"CUSTOMS FOR THE KID" 2019 - YEAR IN REVIEW

Another year goes flying by, and wow was it an exciting one! First off, we want to thank everyone for still coming to the blog to see the action figures that we create. We made 24 action figures this year which isn't bad considering how busy our lives have been as of late. We were really excited about the pieces we put together too. We covered a lot of Star Wars content this year from classic OT films like "A New Hope" and "Return of the Jedi" to animated characters from "The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels". We even featured customs from the new Disney content such as "Rogue One", "The Mandalorian", "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi". Most of the pieces involved a great deal of sculpting, so they took a bit longer to produce than your average custom. When we did the Younglings from "The Clone Wars" we even had to make their lightsabers.

If you are a fan of listening to podcasts, we made a few appearances on some cool platforms that you may want to check out. Back in March, we were guests on Jedi Business Talk where we got chat with Criz Bee about Hasbro's new Jabba's Khetanna Sail Barge and discussed an audio modification that we made. In July, we had a blast chatting with Savanna and Brian of The Dorky Diva Show concerning our Star Wars customizing adventure thus far.

We also did two video interviews of our own on YouTube with Star Wars customizers Empire Toy Works and Bad Batch Customs. 

One of the biggest milestones this year was seeing the "Customizing The Clone Wars" YouTube show that we did with Peak-OB1 Custom Creations finally come to a conclusion. After many years of doing the show we wrapped up The Clone Wars: The Lost Missions and completed our goal of showing fans how to make Clone Wars custom action figures from each and every episode of the show.

Speaking of YouTube, this year Dad got to see his Weequay pirate headsculpt make an appearance in Nivrerex's "Star Wars: BOUNTY HUNTERS" stop motion animation. Originally, he had asked us to make some custom action figures for the video, but due to time constraints Dad was only able to send some of the unique headcasts he made of an existing head from my collection. It was really cool to see one of our creations literally brought to life.

By far the most exciting thing to happen this year was seeing Elias win "2018 Action Figure Customizer of the Year" from Toy News International's Toy Awards held at New York Toy Fair!

 

"I have to say, the competition was fierce, and the battle was intense, but thanks to all of you, I was able to walk away with a different view of myself than I had before the competition.  I have been customizing for over eight years now, since I was just a little boy, and this unexpected recognition is a true testament to all the effort I put in to become the artist that I am today. When I first was nominated for the award, I thought to myself how could I possibly win against all these talented artists?  Now, having won, I realized I had everything I needed.  If it hadn't been for the extremely talented artists who have passed down their knowledge, encouragement, and support over the course of my training, I wouldn't be where I am today.  Because I was one of the youngest artists in the community, I always wanted to be just as good as the ones I considered "The Masters".  While everybody knows no one's journey is ever complete, I am certainly more confident in my skills now because of all your support.  I have read all of your comments across social media boards and forums, and I found them all very moving.  Especially, those of you who took the time to vote."  - Elias

All in all, it was a really rewarding year. We added some really cool new action figures to the collection, and had a lot of fun doing it. We just want to thank all the websites who featured our work throughout the year. Especially, JediInsider.com and Yakface.com for awarding many of the customs we made this year with a "Custom of the Week" feature or a "Customizer Spotlight". A big shout out to Imperial Shipyards for featuring us on the front page as many times as you do. To have sixteen of the twenty-four customs we made this year get some notoriety felt wonderful! Thank you all so much for spreading the word about our artwork!

And like every year prior, we even took the time to feature some of our fellow artists. This year we featured Jaeger45 and sterlistr in our own "Customizer Spotlight" when they both added some figures to the "Customs for the Kid" personal collection. Other artists featured for their talents were Sillof, Bad Batch Customs, thewriteguy, localgotal, Hole In The Ground Productions, Asis Film Models and Watto's Scrapyard.

"Glaucus, Lark & Jonk" by Sterlistr

"Rennek & Pucimir Thryss" created by Jaeger45

We hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and we look forward to 2020 when "Customs for the Kid" will be celebrating a decade of promoting Star Wars custom action figure art! Hopefully, we can show off some new customs that we made with our new 3D resin printer.

