How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 19
Sonic Gear Main Merchandise Page * Bootlegs 1 * Bootlegs 2 * Bootlegs 3 * Bootlegs 4 * Bootlegs 5 * Bootlegs 6* Bootlegs 8 * Bootlegs 9 * Bootlegs 10 * Bootlegs 11 * Bootlegs 12 * Bootlegs 13 * Bootlegs 14 * Bootlegs 16 *Bootlegs 17
Bootlegs 18 * Bootlegs 20 * Bootlegs 21 * Bootlegs 22 * Bootlegs 26 * How To Avoid Sonic Bootleg Merchandise Hub Page
Fakery and junk abounds when bootleggers think they can get away with knocking off Sonic the Hedgehog!
Fight back by educating yourself on what NEVER to buy with these pages of photos and tips!
Remember, you vote with your money...any buying of fake junk only supports and encourages them to make more. Wouldn't you rather have awesome official items? Wouldn't you rather enjoy cool good quality stuff you know you can depend on? If you want the real deal, bootlegs are never the way to go.
Remember what a 'bootleg' item is:
It is an unofficial or unlicensed product being sold to the fans- by NON FANS. These can be home-made or made in a factory. They are not approved by the company who holds the license and are NOT made to any standard. The quality is usually low, leading to items which may break or wear out. Fake items may also be unsafe. Remember, bootleg makers are only after your money. They don't care at all about Sonic the hedgehog and are only out for a quick buck. Don't waste your money! Buy official SEGA Sonic things only, look for copyrights, and demand the real deal.
Iron On Transfers Submission: CLOSED (every single art on the internet can be one of these, know that it exists & if it's a transfer of any type it IS A FAKE.
Fighter Sonic 3 Cartridge & Screens This is a GBA game "Sonic Fighter Sonic 3". It's a bogus cartridge someone faked up, but the game itself actually works. (probably) It uses Sonic graphics ripped from other games, but does not have Sonic gameply. It is probably a mashup of some other game (notice the health bar & rings don't count) to get the 'engine' that runs it & then put Sonic graphics on top of it to try & cash in. (he throws...himself) The screenshots there are the title screen & in the game itself.
Description:
"This game actually worked. The title screen just said Fighter Sonic and had graphics from Sonic Advance. The only playable character is Sonic. when you press A Sonic throws projectiles that looks like him in his spin dash form. To jump you simply press B. The game do have rings, but they do nothing since you have a health meter. There are 4 levels, Lost City was the first level and it looked like Angel Island Zone from Sonic Advance. The next that I saw was Air Garden & that took a look from Sonic Advance's Neo Green Hill Zone, but the boss section is from Angel Island again though. i can't recognize the boss from this zone though. The 3rd level I got to is Alp Snowfield & it looked a lot like Ice Mountain. The last level is Coast Aisle & it took graphics from Leaf Forest, and the boss section's BG is from Ice Mountain (again). The boss for this level is actually the boss from Sonic Advance 3's Hot Crater." Description & photos by LuigiShadowFan322
Knuckles the Hedgehog Dumb Costume This is a strange category of fakery, the "Name Copper Fake". The costume is called "Knuckles the Hedgehog". But since it looks more like a pine cone than either Sonic nor Knuckles...you can easily see that the name is what's supposed to be roping people in to have a look. It's reddish but more on the brown side. It does have that white collar/stripe that's supposed to be "Knuckles-ish" but without infringing. So it's like they're trying to get traffic with the name, but then still not actually rip anyone off with the costume. You don't see this type of fake that often, because it's name is the semi-bootleg bit, & it's generally really unsuccessful at tricking anyone so it fades away. Photo discovered by
REDBUBBLE is BAD NEWS & Bootleg Haven!
Stay off it. ALL submissions for Redbubble Site Merchandise are CLOSED to SonicGear.
www.redbubble.com is a site where people can submit designs, much like CafePress, & have them printed on goods like Tshirts, stickers & more. However, unlike CafePress, it is apparently NOT monitored to keep people from cashing in on copyrighted characters. Just any random person can steal Sega art directly & apply it to a shirt there. Since RedBubble stopped being about legal, normal parody, and about indiscriminate ripoffs ALL their submissions are closed from 2013 onward, because it will flood the site with infinite merchandise & garbage.
