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Court of the Dead

Jul 15, 2012

JFury's "JUJU TRIBE SERIES"

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These guys from JFury are now available! Only 65 dollars each, a bargain for an excellent design like this. Grab them HERE!


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Custom news from JFury

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One month we did not hear a thing from JFury. Finally we know why. He was in his dungeon sculting and painting all these great customs. Really love the diversity of all the used platforms. My personal favorite is the Mad JuJu 10 inch MadL, what is yours?

Mad JuJu MadL, 10 inch

 Chuckles, 3 inch Dunny

Clown voodoo doll, 3 inch Dunny

 Gooju jungle boy, 3 inch Dunny

 Droids for Dragatomi SDCC blindbox, 3 inch Android

 MF Doom, 7 inch Munny

Black and white, 4 inch Munny

Bub Giveaway, 4 inch Bub

JuJu totems, 5 inch orignal resin figures

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SNEAK PEEK: Scott Kinnebrew x Star Wars x Toy2R customs

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Okay, I'm not sure what these are for, but Scott Kinnebrew teased us with this shot of two Star Wars-themed custom 8-inch Kit Kat Qees. Looks like Kabe from the Cantina on the left, and and Ewok (Logray??) on the right. Secondary or tertiary characters, to be sure, but honestly those are the ones that interest me the most. Bad ass. I guess we all have to wait and see if there will be more, or if there's some event or show happening that warranted two customs along the same theme... Scott likes to tease us, the bastard.

UNBOXING: The Big Bang & The Super Amazing Spectacular Collection by Dudebox

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The other day I received an unexpected package from a new company: Dudebox, located in the U.K., sent me a care package. My immediate thought? Here's a company that GETS IT, finally. As a retailer, one area where the designer toy industry frequently comes up short is product samples. I really, really need to see, hold, touch, play with the new products before I can make an informed decision about what to buy. I'm a regular guy, with no outside funding. I work really hard to accrue every $500 or $1000 I spend on toys for the shop. Some of you have seen me mention that on Facebook... occasionally I mention a freelance gig. Yeah. I have to work just like the rest of you.

So, when a new company pops up, or a new product is put out on the market, it's hard for me to make a decision about it. Will it sell? Is it worth the price? Will the customer appreciate it? Who the hell knows! Often I'm looking at a .pdf sales sheet with illustrations of the products! Or no images at all.

So when the Dudebox care package arrived, I was very excited. The first thing I did was take the picture above. Then I posted it to Facebook. Immediately, I got hit with several inquiries: "OH are you getting those Mini Dudes? I wanna customize some!" That's a good sign for me.

What was in that package? First off, there was a high-quality, glossy and bound sales booklet with images and prices for all the Dudebox products (the green thing that everything's sitting on). There were several branded postcards, stickers, a DIY Mini Dude, one blind box from each of Dudebox's 2 mini figure series, and a stack of the ID card inserts that accompanies each figure:


But let's get down to brass tacks here: the main focus of Dudebox is, of course, the toys. And they're great.

I'll do a bit of a photo essay unboxing here: the first box I opened was from The Big Bang. Bright graphics all over the box, and the possible figures on the side with their ratios is a formula best employed by Kidrobot and Toy2R, and it works.

No news here, that's what we collectors are looking for. The artist roster for The Big Bang is as follows: Attaboy, Travis Price, Mark Gmehling, Bunka, Grapheart, Andreas Krapf, 2Much, Drunk Park, Dust & Sebastien Pie.

Upon opening the box, we get a foil baggie like a Dunny would be packed in, and a fold-out insert showing all the figures, listing the artists, talking about blind-box toys in general and Dudebox in particular.


Turns out I pulled the Andres Krapf figure, which is on the Dude platform. This one is listed as ?/?? so I'm not exactly sure if I pulled a super-rare figure, or just one with a mysterious unpublished ratio.

This figure has great color, a lollipop accessory and most importantly, SUPER CLEAN PAINT LINES. A little hard to see from my iPhone pics, but the edges of the paint were all even, sharp and printed clean. A great job. This little dweeb has a "Kick Me" sign taped to his back!




The Andrea Krapf figure from Dudebox's The Big Bang mini figure series
Next I moved on to the Super Amazing Spectacular Collection figure. The box employs the same tried-and-true layout as the Big Bang box: graphic front, descriptive back, and the figures in the series presented on the 2 sides.

Dudebox pulled together a somewhat overlapping artist roster for the Super Amazing series: Attaboy, The Yok, Jonny Wan, Mark Gmehling, Chauskoskis, Andreas Krapf, Suki Bamboo, Drunk Park, Travis Price & Junichi Tsuneoka.

The same delicious and easy-to-open foil packet holds the Super Amazing figure. Busting this one open, I uncovered a figure on a different platform: a figure by Jonny Wan on one of Dudebox's other platforms that sort of looks like a fox to me. Couldn't find a name for this shape but one thing I'd like to point out about both The Big Bang and The Super Amazing Spectacular Collection is that they both contain figures in 3 different Dudebox sculpts... this is a little different than Kidrobot's Dunny (all essentially the same sculpt) and Toy2R's 2.5" Qees (same bodies, different heads).
I really enjoy this and for me (not normally a big fan of collecting blind-box figures for my own collection) this extra added level of mystery really ramps up the excitement of opening a Dudebox blind box product.

