myself. By the way, I'd love to explore Nico's blog in order to flesh out this post, but it's set to private.  Click here if ya wanna see for yourself.

Voodoo Bud: the second Tribesman from NEMO, for sale now

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NEMO has released the second of his Three Tribesmen series: the Voodoo Bud! Based on a cheap plastic platform called Doodle Budz, this 3 to 4-inch tall vinyl figure features crazy troll hair, a loincloth and bright paint work. This piece is for sale here on our NEMO page, where a whole slew of one-of-a-kind customs are available (including the first Tribesman).

Plaseebo custom Garamon for GAGAMANIACAL show

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Plaseebo sends us images of his latest masterpiece:

Here is my custom Garamon for the GAGAMANIACAL show that opens this Friday February 10th at FOE Gallery (Northampton, MA).

14" high glow in the dark vinyl with inset eyes and an internal color changing LED unit that has a "metal controller rock"  located in the modified back of his head that functions as the switch to turn the Led unit on and off. He also comes with his bud, The Skulloctopus From Outter Space, a 3 1/2 high clear vinyl custom with glass eyes and a switched LED unit in his head. Both pieces in the set are hand panted and signed.




Bob's work is fucking nuts.  This is a 14 inch high figure in GID vinyl, which also has an internal color-changing LED. Meaning, this thing glows in two ways. Nuts.

I think Bob is from outer space. What a cool dude.

Custom Horselington by Alison Perez

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Recently we covered some Zukie World sculptures by Alison Perez. We also covered Matt Anderson's Horselington. Not to be outdone, Alison then sent us pics of her own Horselington custom! Definitely cool enough to get some page time here on this blog! It's too bad the Horselingtons didn't get this much love a couple years ago when they were first released... I think this platform is an interesting one.

Alison wants everyone to know that no panda was hurt during the creation of this custom.
Alison's links are as follows:

Fungi Men Mini Munny custom by Cyberphunkk

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Cyberphunkk send us images of his cool new custom series called Fungi Men. This custom was inspired by the character Matango from the movie Attack Of The Mushroom people by Toho.co.jp.

This custom is based on a 4-inch Mini Munny figure, but Cyberphunkk says there will be more figures in this series coming on other platforms. 
You can buy this custom here. More images are on his Flickr here.



Jacob JAMS Dropping Jaw Exclusives in stock now

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In our last blog post we teased our blue resin exclusive Dropping Jaw figure by Jacob JAMS- and here it is! At 2.5" tall, our exclusive Tenacious Blue Dropping Jaw figures are hand numbered and signed, and come bagged with header card. This Exclusive is limited to 5 pieces and priced at $15 each. 


The artist, Jacob Siegelbaum, is 11 years old and I would love to tell you that this is his first rodeo, but amazingly, it isn't. Jacob has been selling his resin figures to friends and classmates with great success. Tenacious Toys is the first shop to be given a Jacob JAMS exclusive. You can see the rest of his work here on his website.

Support your local artists! You can purchase a Tenacious Toys Exclusive Dropping Jaw here. Jacob will also be participating in the Bad Applez online group show going live February 14th. Click here for a sneak peek.

Feb 5, 2012

Custom Suckadelic Gay Empire figure by Jim

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storm 1, originally uploaded by Jim1297.
Jim's hilarious! He sends me these Flickr sharing messages so I just click thru and post his customs up. I like the sparkly purple codpiece on this one. Sucklord would love it too.

Feb 3, 2012

SNEAK PEEK: Dropping Jaw Tenacious Toys Exclusive resin figure by Jacob JAMS

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When I heard from Matt Siegelbaum that his son Jacob had started to cast his own figures in resin, I had one thing to say: I WANT AN EXCLUSIVE! Jacob, who is 12, has had great success sculpting, molding and casting his own designs into resin. He's been selling them to classmates at school, and he has several sculpts by now. Jacob agreed to create a special Tenacious Blue Dropping Jaw Exclusive just for us!

Matt and Jacob work on this project together, which is such a ridiculously cool father/son activity... I'm so jealous. Even at 33 years old, I'm jealous. I wanna do this with my dad. I'm a huge fan of productive and constructive family time, and as a toy retailer I was falling all over myself to get on board with Jacob. 

So there ya go: a sneak peek at the next Tenacious Toys Exclusive Series: the tinted blue resin Dropping Jaws by Jacob JAMS. Good thing dad (Matt) is a professional photographer- I have better shots of this piece than almost anything else I sell! I'll post full, detailed pics and more info soon.

Custom Horselington commission by Matt Anderson

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Matt Anderson was recently commissioned by a collector (Pranay) to customize a Horselington- a fascinating figure to customize as it is such a complex platform. Basically it's a little squat dude wearing a horsehead hat. Or something. It's a big piece, about 10 inches tall. I believe Rsin, Nerviswr3k and possibly Chauskoskis were also commissioned by the same collector to customize Horselingtons. Could be wrong... but I started to see Horselingtons by those guys popping up on Facebook. In any case, a different collector suggested that I cover Matt's custom. He was a big fan and wanted to see this one get some page time. I'm a big fan of anything Matt does, so here are some pics.


Note the real metal chain mail- a nice touch which we quite frankly don't see enough of these days. I like alternative materials in a custom- bone, metal, gears... anything off the wall. Matt's got his signature mini skulls going on, and in a nod to his steampunk aesthetic, Matt uses a gear at the back of the custom to hold his sword on. But what's really cool about this Horselington custom is the color-change resin Matt used on the horse's head:

Sweet work Matt!

Vishnu Paramata (The Boss) New Mini Collectable by We Kill You

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 The newest collectible from We Kill You is Vishnu Paramata, a mini version of 2009's The Boss. He stands 3" tall and the first release "A Mystical Timezone" is an edition of 20 cast in clear orange with purple and blue spray and painted eyes. Each one is hiding a little something behind its back and comes with weaponry (a knife, a morning star, or bat)! This new collectable is available now in the WKY shop at http://www.wekillyou.net. Check the video:

Lt. Joe “Fresh” McMinty custom Kidrobot Mascot by Don P

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Lt. Joe “Fresh” McMinty is a custom by Don P based on the 7-inch Kidrobot Mascot platform. 

During a secret CryoGenicmission he was lost in the Brazilian woods in the year 2176. His crew left him for dead. He was nothing for the government and they did not search for this poor fella. His family was desperate with the loss of their dad, who was really the best dad that they could wish for.
10 Years later he finally reached a city........ Angry that he was, he wanted revenge on the people who left him for dead. Heavilly attacked by wild animals, he was signed for life. The main thing that kept him alive was his enormous drive to see his family again.

You can follow Don P here: Facebook, blog & shop.



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