Say it ain't so!

[Famine]

He responded to my offer by saying, "Get Real." I responded on how any normal person would never pay $100 for them. He responded with "Then I must find alot of abnormal people. People buy my stuff all the time."

Sad isn't it.

He won't be getting any buisness of mine, if thats the way he conducts his PR.

Kevin

[Ner_vod]

Hey Bjadkerr, that guy about the weathering on eBay, well he posted this:

* Special Note: We are collectors and fans of Star Wars. We are NOT sponsored nor endorsed by Hasbro or Lucasfilm LTD.

We can tell he's not sponsered

[Ner_vod]

He responded to my offer by saying, "Get Real." I responded on how any normal person would never pay $100 for them. He responded with "Then I must find alot of abnormal people. People buy my stuff all the time."

Sad isn't it.

I HATE IT when people are like that! They're so conceded and stubborn and unreasonable. Grrr!

[darth_ripley]

first off well said Greg, i agree completely. the only thing i would like to add is i get irked by some folks who seem to only want to use the forums to advertise items that are about to be or are on Ebay up for auction now. of course they don't post a link but they only use the forum for their own greedy purposes. yeah it may be a business, put food in their mouths blah blah blah....but come on. i mean when my husband and i got married he got laid off his job right after our honeymoon - we were married only week and he was laid off and we had to sell quite a few things on ebay to help make ends meet but i NEVER advertised/promoted my own auctions ANYWHERE on any forum, no matter what the items were. i may actually have to sell a couple of my customs within the month since my husband had to have a root canal/crown and we have a $1400 dentist bill this month...i don't want to, but we will see how pinched things get. i'm not trying to bash any one person...people are free to do what they wish, it just gets under my skin to see it happen all the time.

just like everyone else here i sure hate seeing these mass produced "customs" being cranked out by some of the same folks. of course the junky "customs" make the ones with an ounce of thought stand out like diamonds.

[Jesse James]

Personally I'm a huge detractor of selling customs  on Ebay unless you're in dire straights.  To me, you're not helping the hobby when you're in it to profit like that...  I noticed multiple people who "mass produce" customs to sell posting their wares here and there, and like you mentioned above Ripley, they don't advertise the auction but they ultimately are advertising themselves and they give about Jack and **** back to the community as a whole (and I believe Jack just got on the short bus out of town).

These are the people who, when you critique their work or have a comment about it, they basically don't reply...  They'll have 90+ threads at any given place and really the only time you hear from them is when they're showing something new off or when they think they can "profit" from you wanting to buy something of theirs.  It's really total BS if you ask me.

Like I said, I think custom selling should be something you do if you're in dire straights for cash, are clearing out stuff (IE: not a planned sale basically), or if you do things that aren't 100% necessarilly a "Star Wars item", kind of like the little diorama bits Owen Driscoll's made...

A Jedi with a random generic head on it and a paintjob though...  Or resin kits for figures?  You're crossing a line IMO.

And ultimately selling Customs IS illegal despite anyone's personal opinion of right or wrong.  The law dictates it's infringement on LFL's rights and it is.

The negatives mass custom sellers have go beyond that though...  It spawns a problem of bootlegging.  This is something I've noticed more and more common in the vintage market, and even into the modern market (saw a custom "Target" Clone being touted as the real deal and there's a problem).  And like was said above, these people don't want to give anything back into the hobby.  You comment on their stuff they ignore you.  You ask a question and they won't answer because they want you to buy, not make your own. 

Selling stuff isn't something I do, even if I needed cash I think.  I'd part with pieces in my collection first which I've not really had to do save for some vintage some years back I had to sell...  To me though customizing's something I only want people to learn about and get into themselves rather than feeling they need to buy from people.  I've yet to meet anyone incapable of picking up this hobby and really getting the hang of it.  It's a shame there are these people doing "sly" advertising at forums rather than being a better part of the hobby as a whole.  I suppose it's not a far cry from the scalper lurking in the forums to find out what's hitting where and when though. 

[Darth Delicious]

I take commissions here and there, but mostly from people who feel they can't customize and really want a custom piece. Even then I try to be reasonable; I think the most I ever got on a custom was $30-$40, and if you counted materials and work time involved, I maybe profited $10-$15 which ended up in Lucas' pocket anyway.