Amy Chase Fan Sticker Here are 4 examples of Fan Art on Red Bubble. The first is a cartoony Amy chase sticker, next is a frightful Tails Ipad Cover (for 63.00 this can leer at YOU!) a scribbly sticker & Stardust Speedway Logo Shirt
Terrible Tails Ipad Cover
Scribble Color Line Art Sticker
Stardust Speedway logo shirt. The StardustSpeedway one is verging on parody territory, but then stole art of Metal Sonic's head. The scribble sticker is trying to be "Sonic, but different enough to get away with it", same with Amy chase & the Tails...a sort of cyclops with eye/bangs growing out of it. Remember: just because someone drew it doesn't make it official merchandise.
Stolen Sticker Xmas Amy Art
Sonic 2 Title Screen Ripoff Shirt Paint Spatter Tails Tee
Here are 3 examples from RedBubble where it's just outright stolen stuff. They first grab the Sonic 2 title screen, pixels & all (they've got a Sonic 1, one also) Next, they take Flying Tails stock art & alter it, trying to disguise what they did. Last, the infrequently/used/seen Amy Xmas-dress stock art is just outright taken from Sega so people can make money selling stickers of her on the site. Altering art doesn't make it yours & doesn't take the copyright off it either.
Redbubble isn't going to have the usual shoddy bootleg quality, like nasty iron ons & etc. The site seems reputable enough, it's just not policed against people just posting up anything they can click & save away from other fans or Sega itself. Would you feel bad if someone stole your fan picture of Sonic, put it on a sticker & then kept all the money? Don't support fakes. All Redbubble in area discovered by ShadowFoxx757
Fake Flower Face Sonic Steal Flower looking familiar? This phony flower's got Sonic's stolen face! It's some sort of mascot for "Cloud9", but someone drew a daisy & then filched Sonic's face by tracing it off of something. His nose is missing, & the eyes are gray instead of green...but it's clearly a trace job going on here because they couldn't think of something original. Plus the peace sign pose & "spike like" petals aren't helping this wierd thing's cause. Photo discovered by HoggerTheHedgehog Bogus Bag Dolls
News Power bootlegs again...this time with some bogus 'bag holding dolls' Each one is holding a cloth trinket bag. NewsPower is from China & has bootlegs on other pages. The Tails is by far their best (look at those bad eyes!) but don't be fooled because everyone has the SAME shoes! Photo discovered by MrCalistine
Sonic Colors Fake Amy Metal Sonic Colors? How about all the WRONG COLORS! Here comes some mix n' match garbage figures from Alibaba (the normally ok Chinese direct toy site) At left you've got wrong color Amy with orange shoes, yellow dress, pink arms & bangs, plus a poorly painted metal Sonic. Chaotix characters mix with olympic games & Heroes for the box art, while you get a tacky pink 'stand' for the phony figures. The other box is worse...with more characters to wreck down. Super ugly yellows Super Sonic, mutant classic Amy again, barely painted Metal &....Technicolor Tails! Sonic Wrong Colors Pack
Colors fakes discovered by SonicToast
He's not only orange & yellow, but he's pink & white too...look at those blank eyes. Classic Sonic's also looking pretty bad there in the corner with hardly any paint. The box is labeled "Colors"...but no one will want these colors. You've got Heroes art in the corner then....suddenly...giant Charmy bee! E Omega & team dark are shoved in the other corner. Someone put some effort into these but....not enough.
