Fifteen years ago today, Dad and I started this blog, and "Customs for the Kid" was born. At the time, I was only 6 years old. Neither of us had any experience making our own action figures. We were just inspired by others in the Star Wars custom action figure artist community enough to want to become a part of it, and this blog has documented our journey. If you look at our earliest posts, we weren't very good at making action figures, but if you work at something every week for 15 years, you do improve.
At the blog's start, we showcased our custom action figures as we made them while providing the parts and techniques used for each project. Dad also used our platform to feature other Star Wars custom action figure artists as well as the custom action figures that he had purchased for me along the way in countless "Customizer Spotlight" posts (They can be counted, they are actually numbered). A space where readers could obtain links to the social media accounts of these talented artists to purchase their work, when available. Dad later expanded our artist showcases beyond just the custom action figures we had in our personal collection to features on artists whose work we would love to have in our collection in his "Customs I Wish I Owned" posts. It became a great way for members of the community to learn about one another and appreciate one another's art. Throughout all of our years, sharing other artists' offerings has always been one of our favorite ways to give back to the community, to those who taught us everything we needed to know to produce our own creations.
A big surprise for us was that less than a year into writing our blog, the Star Wars community started to take notice. By April of 2011, Dad and I were asked to participate in our first podcast interview, (numerous others followed), and a few times the same year, our work was featured on one of our favorite YouTube shows. Kessel Run Review. Thanks to the global span of the internet, we were suddenly being read in over 120 countries throughout the world. What followed in the years after was a feature in the Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2015 - Action Figure Customizing Panel, me being awarded "2018 - Action Figure Customizer of the Year" by Toy News International at New York Toy Fair in 2019 (Sadly, I was too young to attend the event so I could accept the award in person...industry adults only), and as early as last year I had the honor of being featured at San Diego Comic Con 2024 in the "Evolution of Toy Collecting" panel, as well as participating as a Panelist at the first Halcy-Con a few months later. Big events aside, the support from the community over all of these years is what has warmed "Customs for the Kid" the most. We are beyond grateful to the Star Wars fan sites and podcasts for sharing our creations with their audience all this time!
To celebrate this anniversary, we felt an action figure of Dave Filoni's alter ego Trapper Wolf would be in order. Why do you ask? Well, when The Clone Wars was released in 2008, I was just 4 years old, and for the next several years, this period was the version of the galaxy far, far away I was most immersed in. I am not sure there would be a blog today if it were not for the Clone Wars TV series. We definitely never would have done our podcast "Customizing the Clone Wars" with our friend Peak-OB1 Custom Creations if the show did not exist. Every Saturday, Dad and I would begin our morning with a Clone Wars episode, and then we would spend the rest of our day making art for this blog. Dave Filoni was George Lucas' padawan when they created TCW. Dave is not shy about it. The history is well known. Since George Lucas retired, Dave started many shows of his own at Lucasfilm and was recently promoted to Executive Vice President/Chief Creative Officer. Like Dave, I too have stepped up and taken on more responsibility. I took the lead over the blog from Darth Daddy at our 10th anniversary and started my own business taking on commissions and sharing my craft with others. So, today is a thank you to Dave's creativity for making all of this possible. While Dave far surpassed anything that I have done, we both have gone through a period of growth and change in our creative careers, and I hope that we both can entertain the Star Wars community for years to come!
To make this action figure, we used a Jek Porkins action figure body in a huskier Rebel orange flight suit while keeping with tradition by utilizing a widely available resin head cast created by another member of the custom action figure community, executing a super simple head swap on the original figure. All it took was a "Customs for the Kid" paint application on the head cast of Dave Filoni's likeness purchased from Outer Rim Traders. The most difficult part of the project was repainting the Jek Porkins helmet to make it look like the one worn by Trapper Wolf in The Mandalorian.
We thought about going crazy and making something 100% sculpted from the ground up like we do on occasion, but this is day is about celebrating the blog and not us. And this blog is about promoting community. The proprietor at Outer Rim Traders was one of the first people in the customizing community to take us under his wing, so it is only fitting that we share something we picked up from him. What fun is showcasing a figure if you all can't recreate it at home?
"TRAPPER WOLF"
created by
Elias of "Customs for the Kid"
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CARSON TEVA
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