Just getting back to the hobby after 17ish years and HOLY "LASER BLAST" have you seen what’s out there these days?

I picked up a few ME Joes when they came out—some truly amazing stuff toward the end—and as much as I’d love for Joe to still have an active modern 4 inch line, the stuff coming out of small boutique manufacturers is a dream come true. In the past month I’ve ordered stuff from Marauder, JoyToy, and some randos on EBay and I just can’t get over the quality and variety of what’s available for customizers.

When I left the hobby, we were doing what we could with aftermarket ARAH Joes from the 80s, the same 8 figures Hasbro endlessly re-deco’d on vastly inferior plastic at the time, and the wonky ass, semi-compatible new-sculpt Joes. If you knew where to look you get a Funskool Joe at a reasonable price.

Despite the limitations, customizers did some incredible work back then. Personally, I had taken to sanding off all surface details off old ARAH torsos and sculpting new details of my own design. It was a pain in the ass.

I just got my first Marauder order today and though I’ve seen plenty of their stuff online (and customs produced with their stuff), I’m still a little bowled over by the quality. Just incredible.

Anyhow, a reminder from a fella who just got here, we’re in a "LASER BLAST" golden age.

i look forward to seeing what you make now. i came in here thinking about selling some cast metal items. started poking around and realized that their was some great art being made in action figure form. not being a toy collector or comic book guy it was a real eye opener. so i lurked and dabbled ,and almost 10 yrs later i am still floored by the art i see on here.

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Welcome back, man! Your ARAH customs are still among my favorite custom figures I've ever seen. Any chance we'll be seeing modern-era stuff from you?

It really is a great time to be a 1:18 customizer. Actual Joe fodder is expensive as hell now, but the quality of the figures that smaller companies are producing is insane. Marauder and BFS are effectively customizer-targeted toys, and the variety and quality of properly-scaled accessories and parts that can be obtained from other boutique lines is something I never could have dreamed of 20 years ago. And then you've got Acid Rain, JoyToy, and the Hiya Alien/Aliens, Robocop, and Predator lines, which open up the possibilities even further.

Great to see you're still around, sgartz! And right back at you; loved your ARAH customs back in the day. Super clean work, grounded military designs. I need to dive into the archives and see what you've done since.

I'm definitely dipping my toe back into customization. Just collecting pieces and seeing what's out there, at this point, but all with the aim of putting some pieces together.

Thank you! I've barely submitted anything since probably 2005 or 2006 (which feels like yesterday but is somehow 16 years ago), but there are probably a few critiques threads since then. I got way into doing sci-fi/Star Wars-y custom stuff, none of which I've gotten around to photographing even though I've been working on them for at least ten years and have a mountain of finished ones sitting on shelves in my workroom. Maybe this is the year I finally document them.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Would love to see your Star Wars customs. I recently started GMing a Star Wars RPG and have thought about making customs for my players' characters somewhere down the line.

Welcome back!

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Welcome back man!

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Thanks for the welcoming words! I really glad to see how many of the old crowd are still here.

And, I gotta say, chad_ghost, your website is taking me all the way back! Can't tell you how much time I spent on that site in the early 2000s trying to figure out how you and Matthew could churn out so many customs and all of them look like they were straight out of the factory.

Wow, once again I am late to the party...

Hey kowalski, it's been a long time, my man. Glad to see you back again. I'm not sure if you remember me telling you this years back but it was your work here that inspired me to take that next step in my sculpting. I still look back on your stuff and find inspiration. I work only in ARAH and to me, it is still the best. I haven't really posted much since about 2017 but I never walked away from customizing completely. I've got many finished projects yet to be photographed and posted and even more WIPs I hope to finish. Perhaps this will be the year I finally put myself back out there again.
Whichever medium you choose to customize with nowadays, I look forward to seeing what you have in store...

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Wow! I did not remember that. I remember how next level your stuff was before I even got going, so that's really incredible to hear. Love that you've stuck with ARAH. It feels like the purest form of the medium to me. Like a photographer using film and traditional processing techniques rather than going digital. Glad to hear you're still at it!

Holy Crap, it LIVEVIL!!!

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That's what I said!

Oh hey, am I late for the AARP meeting?

Let's see 2003? Joe came back, had oring sets and comicpacks, TRU closed and then reopened, the club ended, modern construction started, oring Joes ended, a few live action movies came out that most fans consider to be ranging from meh to watchable, a couple of new big regional Joe toy shows popped up, modern construction Joes ended a slow, slow death, Oring Joes returned on Hasbro Pulse which is sort of like Direct to Consumer but for all their brands, GI Joe Classified line is a 6" rebranding currently on shelves now. There's more, but I think that covers most of the high points except for the comics.

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