How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 25
Bootlegs 18 * Bootlegs 19 * Bootlegs 20 * Bootlegs 21 * Bootlegs 22 * Bootlegs 23 * Bootlegs 24 * Bootlegs 26 *
How To Avoid Sonic Bootleg Merchandise Hub Page
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.
This is illustrated here with this Shadow fake shirt. (Presumably, it's black and white, but the whole photo has no color so...) Shadow is illustrated in a shiny style with various designs all over him & some sparkles around his fingers. The art is designed after a stock-piece.
Another thing to beware of on bootlegs is that these theives have no problem robbing fans of their art in the effort to make a profit.
If they're not afraid to infringe Sega, they're not afraid to infringe hard-working fans who come up with nice designs.
Seems so with "Big Brother" Tails the stolen bogus mascot they've got here. Whatever this place is, they couldn't think of a mascot of their own, so they ripped off Tails...literally! They ripped his tails off & added blue...pants? That are pulled up to his armpits? They left the rest of this CG sprite alone, it seems, aside from dressing him in a tacky way & removing the tails. The only hints here are the word "Copiadora" & a floating calculator & some maybe notebooks or something at the top. The whole thing is pretty strange because why write "Big Brother" in English if nobody's going to know what it means on your sign. This is a strange, stolen sight. Photo discovered by Victoria Vaporeon
Step aside Harry Potter Obama, because here comes Naruto Hockey Sonic! And he's on a bike-seat, no less! Naruto never played hockey & bike-hockey doesn't exist so what even is this? Nobody knows...but they did take some time to draw some odd hockey equipment onto poor Sonic here, like a strange cut-out helmet to fit him & some sort of shin guard looking things. But why write Naruto on there? Nothing here makes sense...but that's nothing really new for bootlegs either. Fakers are so often desperate to fool people, they'll combine sevreal "things that are regarded as popular" together into one, hoping that they'll mix to create some sort of irrisistable item ...but just getting something absurd instead. Oh well, at least it's zany to look at! Photo discovered by Victoria Vaporeon
A horrible looking red Sonic fake is here, with big blue shoes & hanging out with a bunch of other phony plushes. Everything here is plain terrible, looking like it was either crossed with a potato or made by one. Theres barf lightyear, a terrible Shreck, dumb looking Donkey, probably a horrible Jessie & it looks like a pig from Angry birds. The fake Sonic is just droopy and bad, with reddish eyes, mishapen belly dot, legs sewn onto almost the same place on the body & tiny mitten hands. None of this stuff will be fooling anyone with how terrible it looks...but it is sort of funny to see. Photo discovered by Victoria Vaporeon
It's "Sonic vs Simpson" and both characters are equally ripped off. Look how international it's trying to be though, tons of languages over there to choose from: but none of them can choose quality.
The Sonic is pretty mutant too, missing a finger, yellow eyes & blue arms. It looks like some kind of bike racing game, but with stolen (of course) Sonic backgrounds.
