How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 33
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. Bootleg Avoidance HUB Page
Since face masks actually help people, of course bootleggers have to get on board with bogus masks. A mask is pretty simple, 2 pieces of fabric and some loops for ears & you've got a mask, so faking them up is an easy thing to do when you have some stolen designs and rubbish fabric, as is the case here. Each one has 'running forward' movie Sonic up close so his face covers your lower face.
However, they're slipping up on quality because you can see how the 2 sides of the design don't align--the bottom mask where they red scribbled over his eye edges for no reason makes it look like he has a split upper lip/split face. The top one you can see that the belly dot doesn't line up either. Made in the USA doesn't always mean quality, nor if something's for real.
The fakers in question here are quite likely bootlegging off of Toy Network, who was never fabulous to begin with, so of course this thing manages to be worse. First, the eyes are embroidered...in 2 completely different places. The spikes in back are just ??? what's even going on? The low, 1 diemsnional flappy ears look stupid, the arms appear to be growing out of the sides of the head? Where are the shoe stripes? Why are the shoes shaped like bread loaves? Something is poorly about the body too, it may be 'big body' but is hidden behind the feet. Notice ther are no real fingers, the gloves are just blobby mittens with a withered thumb. This thing won't fool anyone, and will probably scare babies with how awful and stupid it looks. How do they keep making stuff that's this bad in 2020? I guess 'years of experience' are fake too. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie
Not really, it's just fake water bottle labels. As the lesson goes here on bootleg-avoidance: "Anything Paper CAN and WILL be FAKED". And, of course, labels are paper so here comes some gimmick fake labels for birthday bottled water. When is bottled water a party favor? I guess when the party is really boring. Someone has used Photoshop to steal a bunch of Sonic images, of course 'personalize them' with the birthday-name & drop in a phony nutrition-panel that says like '100% family & friends' to further the gimmick.
*As with paper-fakes only the first instance is available for adding to SonicGear, as they will make literally infinite variations on this so it is mostly a 'proof of what they will do'.
Discovered by
Now HERE is something that is very few and far between...and a real mystery too: a GOOD FAKE! Even Gear must admit that these 'bootlego' lego mini figures are actually quite nice looking. The ONLY official Lego-Mini-Fig as of 2020 is Sonic himself. No other is real, and these appear in 2019 & 2020 so...the whole set's fake but....
Whoever did this is probably on par with the Japanese "garage kit makers" doing vinyl figures small-runs at home. Not only do they get right every detail, but they have proper accessories somehow included as well.
Sonic's got his ring, of course, Tails has the proper bands on his socks, the chest fur shape is right, center smile is there, eye shape is good/ear shape is good as is the size & he comes with an emerald and a wrench.
Knuckles is nice too, they got his shoe detail, good shape for the head/face & even his little lego clippy hands
Metal Sonic they really had to focus on because of his different arm/leg detail, so you can see the hips/upper arms being different plus the yellow hands (to represent his yellow fingers in classic style) The engine hole in the chest is self-shaded for the graphic. Then look at Super Sonic--it's not just the Sonic but yellow! They even changed his eye expression/face texture.
These are a rare sight.
They would be super hard to produce because of hand-sculpting all the heads, plus probably casting all the bodies too, then getting the paint apps or stamping right. It's a lot of layers...but it is interesting to see what happens when somebody actually bothers to do quality even though they are not official. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
What have we here? A 'sleeves' looking knockoff suffering from lousy stolen sculpting and bad paint. The figure is cast in blue plastic, but they didn't bother to paint his arms all the way up to the shoulder so it looks like ugly sleeves. Then, it's probably a stolen mold of some kind, where the face was to be fit together instead of all one piece...because the under-eye area is exposed....and they managed to paint it blue which makes it look even worse. The white paint for the shoe straps is messy, and the eye shine is right in the middle which makes it look creepy.
You'll find this thing sometimes sold by itself, other times on a set with modern or classic fakes. He's a good bellwether for pointing out fake sets if he's in them....even if the other figures are good. Let the trashyness of this poorly pvc expose fakes everywhere. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
Just what is going on here? The entire thing is totally bonkers? It's not only riddled with mistakes, it's also got tacked-on-tacky with things that don't make any sense. Where to even start with this dumb thing. First off, why's it transparent blue plastic? Then, the eyes are tilted wrong, the bandanna is red instead of brown, the belly dot is white even though they DO use peach paint for the face bottom/plus it cuts off squarely at the bottom for no reason. Next, there's yellow socks, but blue shoe buckles as well as yellow glove cuffs that don't belong. And that's JUST the figure!
They added a tiny billy club or baseball bat accessory, even though that was never in the show...and then, is he supposed to be magnetic? Why are they clinging rings to his arms and legs? These are, of course, yellow ugly plastic for everything. Lastly, they have him on a withered looking hot green 'skateboard' with absolutely tiny fake wheels that look bad. What a mess of a bootleg---messes like this don't turn up often, but he's sure fooling no-one. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
Putrid pink ugly 'hairy' Sonic. What's even going on here again? Did the boom goobers above make this guy too? (Maybe) It's a phony Sonic cast in what looks like either pearly or slightly transparent pink plastic. He has pink paint for his shoes & wrong glove cuffs. They added wierd black/unfitting...eyelash? Eye edge outlines? which of course don't look good. But the body is baffeling. If you look closely, it has a textured-in hairy wavy lines texture as well as being too big the belly dot.
