Hard to believe it, but
Customs for the Kid has been blogging about the Star Wars custom action figure community for 5 years as of today!
All month long, we were trying to come up with an epic custom action figure reveal for this milestone. Then at the last minute, we totally changed course. Instead of focusing on some new action figure that we'll all forget about later in the week, we decided to focus on what is being celebrated today, our best custom of all...this blog.
We never thought that this endeavor would have lasted as long as it has. When
Elias decided he wanted to start making his own
Star Wars custom action figures at the early age of six, I thought it was only going to last a few weeks at most. I still remember sitting at my laptop typing in my newly created moniker,
Darth Daddy, as I set up an account to post our first custom action figures over in the
Yakface forums, not knowing that one day, this persona would develop into an alter ego that would later receive almost a million views a month on the
Darth Daddy Google+ profile.
When we started our journey we were complete amateur custom action figure artists who to our surprise, went on to create one of the
most popular resources for Star Wars custom action figure art on the web today! If someone told me that this little boy's passion and persistence for creating his own toys would have manifested into a blog read in over 120 countries around the world, I wouldn't have believed them. The blog's success and popularity has been the result of an actively participating community of artists. The people featured on this blog have become some of our closest friends.
Customs for the Kid has become a place where artists, collectors, and fans of the artform can find new talent, customizing techniques, action figure parts lists, collector focused fundraising campaigns with unique incentives, video tutorials,
photonovels, stop motion videos, and some your favorite Star Wars podcasts all in one place.
Customs for the Kid will also take the time to promote issues like the
Legion of Leia initiative.
Customs for the Kid was championing the demand for an increased female character presence in the Star Wars toy lines that we established on our
"Customs for the Fangirls" page. We were really honored when the
Fangirls Going Rogue podcast acknowledged our efforts.
Looking at how our blog has grown from its humble beginnings, we are completely amazed by all that we have accomplished since we started on this long adventure. With hundreds of custom action figures created by our own hands, we saw an activity that we engaged in at our kitchen table grow to epic proportions. All of our dedication paid off earlier this year when our blog caught the attention of
Disney and
Lucasfilm who featured
Customs for the Kid amongst the most talented and respected custom action figure artists in the world today at
Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in their
Star Wars Custom Action Figure Panel hosted by
Sillof. As customizers it was the highest honor we could have ever hoped to achieve. It was even cooler than when
Custom Action Figure News mentioned our "Mother Talzin" custom action figure for
"Custom Action Figure of the Year" in 2013, or when we
won the "Grand Prize" in Yakfinities #50 in a tie with Star Wars customizer,
Sjefke last year. And both of those events were pretty overwhelming in their own right!
featuring the Star Wars custom action figure art of Chewie, Customs for the Kid, PeakOB1, Sillof, and Sith_fire30
It can't go without saying that
Customs for the Kid wishes to express our sincerest gratitude to all the
Star Wars fan sites like
Yakface.com,
The Star Wars Underworld, Jedi News,
Jedi Temple Archives,
Imperial Shipyards and
Jedi Business for featuring our custom action figures over the years. We'd also like to thank all the podcasts like
RebelForce Radio,
The Star Wars Underworld podcast,
The Wolfpack Podcast,
Custom Action Figure News,
The Voice of the Republic podcast,
SWAG77, and
Expanded Fandomverse, for featuring us on their programming.
Thank you to all our fans who take the time write us letters, leave comments on social media, and send us pictures of your action figures. Your communications are inspiring. We are so thankful to the
Star Wars community for helping spread the word about
Star Wars custom action figures and the artists that create them.
Most of all, we thank the artists we feature for letting us spread your art to all the corners of the world. Without your contributions no one who visits this blog would have any reason to come.
If you are new to our blog, here is a brief sample of what we have to offer:
RebelForce Radio and Customs for the Kid:
"Star Wars Smuggler's Bounty" Custom Action Figure Contest
THE ACTION FIGURE INDEX
This is where you can find a full picture listing of all the action figures we have made here at home over the years. We tried to organize them in a way that you can locate the custom action figure by their associated film and when the figure is not associated with a film, we grouped them into either Expanded Universe or Fan Fiction.
"CUSTOMIZER SPOTLIGHT" ARCHIVES
featuring "Hondo's Pirate Gang" created by PeakOB1 & Customs for the Kid
This is where you can view pieces from our personal collection of Star Wars custom action figures made by other talented members in the custom action figure community. We also provide links to see more of these artist's work than featured here, and best of all, provide you ways to obtain their artwork if they have any for sale.
"CUSTOMS I WISH I OWNED" VIDEO ARCHIVES
&
STAR WARS CUSTOMIZER DIRECTORY
featuring "Consequences" by Hemble Creations
OUR STAR WARS COLLECTION
A few times we have been asked if we were only customizers or were we Star Wars toy collectors too. Here are some of the pictures from the
Customs for the Kid collection. Only about a third of the collection is on display so far. We are always documenting more as we go.
"CUSTOMS FOR THE FANGIRLS"
Wish they made more female Star Wars action figures? We feel you. We know there are a lot of fangirls out there just waiting for a stronger female presence in the Star Wars action figure line. We like a more balanced Star Wars action figure collection in our house. Let's be honest, Star Wars is for everyone. Am I right? Check out these custom Star Wars action figures made with all the Fangirls in mind. Female action figures need equal footing when it comes to the Star Wars toy line.