Dearly Departed Custom Contest
Like it or not, we all have to die someday, but not just anyone gets a custom-made action figure to commemorate their existence! The object of August's contest here at Figure Realm is to create a figure of a deceased character, either from fiction or the real world. They may be gone, but your hand-made masterpieces will prove that they haven't been forgotten! You could make any fictional entity that has ever perished in a comic book, movie, television show, literary work, or other media. Maybe you'd like to cobble together a custom toy of a famous celebrity or historical figure that is no longer with us. Perhaps you'd rather craft a keepsake figure to honor someone you've lost in your personal life. You could even do an extinct organism like a dinosaur. It doesn't matter if they've been dead a day or thousands of years.

- This isn't a corpse or ghost contest: your goal is to make the character as they were when they were alive. However, you don't have to match the appearance of the person at the age that they expired; you may choose a look/outfit from any time during their life (i.e., a Michael Jackson figure could represent whatever period of his musical career that interests you the most.)

- It's okay if the deceased character that you want to customize is dead in one universe/adaptation but still amongst the living in another. For example, a Jack Nicholson Joker would be a legal entry (he fell to his death in the first Tim Burton Batman movie), despite the fact that the "real" comic book Joker is alive and well, because said film is its own little separate reality.

- There are no size/scale limitations and you can use whatever parts/materials/tools that you desire to immortalize the fallen.
 
Please remember to follow the Contest Rules and to Vote Fairly.
 
Contest Winners:
1st
2nd
3rd
 

What is the contest schedule?
Begins: Contest Closed
Ends: August 31st, 2011 - Last day for submissions. No exceptions! Cut off is at midnight Central Standard Time.
Voting: September 1st - 7th.

Example Pictures for Ideas

  View Contest Entries   

User Comments
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RedRebelCustoms -
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Hey, I was just wondering if I am the only one unable to view the contest entries. For some reason I still don't see the pictures of the figures. If your running a little behind that's cool.
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Patraw -
Friday, September 2, 2011
I can see the contest entries okay, and numerous people have commented on them, so I assume other members can too. If there was some kind of an error, Captain Coder probably already corrected the situation.
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Sinister -
Monday, August 15, 2011
Cane do a character that died in a movie, butcthe actor is still alive?

E.g A SAW character that died in the film but the actor that portrayed him is still alive and well.
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Patraw -
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Yes, you can do a dead character from a movie, even if the actor/actress who played them is alive. The Jack Nicholson Joker example I gave in the contest rules is a perfect illustration of this: Jack Nicholson is still with us, but the Tim Burton version of the Joker that he portrayed in the film is very much dead, and, as such, is a legal entry.
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jarasa1 -
Saturday, August 6, 2011
I posted my pictures with my logo. Is there a way I can change that? Thanks in advance JMA.
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Patraw -
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
I'm not sure if you can edit a contest entry after you submit it, but I'd try that first. If not, then I'd contact a moderator via PM, explain the situation, and send them replacement photos of your entry with the logos edited out; they should be able to correct the situation for you.
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LaSirenofEire -
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Just need a quick clarification: is it acceptable to do a custom of an actor or actress who has passed on as a character they made famous even if their character is still alive?
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Patraw -
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Yes, that's perfectly fine, because your custom is focusing on the deceased actor/actress, not the fictional character. Indeed, that's a clever way to "sneak" something into this particular contest that would ordinarily be prohibited. For example, the Street Fighter character M. Bison isn't dead, but Raul Julia, the actor who played him in the live action Street Fighter movie, is, so, a Raul Julia dressed up as M. Bison custom figure would be a legal entry.
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Drabstor -
Friday, July 22, 2011
hi!! I'm working in a Licker figure. The Licker is a Resident evil monster but I want to do the 1st movie version, It's a life form affected with T-virus that dies at the end of the movie. Can I do it for this contest?
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Patraw -
Monday, July 25, 2011
In the RE mythos Lickers are created by re-exposing an existing zombie to the T-virus again, which results in a secondary mutation. The problem is, Zombies, and by extension, Lickers, are already dead, and the rules state that you should make the figure as they were in life, which means you'd have to make the Zombie or Licker as a normal, boring human before it was transformed into an undead creature. While Zombies and Lickers can be destroyed, they aren't alive in the same sense that you and I are--they're animate corpses (I.e., the character that became the Zombie/Licker is the one that's truly deceased, when you "kill" an undead abomination, you're just returning it to an inert state of true death.) My memories of the first RE movie are admittedly fuzzy, so it may be that the backstory of the Licker in the film in different. Maybe it was genetically engineered or something, rather than mutated from a zombie, in which case it might be a living thing, and, if that's the case, then it would be a legal entry. So, in short: if the Licker in the movie was undead, no, if it was alive, yes.

Also, while it's fine to ask questions, please remember that the contest entries are supposed to be anonymous, so you should avoid directly telling us what you plan to make. If you have a question, it's better to couch it in vague/general terms, rather than being specific, if at all possible, to avoid giving away what you're working on. For example, rather than saying Resident Evil Licker, you could ask if you can make a monster from a zombie horror movie--that gets your point across, but doesn't reveal exactly what you're going to do.
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50percentJoe -
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Would Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil be a valid entry? He's shown as being an assassination target in the new Resident Evil game, but its unconfirmed if he actually dies in this spin off game.
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Patraw -
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Nope, if there's no evidence/proof that he's actually dead, then you can't use the character as a submission. Given Leon's popularity, my guess would be that if he was "killed" in the newest RE installment, it'd be a fake/staged death, like Commissioner Gordon's in the Batman Dark Knight movie, and he would later be revealed (to the surprise of no one) to be alive.

If you have your heart set on doing something from RE, there are a number of other RE characters you could potentially use: deceased members of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha/Bravo teams, for example.
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GeekSummit -
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Oh, ok. I get it now… sorry guys…. my bad.
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GeekSummit -
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
If a figure is posted under this heading but does not show up in the Daily Newest Customs…what's up with that? I've never entered in a contest before but don't they need some kind of exposure for judgement?
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Patraw -
Friday, July 8, 2011
Yeah, it can be a real quagmire trying to sort things out in fictional universes. I found it unfeasible to write up the rules in such a way that they could describe every conceivable situation relating to deceased fictional characters, so, in the interest of simplicity and creative freedom, I tried to make the parameters as broad/general as possible.

It's probably better if the character in question is currently deceased, with the understanding that we all know deaths in fictional media may not be permanent in the long term.

One of the reasons I included the bit in the rules about it being okay for characters to be dead in other universes/adaptations is so that people would have a loophole of sorts to do a character that isn't currently deceased in their "primary" reality. For example, many Marvel Comics characters have died in "What If" or alternate reality stories, which you could use as your source material to justify a given character's inclusion as an entry. It doesn't matter if the death is "canon" or not, just as long as it happened.

Yes, you can make any undead character "as they were in life", prior to them joining the ranks of the unliving.
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Batman1016 -
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
What about characters that WERE dead but "got better" (Superman, Jason Todd, Deadpool), or characters that were canonically dead, but were brought back after a long time and retconned to have never died in the first place (Bucky Barnes), or characters that were presumed dead but were just faking it (Captain America, too many others to count)? Do they have to be dead RIGHT NOW, or just at some point?

Just a side note, I really HATE that I have to ask these questions, but comics just REFUSE to permanently kill characters . . . drives me insane.

Also, can we do characters that are now undead, but make them as they appeared before death (Raziel before he becomes the Soul Reaver - or, for that matter, before he became a vampire - or Eric Draven before he becomes The Crow)?
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