Day 177: 6/27/11- Make A Custom Minimate

Day 177: 6/27/11
New Thing: Make A Custom Minimate
Inspiration: Ken and Harry Potter
Cost: $2-5
Time: About a half hour                
Bottom Line: A magical, geeky, fun time.

Magic!

Reflection: My darling husband Ken treated me to one of his hobbies today: Minimate customizing. Here is his description of this geeky pursuit from his blog:

One of the little subsets of my [action figure] collection are Minimates. These are little block figures, not unlike Legos, that stand about 2" tall, but have multiple POAs (that's points of articulation, or moving joints). Minimates are way cool, in that they pack an exceptional amount of detail into a small body. Minimates are also one of the few toys that have characters from multiple comic book companies, movies, and tv properties in a uniform style. The flagship property for Minimates is Marvel Comics (and the movies based on those comics), but Minimates have been made for DC Comics, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and Battlestar Galactica, to name a few. 

But what really puts Minimates over the top, for me, is the ease of customization. For the uninitiated, customizing is the creation of a brand-new figure from the scraps of others, using paint, modelling clay, whatever. It's not very easy, and good customizers can produce figures indistinguishable from commercial releases. I've always wished I could customize, but it's always proved to be beyond my skill set. But not with Minimates. Because their parts are all interchangeable, it's extremely easy to pull a few apart and create something new.

 Now, you might say, "Man, that sounds geeky." And you would be right. However, you would also be ignoring just how cool these little things really are. I have to say, having watching Ken get really, really good at this (he was the winner of a few "Best 2010 Custom Awards") has been alot of fun and I was exited to have him share this passion with me.

As with all things, Ken was an excellent teacher (it's one of the things that I love about him), taking the time to help me with the decals (which were designed by Luke Porter and available here) and finding all the right parts for one of my favorite characters, Harry Potter. I am very pleased with the results and had a lot of fun with this. Thanks, Honey!