Posts Tagged ‘custom bobblehead’

Custom Bobblehead

June 25, 2008 - 5:19 pm No Comments

Custom Bobblehead Doll

One way you can get a custom bobblehead toy or collection made for you is by contacting a bobblehead manufacturer and use a picture as a model. This means whether you want the bobblehead to resemble someone you know (like even you yourself, maybe) or a well-known personality (like the President of the United States or a famous actor) that is now very possible. The quality of the custom bobblehead may depend on which custom bobblehead manufacturer you contact though, the types of material used for manufacturing, and how skilled the artisan was at copying the image you supplied.

One drawback of manufacturing a custom bobblehead using a two-dimensional picture is, the artisan may have a hard time interpreting the same image in three-dimensional terms. This is why public personas like actors are often easier to customize than just ordinary people from pictures – public personas are often shown on video and TV shows so the artist can get a better idea of what the proportions of their face are and how they express themselves through non-verbal cues like facial expressions and body language. Though familiarity may breed contempt, familiarity is crucial to creating an uncanny resemblance to the person being honored by becoming a model for a custom bobblehead.

Where are custom bobblehead toys usually placed once they have been made and sold to someone? Some people like to put them on vehicles like automobiles and motorcycles so that they can be amused as they drive or draw the attention of passengers and drivers in other cars. Some keep them in the office, also to draw small talk from people dropping by the office cubicle. Still others like to keep them at home where the bobblehead may be displayed conspicuously for visitors to spot and then ask questions about.

This leads us to one appeal of custom bobblehead toys – they bring attention to the manufacturer that made the, the individual or organization using the custom bobblehead toys for promotional purposes, and of course, the person or entity who has been immortalized by having his or her likeness become a bobblehead. A custom bobblehead may amuse, irritate, or remind us of the person being spoofed but certainly they are always attention-grabbing objects. That is their main purpose for being anyway.

If you do decided to have a custom bobblehead toy or collection made, you may need to specify certain details like type of material to be used for the bobblehead, how soon you need the custom bobblehead toy or collection to be delivered, and who is the manufacturer has to copy as the custom bobblehead character. Upon such details rests the pricing for your custom bobblehead product package.

The custom bobblehead maker may have some past work done for previous public personas that you may want to take a look at. This could prove helpful for you so that you can specify just minor changes so that you can come up with a unique new version of the bobblehead personality you are copying. This can save time for you hunting down good photos of the personality being copied, time for the developer to give their interpretation of the figure, and time to make the actual dolls themselves.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT BOBBLEHEAD – ONE OF A KIND OPTIONS

June 24, 2008 - 6:30 am No Comments

“My bobblehead – one of a kind.” Wouldn’t you like to be able to say that when you start showing off your prized bobblehead collection? All collectors thrive on having not just the best quality bobbleheads around but to have a bobblehead – one of a kind collection on hand and secure in equally high quality bobblehead cases. But how does one go about gathering a bobblehead – one of a kind collection anyway?
First, what type of bobblehead –one of a kind varieties do you feel like specializing in? This is valuable because you can devote your financial resources, time and energies to looking for such bobblehead –one of a kind figurines without wasting effort agonizing whether to buy other types of bobbleheads. If you want to focus on buying bobblehead – one of a kind celebrity figurines , then be devoted to that bobblehead one of a kind figurine category. You may be surprised how far that gets you.
Second, focus on which sub-category in that bobblehead –one of a kind category you will be zeroing in on. If you are mad about Marilyn Monroe and want to look around only for bobblehead – one of a kind celebrity figurines that are about Marilyn Monroe or related in some way to her celebrity mystique, then cool – focus on that. This gives your bobblehead – one of a kind collection a bit more of a distinctive character that sets it apart from other collectors who may have cast a wider net for their celebrity bobblehead – one of a kind collection. It also keeps you from going nuts wondering how you can afford all those celebrity bobbleheads that are being auctioned off online and around you.
Third, try to figure out what attracts you to that bobblhead celebrity in the first place. For instance, Chicanos (people native to Mexico or who have bloodlines from Mexican forebears) might go nuts over the Chingo Bling bobbleheads because Chingo Bling is a rap artist who comes from a Mexican family. If you collect the Chingo Bling bobbleheads, you will find they really qualify as a bobblehead – one of a kind collection because it seems no other rap artist has chosen the bobblehead as a marketing tool. Chingo Bling even likes to kid around that other rap artists might be jealous because he sells Chingo Bling bobbleheads and these other rap artists don’t. Could that be true? Well, if the Chingo Bling bobbleheads get even more popular among Chicano rap listeners then, yes, maybe Chingo Bling has a point there.
Fourth, try to ask yourself why you are spending all this time, energy, and money trying to build a bobblehead collection in the first place. You can’t bring it with you everywhere you go, most of the time your bobbleheads will be stocked up in your home or office their special case, and how many people would actually engage with you in a long detailed discussion about your bobblehead – one of a kind collection anyway? This last question helps you find out the meaning behind  your collecting mania and lets you know the value of a bobblehead – one of a kind collection for you in the long term.

