I haven't been in touch with toys, from the age of 11, till I was 39 years old. Not at all.

In 2014, I've bought some 3.75"-dwarf-figures from the Hobbit, for my nephew. To get him a few more antagonists, I searched for orcs the other day, on Ebay. Found none appending to the Hobbit, but discovered those Lord of the Ring figures from Toy Biz. Ordered three of those, opened the  box...wrong scale...damned ! ...but so highly detailed and authentic  ...“WOW !?“

My wife and me, both huge Tolkien-fans, fell in love with these figures instantly and bought a big collection soon after.  I‘ve felt extremely nerdy, since I thought, we are the only grown ups, who collect action figures. "Toys are for kids,  right.?“

After getting an overview, which figures were released by Toy Biz, I've seen figures on google, obviously not from that series. I was confused.

Where did they came from ?!?

I also had no clue, that customizing of toys is a thing and it was very surprising for me to find out, that some people do that for a living.  Felt like stepping into a parallel-universe, which had been there all the time, but was unrecognizable for me, haha.

Seemed even more nerdy to me, but I've been fascinated with this art-form, to the same degree.  After we could call the few 6" Hobbit-figures our own too, we wanted more Hobbit-related figures. We've commissioned a well known customizer to create one particular orc figure, but he was really  unreliable, so I've decided to try it myself, but again ...I had no clue which materials to use ect. It took some time to find the right stuff and to find out how to use it.

If someone would have told me, six years ago, that I would collect and customize action-figures,...MU HA HAHA... beyond my absurdest dreams....and  now... I'm really glad that I've discovered this multifaceted art-form,  which allows to express creativity, by working with disparat materials  and versatile handicrafts.

Either freestyle, or highly movie-authentic ...I love creating those middle-earth based custom figures, or just accessories.

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