Minimate Labs

Sci-Fi Custom Contest

July 13, 2009

Time for another post about custom Minimates. Which is really kind of odd as I don't make many customs. Sure there are a lot of Minimates I'd like to have that will never be made "officially," but I just don't have the drive to make them myself.

Thankfully there are individuals who are willing to run contests. These contests will frequently offer very nice prizes. Very nice prizes are exactly what I need to make me get off my lazy ass and make something.
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Comic Cover Contest

July 9, 2009

In the summer of 2006, the Minimate Multiverse message board held a contest where you would take a cover or scene from a comic book and replace the characters with Minimates. It was inspired by the first Marvel box set which replicated the Giant Size X-Men cover in the Minimate style.

Thankfully there were no restrictions on the choice of comic so I went with a less mainstream title from 1948.
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Revolt Propaganda

July 6, 2009

This will be a quick post, as it only contains one image. There are a lot of things one could do with this theme, but I never took the time to explore the possiblities.

Why are they revolting you ask?
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Bus Stop Series

July 2, 2009

Here's a series of photos that I'm actually kind of proud of. I had purchased one of the Kaws Kubrick Bus Stop sets on clearance from an online retailer and ended up being more interested in the bus stop than in the Kubricks.

I whipped up a few quick-n-dirty poster replacements, grabbed my tripod and LED lighting array, and just started shooting.
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Lord of the Rings - First Pics

June 29, 2009

I was really looking forward to the Lord of the Rings Minimates. I said in a previous post that I am an army builder, this line was made for army builders. Apart from Sauron, Toys'R'Us was the first place to get these on the shelves.

I posted images on the AA boards as soon as I could. I don't remember if I won the race, but I still think the photos came out nice.
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Lord of the Rings - Sauron

June 25, 2009

Touted as the tallest Minimate to date, Sauron was the first Minimate available in The Lord of the Rings line. It was a Tower Records exclusive that you could buy at one price or combine with a LOTR DVD and buy at a reduced price.

These started out at around seven dollars a piece. Then went to five, then to three. Prior to Tower declaring bankruptcy they got as low as one dollar a piece. Each time the price dropped I bought a few more. I had a feeling it was the last three-incher that was going to be made.
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ADV Films Extraction

June 22, 2009

For me, the most frustrating thing about promotional Minimates is that they aren't always formally announced. Companies would contract with AA (or now DST) to produce a special Minimate just for them. AA/DST would do the manufacturing, but the company would then distribute however they saw fit. Sometimes promoting it, sometimes not. In some cases it takes a random Minimate fan to discover them and share their existance with the community.

That was the case with the last three-inch promotional Minimate, from ADV Films. There was a post on the old AA message boards that basically read, "Does this look like a Minimate to you guys?" Sure enough it was, and it came packaged like no other Minimate before or since. Oooh, a teaser.
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Minimates vs. the Sentinel

June 18, 2009

By early 2004 I had a lot of Minimates. More than 180 of the little guys littered my shelves, even though there were less than 70 distinct figures. Yes, I was (and am) an army builder. It wasn't a choice, I think I was just born this way.

What good are armies if they have no one to fight? This post basically contains detail shots of my top display shelf at the time. It's all my three inchers fighting against the McFarlane Sentinel from The Matrix.
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Figuretoon Toy Review

June 15, 2009

When a person develops a hobby of taking 'amusing' pictures of toys, eventually that person will hit a block. They'll run out of funny or interesting ideas. When that happens they tend to fall back on the old standby, toy reviews... done by toys themselves.

I fell into this trap early on. I didn't realize at the time how prevalent it was. When I shot this I thought it was new and interesting, now it's old hat. Oh well, the past is the past. Now I'm on to exploiting all new old cliches.
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