I don't have a problem with anyone who sells stuff on E-Bay, but I have a real problem with people who set a ridiculous "Buy it Now" price. If you must sell, let the market dictate what it will pay, don't make the assumption yourself. Of course, last time I voiced that criticism, Phruby and I ended up amongst a firestorm. 

And I agree with everyone here who pointed out...those ain't commandos.

-DD

[Phrubruh]

Oh yah, I remember that. Of course that was at that 'other' web site with the initials RS. That place is the prime example of people posting crap and then it showing up on ebay. If you critize the piece all hell breaks loose because that might reduce their bids.

I've only sold two non charity customs on ebay. In both cases the figures were far better than the crap that is out there but they never brought in much money. On the other hand, the people they went to were very excited about adding it to their collection. For profit it wasn't worth it. For making someone happy it was.

[CHEWIE]

I've only sold a few customs too, and it has only been because of major money problems.  With having $600.00 in car repairs this last couple weeks, a bachelor party in Memphis, having to get a tux, etc. - I had $1000.00 of extra expenses this month that I wasn't expecting.

So, I sold a couple figures on ebay.  This one went for $11.50 - whoo hoo!  I lost money on this figure. 



I thought it might go for $20-$25 or so, but no big deal.  I just hope it's going to someone who will enjoy it.

As for someone like Owen D, I love what he does.  He rarely puts items on ebay.  If you want a custom made, you simply contact him, and he will quote you a price.  He's very good to deal with and has made so many beautiful custom playsets for me.

 

[MasterYogurt]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". As far as we know this person might even be the product of one of the many custom forums out there. We all have seen the threads where someone posts pictures of a custom figure they made and even though it might look terrible to the majority of us, some people will post something that goes like this 'Awesome . I wish Hasbro would make a figure like that!' or 'Dude, I would buy that in a heart beat!' or 'You should work for Hasbro' .If this person thinks his customs are worth 'x' amount of dollars, who are we to argue. Will most of us think it is worth that much? No. Will he get that amount? Odds are not in his favor. But that doesn't take away his right to ask what he thinks it is worth.
 
While I don't buy or sell customs on ebay or any place else, I don't condemn it either. The way I see it, to each his own. I would like to think that most of us are in this pastime just for fun, I guess that's why I don't see the need to get all bent out of shape over it.

[Ryan]

I been holding back on commenting for a while, mainly because I'm lazy and I don't like typing.

I agree with most everything that has been said. I'm really not a fan of people who sell their customs purely for profit. They're is nothing wrong with selling one because some kind of emergency comes up and you need cash. I personally, like Jesse, would part with other parts of my collection first though. And if I did ever end up selling a custom, I wouldn't put any ridiculous "buy it now" price on it. $100 for those clones was ridiculous, they were simple repaints. I'm not bashing anyone who reapints clones like that, but they aren't commandos, so don't try and pass them off like they are hot **** and you are the best customizer ever because you can paint on plastic.

I personally have sold 1 custom on commission. I sold it for $20 shipped, which I though was too high but that was what the guy wanted to pay, I offered it to him for $11 shipped but he declined for some reason.

Of course, last time I voiced that criticism, Phruby and I ended up amongst a firestorm.

Was that the time some said Phruby was jealous of someone's tallent? I though that was completely ridiculous, someone made a really sweet O-ring style Fett, but they left off some of the logos and little details and when Phruby said he should add 'em, the people at RS went ape **** on him. I think that was right around the time I got banned there.

As much as I loved FFURG, I can't bring myself to post there as much anymore. There are as many members on FFURG as there are here, and recently there has been a huge swelling in the number of kids, which isn't neccassarily a bad thing, but when they post one word replies have triple posts in every other thread, and no one can understand them because they have the worst grammar ever, it it gets to be annoying. There is still lots of excellent work and critiques there, but there has been way to many one word replies lately and it is annoying to sort through all the crap to get to the good stuff. When I post something over there I get a few good replies but they are from people who post over here anyways, and the rest are all useless replies. When I used to post at RS all I got were one word replies, with the exception of a few from Paul, Jesse, or Justin.