"JV-P12" from "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

First print with the new machine. Painted by Darth Daddy

"Customs for the Kid" - Year in Review 2016

So, no huge stories this year.  Only another solid year of customizing.  We kept up with our usual fare of Star Wars custom action figures ranging from figures that a beginner could tackle, to fully sculpted figures for the more advanced artists.  A good portion of the figures we produced were from the Original Trilogy or the animated TV shows, but we took the time to sprinkle a Prequel character here and there as well. It was a nice way to round out our 6th year at the blog.

It was a great year for exposure! The "Customs for the Kid" Google+ page cleared 1 million views and Darth Daddy's Google+ page cleared 10.5 million. The blog's numbers have been surging too. We started strong at the beginning of the year with 21,603 views in the month of January, and closed out New Year's Eve, breaking a blog record with over a 1,000 views a day for December with 32,508 total views.

A good portion of the year was dedicated to kicking off the new YouTube show that put together with Star Wars custom action figure artist, Chad Peak aka Peak-OB1 Custom Creations called Customizing The Clone Wars. The show has been doing well so far, and we have been able to maintain a steady audience of Clone Wars  fans who check in every week to see their favorite Clone Wars characters made into action figures that were never available in stores.  We just wrapped up Season Two of the show, and we will be kicking off 2017 covering Season 3 of the beloved TV series in a few weeks.

Outside of that, it has been business as usual.  Other than a really cool podcast appearance that Dad did on Toy Run: The Star Wars Action Figure Cast, it has been a quiet, but otherwise productive year. As a special treat, check out the video below to see all the custom figures we produced in 2016.   Have a Happy New Year everyone, and we can't thank you all enough for all of your patronage!

Customs for the Kid - 2016

TO SEE THESE FIGURES IN GREATER DETAIL 
VISIT OUR ACTION FIGURE INDEX
BY CLICKING THE IMAGE BELOW:

CUSTOMS FOR THE KID: 2014 - YEAR IN REVIEW

Happy New Year, everyone!

Well, another year ahead of us.  But before moving forward, it is always fun to take a look back, and see what we accomplished in 2014.

Now the first thing Customs for the Kid noticed were that we didn't make as many figures as we did in previous years.  It was more a year of quality over quantity. The customs we created were the usual fare, easy customs that are great for a beginner customizer to try out, through to more advanced figures for seasoned veterans to tackle.  All skill levels were available to attempt.

We made mostly Clone Wars action figures.  It was our way of saying goodbye to one of our favorite TV shows.  We modified a few Rebels figures and filled in our Jabba's Palace a bit too.  We included a picture of our "Battle for Endor" Charal action figure in the video because she was made in 2014. She hasn't been posted on the blog yet, but she'll get the full treatment very soon.

Last year, we also saw our blog and Star Wars customizing grow in popularity. Dad scored a gig over at The Star Wars Underworld showcasing Star Wars custom action figure artists from all over the world once a week.  In December of last year, Customs for the Kid  had the most traffic that it's ever had in a single month. What really amazed us though was how Darth Daddy's Google+ page is now averaging over a million views a month! Just another wonderful year, and Customs for the Kid hopes to share many more with you all in the years ahead.

CUSTOMS FOR THE KID: 2014 - YEAR IN REVIEW
Star Wars Custom Action Figures created by Darth Daddy & Elias

Here's looking forward to an awesome 2015!

Year in Review

So we wrapped up the first year of our blog last week and we figured it would be cool to put together one of Dad's videos to show you all how we spent the first year. We started the video off with the beginning of our journey. Like most customizers, we started off with simple repaints of existing action figures. We then moved onto painting up kitbashes that we had assembled. Dad wrapped the year up by taking a huge leap as he experimented with sculpting his own figures and accessories. It was a lot of fun and we went from being only beginners to starting to become seasoned customizers. It wasn't always easy, but the challenges had their rewards. Hope you enjoy the progression of our craft from its birth to the close of our first year.

Hope you all enjoy our Star Wars custom action figures.

Customs for the Kid
"Year in Review"

Star Wars custom action figures created by Darth Daddy & Elias.