The head shape isn't awful, though the lower face is both too flat under the eye and too large. The bit that's just nonsense is the coloration and addition of hairy texture that nothing ever asked for. It's a bundle of strange. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
The Werehog is already not-good, but turning it slightly transparent and red doesn't do any favors. Why even make this? The werehog toy wasn't popular to begin with so a lousy red one that looks bonkers isn't going to get anyone anywhere. Of course, a multitude of problems ensues that we can make fun of. It copies the 'hairy texture' of the original all over, but looks like all the articulation is deleted. They applied the 'face beige' to the fingers/hands which make them look actually way worse/monkey or ape hands with black nails. The shoes are (of course) the wrong color, being yellow with red stripe and white soles. But look...somehow they got silver paint for the spikes atop the shoes.
Does he have 2 mouths, or is it the TMNT problem where the 'mouth' is open on the sides but shut in the middle? It's hard to tell. They bothered with a white belly dot, but something seems off about the ears.
It seems pretty likely that all these 3 'off color' figures were made by the same phony company.Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
This sucky 6-pack CAN appear at Amazon or ebay because they don't police well enough for fakes. But everything here is so gross, hopefully it doesn't fool anyone. You have wierdo werehog with odd arms, melting Metal Sonic with non-hands and droopy pose, psycho Shadow suffering from bonkey-eyes, wrong colors everywhere & melted face, super-stupor-Sonic with...what's even going on with his eyes? Then theres...whatever is going on with Knuckles? Are those rolled-up/mis-printed pupils? Does he have no eye color? Sonic is completely gross with faded eye paint, blue under the eyes, high set wrong ears and just a dirty/paint look to the face. Arguably, the Werehog is the best one, though none are good.
Nobody knows how these trash things get made because it is so obvious that they are fake. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
First off: yes they are fake in 2 ways. First is, of course, stealing Sega's art and fan art and the 2nd is that these aren't real photos of the item you get, they're just rubbish CG art mockups with the design is 'mocked' onto a photo of a plain white sweat shirt. They're likely produced to order, in that they don't exist until someone buys it so you never get the real picture on what you'll actually recieve.
But what will you recieve?
A "Dye-Sublimated" product. To sublimate means to put something directly from a solid to a gas (Skipping liquid) and that's all well and good, but, it allows for CG art to be applied to smooth surfaces much more easily than say, a printer, or an iron-on type of item. The ink is then stuck in there forever without the 'scratch off' or crackle that ironing things on gets. It's handy to have however...the quality will depend on the machines & materials used.
Mixed up mashes like this were you have movie art, stolen CG, and some random screen cap of Lost Hex are also an indicator of fakery, as is lack of tags & the general "there are no actual products in these photos" thing. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
It seems to..."bee" this time with a Charmy Bee fake figure. This set isn't quite as super as the first set, and also is apparently Chinese (lettering) However, they're still all pretty nicely done which remains strange.
The first is Ray the Flying Squirrel, who's an interesting choice because he's a tad obscure. They're using something fake to create his 'wing' (it's drawn on) & his head is a little strange/almost looking like a poor Super Sonic.
Next is Cream but they just label her 'rabbit'. She's actually pretty decent with quite accurate face, good ears & her collar/bow detail. A random pink teddy bear is in between her & Big, but why? It's just so random.
In all, it's another super interesting set to see with really a great level of details and attention for something that's not official. While it does slip up a bit on a few characters, it is quite the curious find. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
But, nobody told this "Wedding Cake Topper" business that & here comes a Sonic & Amy cake topper. It's a silouhette style black topper with cut-thrus for a few of the details/eyes. The art for it is clearly fan-done and has Sonic offering Amy a ring (not a finger-ring) while she just stands there leaning forward.
However, a REAL Sonic fan would want to actually support Sonic & wouldn't add fake rip off items to the top of a cake. Photos discovered by Princess PandaLover
Because it's stealing a Sonic image for the logo. This truck was spotted in Ukraine, but you can't read that top text there because it is in their letters. The Sonic face is next to the phone number on the side.
They're probably ripping him off because 'he gets there fast', so you would want your freight associated with him as if it could use his power or reputation to go there quickly. Of course, Sonic is this iconic character recognized by loads of people so in hopes of increasing their popularity he's an easy grab to just plaster onto stuff for recognition. What it usually results in though, is looking lazy or just tricking people and disapointing them. (Ex. truck is full of furniture and not video games or toys) Photos discovered by Princess PandaLover
This type of lamp is an acrylic-sheet glow lamp. A clear sheet of thick acrylic plastic is cut & carved with any line art. Only where the cuts/carves are does the light start bouncing so you only see those parts. (It travels through the 'clear' parts such that you can't see it) The color will be whatever the chosen color of the LEDs are in the base.
These aren't particularly hard to make if you have the right equipment, so of course bootleggers are right on top of it, stealing company designs & each-others' in a cash-grab attempt. With this, they just (kinda poorly--look at the right ear) traced a movie CG picture & are now attempting to sell it as a lamp. Photos discovered by LilyLovesAnimals
Has it appeared on other merchandise or something? (You can write in if you've seen it elsewhere) This is a fake Genesis cartridge with Sonic 1 on it. But, in some possible attempt to deter the authorities, they've put this ugly, stupid looking mouse character on there instead. Of course it has Sonic's colors, the red shoes, the white gloves, the mono-eye & the whole bit (spiky front hair this time) but it's a dumpy mouse instead of a hedgehog. The background looks like it was taken from something else (Similar to Japanese box colors) because look at the left edge, there's part of a letter, and a wavy line. Putting a fake mascot on the cartridge doesn't make the game inside any less bootlegged.