I would like to think that most of us are in this pastime just for fun, I guess that's why I don't see the need to get all bent out of shape over it.

The reason that we are getting "bent out of shape" is because they give us real customizers a bad name. And when I say real, I mean anyone here who makes figures for themselves, no matter how bad you think they are. And it clogs the forums with crap. That is why I think this is easily the best custom forum around. You can give/recieve feedback without being ignored or get into a fight about who is the better customizer. Ask any artist what they think about people that make "art" just for the money and commissions and you are going to hear the same kind of things we've been saying. A lot of the "art" that is popular now is utter crap, that looks like a 3 year old took a crap and finger painted it yellow. And a lot of that is made by people who don't care about the art at all and just want the money. As people begin to profit off the colored turds, other people decide to get in on it while they still can and all of a sudden there is a flash flood of rainbow colored diareha in parks and museums. This is exactly what happens on E-bay with custom clones.

[CHEWIE]

Great post SLC.  Very true. 

And I agree that ffurg has been a letdown lately.  There are some great people there, but I do prefer this customizing section.  Hands down, it's the best.

 

 

[Mister Skeezler]

I've never sold, bought, traded of otherwise any of my customs on ebay...or anywhere for that matter. But I can see both sides.

If the BIN price was $100, and you get 4 figures, that's only $25 per figure. Even CHEWIE said he was expecting to get $20-$25 for his figure. It all depends upon what you charge by the hour. As an artist, if I only charged $25/hr, I'd be ******. So for this guy to charge $25 per figure (essentially), its not that bad at all. I guarantee it took him more than an hour for each, if you include:

*getting the figure (travel time included)
*painting
*dull-coting
*auction photography
*placing the auction

Those are all the little things that people don't think about. When I charge hourly (sometimes its by the job), I'm charging for travel time, phone time, design time, revision time, etc.

Does this give the guy bad collectors' karma? Probably. Does this make him an evil, greedy person? Not really.

[CHEWIE]

That's a good point too Lando... I guess it's just the "Buy It Now" that kinda aggravates me... on the figure I made, I used a lot of different parts from several figures to make it. 

- Bacara ($6.00)
- Commtech Stormtrooper ($5.00)
- AT-TE Gunner ($6.00)

So, right there I already spent about $17.00 just for parts and spent a few hours working on it.  Not that I'm really complaining, but I did lose out on it.  Oh well, I still have some parts leftover for future customs too.  And that figure wasn't really intended for ebay, so looking back I probably shouldn't have listed it.

 

[Phrubruh]

JD reminds me of the old RS list serve from 1997-2000. No one knew it was active or how to sign up for it. But when you figured it out, your email box was never empty. The difficulty of signing up was what kept the teenagers (greenday) out.  We have some great discussions about customizing back then. It was fun to send pictures back and forth and have private chats.

Now the meeting ground has moved from RS to here. Here you can talk in a much less censored atmosphere but the mods will deal with the greendayers faster and permanently.

It would have been a lot better if the FFURG message boards were more active. That's the place that should be the hotbed of customizing activity. Unfortunately here is where you get real feedback on your customs. Over at RS you get completely ignored unless its a poorly painted clone that your going to post of eBay for $100.   

[Jeff]

I just don't get all these high-priced auctions for clone repaints.

Why do people pay big $$$ for a single repainted clone?   

I understand the ones we did for charity, but I don't understand the average guy who will drop $100 for 4 clones.  Sure, it's only $25 each, but I've got a better way to spend the cash.  Go to Target/TRU/Wal-Mart and buy a bunch of #41 Clones.  At about $5-6 each, you should be able to get around 15 Clones with some change.  Then, go grab a few brushes and a few bottles of cheap Folk Art/Apple Barrel paint ($1 each at most places).   

There, now you just spent $100 and you can have 15 repainted clones!  Painting really isn't that tricky, and after trying it a few times (say 15 times with all those clones you bought), you'll get pretty good pretty quick!

Maybe people are just afraid to try?  I know I was afraid at first, but most of those acrylic paints are so water soluable that if you mess up on the first shot, it's easy to strip the paint and try again!

Jeff