The fugliest toys you have seen while collecting.

Q.
What are the most over-used 'tribute' or 'homage' custom paint jobs on toys?

A.
Devilman.
The Joker.
Ronald McDonald.
My Pet Monster.

Any others .... ?

 

Dark green Garamon—not that I’m complaining.
Mickey Mouse

oh—Booska and Chibira kun too. Doesn’t feel sincere most times. Just grab-assy and trashy. Booo

 

Batman

 

Ultraman?

 

Hush your mouth!

 

That's a good one.
Not all Ultraman homages are created equal.

 

Oh I wish BxH would do an homage of all the characters listed above, this ultra one is just perfect

 

There are an infinite number of ways to paint a toy, if you can't come up with at least a million (I'm on my way) of your own, you don't have business painting toys.

 

Carving a winched up stump with a chainsaw and then using house brushes to apply leftover tractor paint to the results would be a step up. Oh, and all the stumps would be one-offs!

 

Not carved, not a stump. Actual branches and leaves. Not fugly.

 

How was it done and who did it? As a retired pre-press guy I am naturally, and perhaps unfairly, suspicious.

 

And Ghidorah, too.

Can’t totally recall this morn, what’s the embed code here for youtube vids?


https://mymodernmet.com/li-yi-kai-godzilla-sculpture/

The chosen medium: https://www.conifers.org/ar/Araucaria_cunninghamii.php

 

That is so amazing, thanks for sharing. Don't seem to have the right trees around here. I'm so impressed, haven't been this surprised since I saw pics of a kid in NYC was filmed twisting up robots out of pipe cleaners right on the street, long time ago.

 

You're welcome.

Along the same lines as pipe cleaner robots, Scrapzillas are not uncommon:
https://paulscrap.wordpress.com/2019/07/11/godzilla-is-a-scrapper/
https://twitter.com/MonsterIslandB/status/1149041682572292096
Scrap metal Predators are popular; great one at the Santa Monica pier.

Almost fugly:

 

I love that! Where is the evil kids' party clown who twisted that up? Those scrappy guys are pretty intense too.

 

I saw this at DesignerCon and no sir, I don't like it:



I don't think the family and peers of Haruo Nakajima would appreciate him being tattooed like a yakuza boss. This is the epitome of "gaijin not getting it."

 

Different thing, but in the same vein—these traditional “homages” miss the mark on these new toys in a similar fashion. The spirit of the character/person is lost, or the concept is given the middle finger when put on a vulgar toy, imo. Sometimes it works—like the Micky D’s thing. But I can’t fathom a shelf full of middle fingers not losing its luster after a season.

These new toys strike me as a visual “shit where you eat” or “eat the rice but throw the bowl away” thing. I don’t see them standing the test of time, but I could be dead wrong. A lot has changed since I found this place.

 

Total agreement here on both points.

Looking at this shot of him in costume taking giant 'zilla steps, reminded of similar technique used in crop circle making.

 

I left a "thumbs down" on that instagram post and the person running it gave me "sorry you didn't get our message." That fits.

@Vombie I agree with you about how some of these "homages" miss the mark. The other figure like this that comes to mind was a show that featured the Max Toy Sofubi Man, who is based on a real person. Someone sculpted and painted one up so that it looked like the final monster from John Carpenter's The Thing. The artist probably thought it was funny, but the seeing a representation of a real person was being used to do this was really off-putting to me. Like the Nakajima figure, I wondered what the actual person and his family felt when they looked at it.

 

Can't isolate the image link from this faecesbook posting. A Singapore twisted balloon company crafted a balloon Godzilla and a balloon Ghidorah plus a faux header for a birthday party entranceway. The balloons are a bit twee and fugly; the header looks cool. Can't make out the text on the header, tho.
https://m.facebook.com/JocelynBalloons/photos/a.968865176582523/2298840676918293/

 

This is tastefully subtle though. Other toys… not so much.

 

Though some Japanese toys very well fit said description, by my observation a lot of the fatter, stout character/toy designs have been coming from asian artists outside of Japan (Kaiju One, MechNoiz, Nicolas Lestang, Planet-X, SotakuToys, and a few others with more lackluster portfolios). Akametenshi is from Singapore.

Akametenshi pulls his own vinyl so the only harm done is to your eyes.

I do have one of his earlier pieces. The quality is actually quite good, but definitely a bit more rubbery feeling than your typical Japanese soft vinyl (something between sofubi and Bandai china vinyl). It also has more of a toxic smell.

 

The classic 'Burnt Turd' style ...











So ... expensive fugly bootlegs are now a thing. Bootlegs are usually unintentionally fugly or janky, thats the main part of their charm. They're also very cheap when originally sold ... unlike this new trend.

 

I’m 100% with you on this. The Sofubi Man sculpt was meant to honor the hardworking people who make our Sofubi dreams possible. Painting him like a certain fast food clown just feels like major disrespect.