bastard babies

where is that Skullbrain Mafia pic? that was awesome!

that really was awesome

But that isn't really what this thread is about.
Hell I don't care if people use their toys as chew toys for their dogs.. Its their toys. I never even posted in the custom threads.
If I want to be in a moral majority kind of area I'd start a sXe rant.

i'm the first to say fuck off to anyone who says they have all the answers...like what you want to and who the fuck am i to tell you different. i own western pieces too and actually still like some stuff. what screams "kr" to me is the way you conduct yourself. looking to drain fellow collector's of cash because you bought into hype and paid 3x somethings value only to hate it two days later and sell it here for that shitty price, outbidding fellow board members on auctions without the decency of a pm..."look at me" style postings...etc. if you act in a decent manner you will find there are other decent people out there too. act like a fuck and you will alienate yourself to associating with other fucks.

Quote of the year!

Eggstactly.

I just think it is time to start being honest about customs. Most people have held their tongue and subsequently a few people have big heads (and probably disappointed customers). Paint whatever figure you want, the more rare the better (if I already have one) but don't expect people to just keep quite about it if you share it on a public forum.

It is one thing to buy and airbrush and have some fun painting your figures, it is another thing to start thinking of yourself as some kinda artist. Of all the customizers on this board only Bawana and PK have a style so easily recognizable you know one of their pieces when you see it.

Other people do good technical work but there figures just look like production runs a 1of1. Then a lot of people just need to step back an practice some more. Some people are selling stuff that looks way worse than factory paint (which is usually fairly good).

Making fun of bad toys is one of the most interesting thing to do around here. My favorite moment of SDCC07 was Muton taking about his handpaint.

Wait a minute, are you saying Muton was making fun of a toy, and a handpaint SB toy at that?!

Impossible.

it wasn't impossible if you had seen the hand paint he was making fun of.

it's true. it was very sacreligious

Well put. And if you put your "art" out there in the wild be prepared for some criticism as well as the cusory polite accolades. I'm a chef by trade and would never have gotten any better than boiled water and toast if everybody told me how great it was.

This ain't the land of rainbows and unicorns where we all agree it's great to give you little artistic ego a boost to encourage you. Most of the customs posted here are little more than coloring and I'm not including the ones that are pure shit.

I will now post honest opinions on customs I don't like as well as the ones I do and encourage others to do the same. Thanks for pointing that out Glenn, it's time the truth was told.

Was it the black brain customed with White Out?

I thought it was hardened vanilla frosting

I keep hearing about Muton's terrible handpaint...has a pic ever been posted?

And it's not about picking on someone or newbies or whatever.
Let's just call a spade a spade.

As mentioned in this thread, even some of the Secret Base handpaints were nasty.

Mine are usually red...

i appreciate the fact someone would be honest and willing to provide critique but there are glaring problems on this board (and probably message boards in general)

the critiques on here are often nasty, rude, etc.

when someone asks for input on a design/artwork or whatever in real life, you dont stare at them with giant eyes ... insult them... tell them to give up completely... tell them to go back to school... and i have seen all of that here. you designers out there see a store with a shitty comic sans logo- you don't go inside and tell the owner he is a dumbass and should just close shop immediately.

when someone is given a keyboard and a faceless screenname, evidently they are given carte blanche to piss on anyone they please?? it's easy to be an asshole when all you have to do is close the window instead of face the person back

and more often than not, these territorial pissings come whether or not they are asked for or not.

if someone wants a critique on their work, it can be offered up without being a dick about it. tell them what you dont like or how you would like to see it. make fun of a crap toy all you want, but when someone is asking for input on something they created with their own hands, i think a little diplomacy can go a long way here.

all the bickering and name calling gets old fast

I don't know... when I was in college as a design major, critiques could be quite scathing. It wasn't terribly unusual for a teacher to tear down a student's work off the critique wall if it was clearly substandard.

There's a difference in people who are seriously trying to create customs as truly inspired pieces of their talents, and there are those that just sort of do it for fun.

The problem is that there seem to be a bunch of people on a number of vinyl toy boards who think they are going to be the next Bwana, Koji or Paul Kaiju, but they're doing customs that really do deserve to be torn off the critique wall and ignored.

And to be completely honest, I've been seeing customized stuff by established artists in the vinyl toy field that look like garbage to me. If I had their customs placed side-by-side with some rank amateurs, I probably wouldn't be able to distinguish one from the other... so even in that arena, I feel that some of the customs being sold at shows for multiple hundreds of dollars deserve to be called to the carpet to justify the price asked.

If you consider yourself an "artist", you should be able to handle any and all criticism... no matter how nasty or rude. It's just one of the occupational hazards of the job.

As a former art student and a current art hobbyist I certainly know the value of critique and agree that nobody should share their creative endeavors publicly if they can't take some criticism. However, there's a big difference between saying something like "here's what I see as being wrong with what you're doing" or "I don't think you're ready to be selling your work" and being outright abusive about it in an immature manner or telling someone that they shouldn't even bother to try to improve. I'm definitely not saying things should be nicey-nice with rainbows but straight talk doesn't need to cancel out reasonable civility, especially when the nastier attacks are unprovoked by anything more than the fact that the attacker thinks the customizer's work stinks. To my mind, that's different from, say, pushing a volatile hostile person over the edge into crazed hysteria as we recently saw done. That person probably had it coming, given their own constant unprovoked attacks.

Sometimes people keep negative comments to themselves on the "if you can't say something nice..." principle. I'm not the best about that as I'll sometimes dis a stupid toy, but I do respect the guideline in the name of not going overboard with the negativity. It really hits home when I meet board members in person. Everyone seems pretty cool and likable and respectable in person. Can't think of a single exception I've encountered. Real people behind those wacky screen names.

There are many truths. Some are just subjective perspective.

agree'd -



as well as anything xoconostle has to say - always well put

then i guess i dont agree with how professors like that handle their critiques. i had plenty of times where someone hated something i did, but be it teacher or peer, they most always approached it from a non-ass point and told me how they thought it could be better.


again, if someone wants your opinion... give it! tell them it needs more work... tell them nothing is working on it at all... tell them what needs to change

what is being accomplished if you just tell someone "that is god awful and you suck" and leave it at that

well, maybe getting people to hate someone they have never met and leave the message board is an an accomplishment to some, but to me it just seems childish

i totally agree that artists of any medium that put their work in any public forum should be ready to accept all criticisms. but i dont think anyone needs to hear personal insults mixed in there




oh - and art school is art school. a lot of of know the BS that goes on there is a vacuum anyway

i keep thinking of 'art school confidential' while i write this

can someone posts these horrible "customs" please? specifically muton's and manimals? I think some laughs and cooling off is in order

well said pickleloaf...props to xoco and smorkin for tryin to fight the good fight.

i just wanted to add this and bryan, you might find this bit of news useful.

at SDCC i managed to pick fairly good numbers on both pushead and secret base days. as it turned out, i had to be elsewhere and the wait was going to be too long (esp on pushead day) and i gave my numbers up to people on the back of the line. All they had to do was answer a question which was "are you on skullbrain?" if i got a no, they got the number. i hung out and chatted with a bunch of peeps on the back of these lines and got all kinds of interesting comments such as " I went there once, but people were so rude, I never went back." or " i only lurk there, i never post because it's evident that you're not welcome there." ii heard this aLOT! Now i know the reason one goes into business is to grow that business and comments like these can certainly impede that progression. Take it for what you will, just thought i'd let you know what was going on on the end of the line.

peace

and if you ask me, an art teacher that rips a student's work off the wall is screaming "i suck at my craft and must now take it out on this putz!"