Jonny Wan's figure is SUPER detailed. Like the Krampf figure from the Big Bang series, this one had crisp paint details, but a WAY more complex paint design. Coupled with the flag accessory, this one would really stand out in any collection.

Reminds me a little bit of Lunabee's work.
The Jonny Wan figure from The Super Amazing Spectacular Collection by Dudebox
Now, I know I don't do many reviews and unboxings on this blog. Mostly that's because I don't get product samples in the mail... so I am very pleased that Dudebox took the trouble to mail these to me. I realize that puts me in the precarious position of reviewing products which I later stand to make a profit upon, and that makes my reviews a little less trustworthy than those of a non-retailer... so I'll just say this: I really enjoy the Dudebox blind box mini figures. They are interesting to look at, well-made, expertly painted and present well. In addition, Dudebox is a European company, so they are tapping into a largely European artist base. This is a welcome change for Kidrobot's mostly American artist base, Medicom's mostly Japanese artist base and Toy2R's pan-Asian artist base. We just haven't seen production vinyl mini figures from many of Dudebox's artists, and that fact alone makes these two series a pleasure to explore. 

I'm expecting a large shipment of blank DIY Mini Dudes to arrive this week- that was the first product I ordered from them. So until those, and our next Dudebox shipment, arrives, go check out their fancy, clean website for more info and to buy these 2 series of mini figures. You'll like them.

Jul 14, 2012

Jc Rivera's INFERNO!

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Here is a new 8" custom Dunny from JC Rivera. Based off the classic and dark poem "Dante's Inferno". This is an amazingly detailed piece. Everytime I look at it, I see something new. Jc Rivera is taking huge steps lately, where will this end Kidrobot (HINT!)?




 


 

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Jul 13, 2012

Well, I'll be damned: Super7 is all growns up

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Spotted in the Super7 newsletter today:


Super7 teams up with Hasbro to bring the most popular Japanese giant robots of all time to the Super Shogun format!  OPTIMUS PRIME and other Autobots and Decepticons will be realized as jumbo-scaled, 24” tall retro-bots complete with rocket punch!   These will be among the largest TRANSFORMERS collectibles ever produced!

As part of this multi-year licensing agreement, Super7 will also produce TRANSFORMERS merchandise in a variety of categories, including Designer Japanese Vinyl Figures, retro-themed Glassware, Designer T-Shirts, and Limited Edition Art Prints!       

Stop by Super7’s booth (#4729) at the San Diego Comic Con for teasers of what is to come in 2013.

Check their blog post: Super7 Blog - Home

This is huge. I'm not sure if Super7 executes big licensed deals like this on the regular, or if this type of major collab is new, but either way it certainly propels Super7 up several notches in terms of mainstream recognition. I'm stoked. This is the type of thing I aim to achieve with Tenacious Toys. Kudos to Super7.

Resin Skulls by Niall "Trutek" Anderson

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Recently a few new and dedicated people have begun writing about and participating in the designer toy industry... one of these people is Niall "Tru:tek" Anderson. Hailing from the UK, Tru:tek seems to be into dubstep as well as art toys. You might recognize him as the guy behind Man-E-Toys, which you can follow on Facebook and Twitter.

Well, Niall and I have been in touch and he decided to send me some of his resin skulls- one fancy painted and bejewelled one and of course a Tenacious Blue colorway which he marked as 1/1 on the packaging.


These skulls fit right into my resin skull collection! They're up on top of my computer along with resin skulls from Matt A*, JC Rivera, Kris Dulfer and We Become Monsters

Definitely check out Man-E-Toys.com as it's an interesting site that covers a lot of interesting art toys... looks like Niall has a penchant for outside-the-box stuff just like I do.

HUGE THANKS TO TRUTEK!

Punter Bot Snipers in stock, shipping Monday

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 The 1:6-scale 3A Punter Bot Snipers, which were a BBICN Exclusive release, arrived today. They will be shipping to customers on Monday. All are currently "taken" but as of today we do have 6 customers who have not yet paid, so there is a distinct possibility that more will open up for sale. If that is the case, I will put those Bot Snipers up for sale on our 3A page in about a week.

Jul 12, 2012

Acetone to the Bone by Pj Constable

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This is a custom 8 inch Qee designed by Pj Constable for the Heavy Metal Qee Show. It is still up for sale and all proceeds from the Heavy Metal Qee Customs and Books go to The Garden House Hospice. This piece is extremely well sculpted and painted. Really love the crazy creepy look. This is a musthave for every custom Qee collector, grab it here it is on eBay now!

Acetone to the Bone, 8 inch Qee



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More custom toys from Fuller

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Fuller is a busy guy, here are some his latest works.


Harry Potter, 6 inch Mighty Mugg



Lurtz, (The Lord of the Rings), 6 inch Mighty Mugg



Rusty: The Robot with a BIG Hear, 3 inch Dunny




Rusty was made with all the love his creator could give him. To only do good in the world and to help anyone in need. Rusty has lived over five lifetimes and is feeling his age. A little rough around the edges, but keeps on going... doing good deeds, helping till the end of time.

You can grab Rusty HERE!


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FullerDesign iPhone Covers!

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Fuller decided to come up with five iPhone Covers. You can get yours for only $16 each.

DC Bear
Face
Grrr
Priest
Time Out Teddy



All covers are limited and will come with a Limited Edition Series one Pin Pack with any purchase of a cover for $16 each. You can find those HERE!
 
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