This tee appears here because it is NOT an iron-on or decal based shirt. It's actually mass produced / professionally/factory done like ordinary/real shirts. It features a 'cutie type' fake Sonic original art where he only has 2 spikes for his head, and the middle part that separates (ish) his "eye" is completely missing. This gives the character 1 huge square eye with 2 pupils. This isn't Sonic though...it's
"Space Runner"! And it even has a slogan! "I'm Out There!" The background has a line art of modern running Sonic with sparkles, but his head is replaced with a 'space runner' head. Actual thought was put into the design, as not all bootlegs are just junk, but this guy is clearly trying to trick people into thinking he's Sonic. Still, the effect is a little funny since the character is silly looking. Yes Space Runner...you really ARE out there. Though maybe you ought not to be. Photo discovered by Victoria Vaporeon
But not really. Prince Banana, 2, or otherwise (whoever that is) is no-where to be seen on this rotten red cartridge fake. It has stolen some Sonic 2 palm trees art for the background, with a Coconuts Monkey badnick back there, but then plastered a big image of Knuckles over top of it, and wrote "Prince Banana 2" over him. If they were trying to imply/make people belive in this banana man, perhaps they shouldn't have covered up the monkey. Then, the top looks like it said "New Game", but on top of this is a sunburst shaped sticker that has "Super 2001" on it. All the random stuff just makes this a sort of funny jumble of nonsense. But, if the cartridge could play a game...what could possibly be on it? Discovered by Princess Panda Lover
New Super Mario Brothers The Hedgehog! If only the Mario Brothers were actually the "Alchemists Brothers" Alphonse & Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist the Anime. So this one labels itself with 2 properties who's characters don't even appear, due to ripping off the grahpics from a third. Then, look at the game unit itself, it's got yet more characters all over it, who match absolutely nothing previous. They look like little cutie/chibi characters almost "Shopkins" like in color & number. This one is likely even more confusing than ol' "prince banana" above due to the wacky use of so many disperete properties to try and sell 1 really phony item. The small text there reads "Made in China". (That is, if anyone couldn't guess) It's time to file this one into silly & amusing bootlegs. Discovered by Princess Panda Lover
But look at the tag there in the inset. It's actually the only bit that looks convincing. It is highly likely to be an exact copy of an official tag, to try and trick people. Photos discovered by Spazer40
Yes...when someone steals art! This box of "Cereal Motel Porn Flakes" WOULD have been a fine and funny parody item, if not for the rotten habit of robbing Deviant Art fan artists of their hard work to steal something to put on the box. But, what exactly is it that's going on here?
"Cereal Motel" is a pop up 'cereal bar' for adults in the London. It serves zany "grown up cereals" like this one, but also "Vice Krispies" and "Booty Pops" (Rice Krispies / Corn Pops"), which are all normal parodies copying the font style / box type of each official brand & likely tasting similar. It's all good silly fun, until they started stealing to make this box. They copied someone's Princess Sally art & set milk & flakes all over her. However, the original wasn't even 'naughty', she was just kind of standing there with a hand out and no modifications. Why they chose to steal her is baffling, none of the other cereals have a "Furry Art" theme, she's not actually porn, it's double-stealing because she's copyright to Archie and then some kid drew this so they're 2-for-1 robbing. Reported on by Foodbeast & discoverd by Victoria Vaporeon
This nasty bootleg Sonic is one of the worst around. He's not only bad, he's scary too with his evil eyes and rotten little hands. The hands are cheaping out on the fingers, as he's only got 3, and they're all terrible looking. Then...who even knows what's going on with the eyes, they're embroidered, but there's some kind of "eye in an eye" effect going on where the pupil has a ring around it and then that's inside the white of his ordinary eye. They didn't get that right either, the center is quite pointed. The doll has no socks, and only 2 spikes on the back of the head. Then, the shrivelled little ears are wrongly placed, too small, and look more like a finger trying to grow out of his head. The mouth is a giant sort of creepy smile too, which helps nothing at all. This dreadful doll won't fool anyone into thinking it's Sonic, but it'll surely frighten kids away with its ugly face. Photo discovered by: Pichu97
Well, there are fake cartridges, so naturally, a fake app could follow. For it to truly be 'a real fake' and be eligable to appear here on Avoiding Bootlegs, though, the app has to be published to an official app store for a period of time. And this one was! But, not for very long because of it's obviously ripoff nature that caused the store curators to take it down due to copyright infringement. As you can see, these stupid looking characters are obviously just badly altered Sonic art. You've got ripoff brown 'hedgehog' with wiggly spikes, a phony Amy-alike with wilted spikes and eyes drawn onto her...eye shape (like the awful doll above!) & 'super hedgehog' back there where it looks like they just put his whole face into his eye.
It didn't take long since Tomy started with classic style figures for these phonies to appear. They're knockoffs that attempt to use the original mold, but are obviously lower quality. Look at how the Metal Sonic is so bent to one side it will barely stand. The Tails can't keep both of its feet on the ground (likely off balance) The Sonics are ok, but they're leaning too far forward and look likely to fall. Then, why did they produce a random black one? It's leaning even more than the ordinary one & gives the whole lot away for being bootlegs. So, keep in mind "distorted" or "bent" figures are likely a hallmark of fakery. Photo discovered by Misteryt1