What is a bobblehead?

June 24, 2008 - 3:57 am No Comments

What is a bobblehead anyway? Actually, you are probably very familiar with bobbleheads which is a type of toy that has a head that bobbles or wobbles on a spring connected to the body of the toy. This type of collectible also goes by other names which are wobbler, noddler, and bobbing head doll. You have probably seen a lot of these bobblehead toys on cars – particularly on the dashboard – where the slightest movement of the car will make the bobblehead wobble on its spring. The toys are glued or screwed into the surface they rest on so that they don’t fall off.

One use of bobblehead collectible items are for promotional purposes of different organizations, like by sporting events organizers. The modern type of bobblehead first made its public appearance back in the 1950s. In fact, one very famous type of bobblehead collectible series cropped up in the 1950s which was the Beatles collection. Bobblehead collecting was a craze until the 1970s when the trend seemed to taper off.

Though bobblehead collecting became less urgent for some time, once bobblehead manufacturing became less expensive to pursue with the switch to use of plastic as raw material, more bobbleheads were produced of varying types and bobblehead collecting became fashionable again. A key feature of modern bobbleheads is that the head of the toy is usually much bigger than the torso and other body parts which makes bobblehead toys stand out.

If you are mad about bobblehead collecting, you may want to know more about the background of the bobblehead toy series you are purchasing so that you become a true-blue bobblehead aficionado.

Bobblehead Doll in wikipedia
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A bobblehead doll, also known as a bobbing head doll, nodder, or wobbler, is a type of collectible doll. Its head is often oversized compared to its body. Instead of a solid connection, its head is connected to the body by a spring in such a way that a light tap will cause the head to bobble, hence the name.

Although bobblehead dolls have been made with a wide variety of figures such as vampiric cereal pitchman Count Chocula, beat generation author Jack Kerouac, and Nobel-prize-winning geneticist James D. Watson, the figure is most associated with athletes, especially baseball players. Bobblehead dolls are sometimes given out to ticket buyers at sporting events as a promotion. Corporations including Taco Bell (the ‘Yo Quiero Taco Bell’ Chihuahua) , McDonald’s (Ronald McDonald), and Empire Today (The Empire Man) have also produced popular bobbleheads of the characters used in their advertisements.

The earliest known reference to a bobblehead is thought to be in Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 short story The Overcoat, in which the main character’s neck was described as “like the necks of plaster cats which wag their heads”. The modern bobblehead first appeared in the 1950s. By 1960, Major League Baseball had gotten in on the action and produced a series of papier-mache bobblehead dolls, one for each team, all with the same cherubic face. The World Series held that year brought the first player-specific baseball bobbleheads, for Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Willie Mays, still all with the same face. Over the next decade, after a switch in materials from paper-mache to ceramic, bobbleheads would be produced for other sports, as well as cartoon characters. One of the most famous bobbleheads of all time also hails from this era: The Beatles bobblehead set, which is a valuable collectible today. By the mid-1970s, though, the bobblehead craze was in the process of winding down.

It would take nearly two decades before bobbleheads returned to prominence. Although older bobbleheads like the baseball teams and The Beatles were sought after by collectors during this period, new bobblehead dolls were few and far between. What finally prompted their resurgence was cheaper manufacturing processes, and the main bobblehead material switched once again, this time from ceramic to plastic. It was now possible to make bobbleheads in the very limited numbers necessary for them to be viable collectibles. The first baseball team to offer a bobblehead giveaway was the San Francisco Giants, which distributed 35,000 Willie Mays head nodders at a 1999 game. The variety of bobbleheads on the market rose exponentially to include even relatively obscure popular culture figures and notable people. The new millennium would bring a new type of bobblehead toy, the mini-bobblehead, standing just two or three inches tall and used for cereal prizes and such.