I have always needed some kind of creative outlet. When I was young, inspired by my brother, I was always into creating some kind of artwork. Usually sketching but spreading into lithography and painting. Also at a young age, I was really into plastic modeling. Cars, Military, and, of course, Star Wars. As a child, I loved reading military modeling magazines and strived to match the work of the old master builders portrayed who would show incredible paint apps to their figures and create realistic scale dioramas. I got pretty good at painting up and even slightly customizing the figures and even made a few dioramas back then. Fast forward to 1992 when I was in the Navy........I was back into building models, military and cars. I built my first custom model car. I believe it was a 78 transam kit where I super detailed the motor and the car's interior just using fodder that I found around the ship. Wiring, braided lines, speakergrills and trim rings. I even found emblems on adds in car magazines and cut them to serve as custom aftermarket floor mats.
After I got out of the service, my passion for the car models lasted another 4-5 years and I created some really neat customs some of which I have shown in my non-star wars customs thread. "not the best ones yet, though"
fast forward a few more years, around the time that ep 1 came out, I started collecting Star Wars again. It was those darn character topper cups from the fast food chains that did it. first the cups, then garage sale fodder, then moc figures.
A few years later, to supplement my income during the slow winter months, I started selling on ebay. Toys and Video games was my fare and I still run the store that I started 4-5 years ago. Sure, I had some star wars stuff but didnt specialize in it at the time.
Researching around on the bay to see what toys were hot sellers, I came to find the star wars custom listings. I was amazed not only by the cool creations that I found but by how much hype and traffic these sellers were getting from their custom star wars auctions. Well, that's what inspired me to try my first star wars custom figure. Using my modeling talents, I did a few simple repaints and put them into an auction. The response was so positive, I did it again and again. I moved onto some head and equipment swaps and more difficult paintjobs and the traffic kept growing as did the prices that these creations would fetch. I tried a diorama to list with a figure and they went wild for that. At this point, I decided to try molding and casting some parts so that I wouldnt have to scrounge parts from 3 different figures to make one. That worked out well enough that I decided to start selling the parts.
It was around this time that I met Tamer, Phatty, Reconsgt, and Darth Aussie at another site before the Shipyards was born. Then is where I started to document my creations step by step online.
On a whim, I tried mixing a couple of resin helmets to make a new helmet of my own creation and listed it. They went crazy about that one so I did more and more.
For me, It had started out being about the money as I was trying to build traffic to my store and then It became about the hype and all of the feedback that I was getting about my customs. It also gave me a little thrill to think that my customs then and now reside all over the world in at least 25+ different countries.
Now, things have changed in that the bad economy has pretty much made the bottom fall out of the customs game on ebay as a good custom will fetch about half as much as it would of two or more years ago. The buyers are alot more pickey about what they want and are alot tighter with their money. It's to the point now where when I do a custom, it is worth more to me than it would go for on the bay which is why I don't list nearly as much custom stuff as I used to. " i used to list 1-2 custom figures a week every week"
That doesn't mean that making customs does not still thrill me. It does. There is a feeling of accomplishment when you make something cool that can't be matched anywhere else. Sometimes I will have fun making something that Hasbro hasn't made or won't make. sometimes I like to make stuff that no one will make. Those of you who know me know that I love the little details and if there is a fine little detail or some feat of micro engineering that seems hardly possible but I somehow pull off, it just thrills the hell out of me.
Naturally it fuels the fire hearing all of the positive feed back about my stuff that I have gotten here, and I am thrilled to be a part of the great customizing crew here at the shipyards. I do believe that there is a good chance that I will be doing this for the rest of my life and I have accumulated enough custom fodder to last well through my retirement assuming I get that far and actually retire. "yes, there is also enough car and military model kits to take me through that time, also"
I really enjoy this thread and like to read about how the rest of you got started doing this.