SatAM & Chars Fake Tees Here are 2 better examples from TshirtsIWant.com , its another store that just sells any random thing people can push onto it...meaning bootlegs & shabby shirts galore! The SatAm one here is pretty convincing though, if it hadn't used the modern logo with a show so old. They chose decent art for each of the characters directly from the show (notice the difference for Rotor & Antoine with their giant heads, as opposed to how their looks from the comic have changed) The 2nd just steals and sort of stretches out some modern Sega art, then puts part of the Sonic logo. Notice the lack of copyrights, "Sega" anywhere, or any sort of tag. Stay away from the site, as likely nothing's official. Anyone can just steal art (how long before someone's making a buck off stolen fan art?) and post it to a shirt there. Both discovered by Shadowfoxx757
Mexico Piggy Bank Fake Figure Anywhere can produce bootlegs. (though China seems the #1 area) This piggy bank type figure is the first discovered for Mexico. It's pretty obvious what they did here, they took the design of the giant deluxe modern Sonic Jazwares Figure & turned it into an un-pose-able figure atop a white base. The odd part is that they DID get all the detail, but the pathetic paint job gives it away right away. You can even see the white strap on his shoe as a raised detail, but they just painted right over it. He's got the blue arms again & classic style all black eyes mismatch with the modern design. Without the poor paint he's actually a pretty good idea (for a fake) repurposing a figure into something else. This won't fool anyone with the blue arms, missing shoe detail & missing ear detail, but it is curious to see. Photo by CrystalSonicFan
Mario Sonik 2 Famicom Cartridge Phony Sonic Heroes Multicart Bootleg Sonic Jam 6 Russian Box
Here is an odd selection of fake cartridges. Look at how modern the stolen art is...who is still buying cartridges for long-gone systems in this age of 2013? It is a mystery. The first is "Mario & Sonic 2" with stolen Olympic art. The game on that one is actually the mod of Chip & Dale 2, but with an awful/wrong/ugly Sonic sprite that plays poorly & is boring. The middle is a "multi in 1" cartridge...which signals its fakery right away, as there's no way ALL those games could fit onto one simple, ancient cartridge. It's called Super KY 8004. Heroes of course isn't on there, it's a bootleg that starts you in Spring Yard Zone, but then mangles the game engine so you can't control it right. The last is "Sonic Jam 6" & it is Russian. You can see the Cyrillic letters for the description. It steals Riders art for the front, Sonic 1 Genesis art for the cart...and contains the terrible "red Sonic must turn blue via Mario's mushrooms" as he runs around in SMB 1, poorly. These are interesting to see, but too bad the games they contain aren't any fun. All photos & info by: MetaRidley001
Basketball Newspaper Fake Mascot Illustration What's going on here? This is a sort of semi-bootleg random messed up illustration.
This "Sonic like" creature graphic was found in a newspaper. They clearly took some SA stock art Sonic head and put it on a random body they just drew to try and create some type of character illustration for thier article. A wierd spiky arm, short legs, a starry skirt? & strange shoes probably belonged to some ordinary stock art character who had it's head replaced by the stolen Sonic. It doesn't even look good, who holds a basketball and surfboard at the same time? This type of fakery is sort of uncommon because really you shouldn't rip off art and then publish it as your own private clip-art stockpile like they're doing here. Clipping scanned by LuigiFan
3 Spike Failure Costume Well what do we have here...yet another stupid costume! It's like they had some vague idea of what Sonic looked like from the front & built the costume without ever considering any other angle. Look at those 3 stupid spikes! Look at the mega obvious exposed zipper! Unprofessionalism abounds with this cruddy costume. The giant belly dot, mistake ears, eye-shine-free eyes & rounded shoes tie up the rotten-ness here. Obvious fake! Spotted by: CrystalSonicFan Fake GBA Sonic 1 Genesis Cartridge Here comes the worst type of bootleg: the one that can be mistaken for the real thing. This is a fake GBA cartridge...but it's hard to tell. The front sticker uses slightly different art, but there's that 15th Anniv. logo, plus the ESRB. The back uses a different font (but who would notice!)
Does it even work? Tricky bootleggers don't care if it actually contains the game it says it does, so beware. Photo discovered by:
Sonic Cyber Cafe Sign Ecuador This is a sign for "Sonic Cyber" an internet cafe / console rental place in Ecuador. If you don't own a game system, a printer, a pc, or probably some other stuff (see along the bottom of the sign) you can pay a small fee to rent time on the technology in here. The problem is, their logo (Sonic with small bunny-like ears) & Cafe name implies it's somehow endorsed by Sega or Sonic, which makes their mascot technically a bootleg. Interesting to see the popularity of the Sonic face design though, that they thought it could attract more customers than something all-encompassing for their services. Photo by Crystal SonicFan