How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 35
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 & Coloring Books: 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
DONT DOWNLOAD "Sonic Mods" for Minecraft or anything else - They'll use stolen assets, may not even contain Sonic content, and can break the main game.
It's one of those not-very-useful 'keychain plush' dolls. The doll is always too big to be a proper keychain, and this one is no exception. It's also clearly from the era when nobody knew how Sonic's spikes went, because he's a victim of the 'felt fin' idea, where they're just 1 line of felty flaps.
Just what's going on here? Well, this is an actual plush made about "Uganda Knuckles". Ugandan Refresher: At some point there was supposedly a Sonic fan living in the country Uganda, and they decided to draw Knuckles one day, and posted it on the internet. Because it was a little kid though...well...the art wasn't the best likeness. However, as some things go--the internet took hold of it and things ran away from there, making the 'bad art' into something famous and funny like the 'gotta go fast' crayon.
So the art wasn't official, it was a legitimate fan art. But then, is this even a bootleg at all? It isn't trying to trick people into thinking it is actual-Knuckles.
And......it's actually really good? Like...whoever did this was looking at the art quite well because it has the odd face bottom, scribbly fists, withered shoes and the chest stripe is at the bottom/where it should=shouldn't be. It really does a good job looking like the art which is even more hilaroius because usually bootlegs get everything wrong and then suddenly, this very wrong art produces this very accurate plush. It is double funny to see!
Now, aside from the rather spongy plush fake, there's now a phony pin to go right along with it. And...they sure did do a good job of drawing it badly so I guess it succeedes at it's point? The pin faker maker didn't miss a scrubby detail including the odd shading, withered gloves, misplaced eyes and they even colored the shoes correctly.
It is interesting to watch a faker put actual good effort into making something that looks bad on purpose so that it can be accurately bad looking! A bit of a paradox but it is still funny to see.
Of course, anyone dumb enough to try and make these is also dumb enough to be really bad at it so there's like...
Much like "iron on art" and "greeting cards", literally anything that's an image online can be made into one of these fake products from an on-demand printer---so there's literally infinite of it, and no way to keep up with posting infinite items that don't exist onto Gear.
This is a fake LCD game. (And, with real LCD games being barely playable, one can only imagine what a fake one of these would do) It seems unusually long/tall, though. Does it maybe fold in half? But then it would hit its own buttons. There are quite a few/many buttons for a game like this. The art is clearly some kind of cheap stickers applied around the screen and on the bottom. It looks like they stole a screenshot out of Sonic Adventure and pasted it on there. The game screen is small and vertical. Of course there is no maker/branding on it as it is a phony thing.
There's no telling what game was/is in here. LCDs like this are usually mono-game items, but if you can copy the circuit card to one (such as a Tiger or so) you can pretty much put it in any case you want and it'll go. However, being a bootleg, the game might not even have been a Sonic one. Photo by WinDOSExPea
Here's a phony plush made/sold in Brazil. It's a bogus modern Sonic, but the soles of his shoes are black for some reason. (Has a bootleg doll ever done this as an error before? Maybe this is a first) He suffers from bad pattern too, with a wierd wide upper body that has the arms maybe growing out of the neck? The 'peach color' area fabric is in the right place but it's too pale. Also notice they've only done 3 fingers per hand, so that's wrong too. The nose is big & somewhat carrot/cone shaped. They're clearly trying (and failing) the eye ridge with some stupid looking floppy flap. What's up with the odd points on his ears? Is it a result of strange sewing? The mouth is supposed to look like the SA "bdg" (big dumb grin) but here it kind of makes the doll look fretful because of how oddly shaped the head is. It's clearly an attempt, but it's also not a very good one. Hopefully this didn't trick anyone there. Photo discovered by:
There's wrong paint, messy paint, mutant wrinkle limbs and all manner of wierdness going on here. Shadow gets to be shabby twice (in different ways!) with the wrong shoes both times. Do notice that he's actually just 'black Sonic' because they didn't change his mold. Sonic has blue gloves?? and all-red shoes. Tails is just missing paint apps left and right (none for his ears, glove belts or tails at all)
Oddly, the best thing here is the Metal Sonic and it's because of LACK of effort. Because they weren't trying to paint him much, they didn't get the chance to go that wrong. The pink transparent one doesn't make any sense but it's arguably their best one. Do notice that his shoulders are always attached to his head because they couldn't be bothered to trim the mold any. These funky figure fails won't fool anyone...so why do they even bother to exist? Photo discovered by
Yes, in the case of these Mexio bootleg plush 'keychains'. Of course, they're too big to be regular keychains, and they're too poorly made to fool anyone. The first one looks like it's trying to be a plush of a funko pop? That's a bit of an odd idea to start with, and...it stays odd too. He looks no good with the square head and all white eyes.
The 'face keychain' looks like the pattern was done by someone who didn't grasp pattern-making all the way. It's just a blob with eyes and micro ears. The embroidery is obviously there to try to 'help' it (big black arch on top, overdone black for the face border)
He's odd for several reasons, one of which is the fabric for the body. It's semi-shiny here as it is some kind of faux-crush-velvet like material. That type is rarely used on any sort of plush official or otherwise, so it is an odd choice to see. He has the usual mistakes such as lack of ear borders, big-body, and the white chest fur thing too large. But, look at the hands--they're actually pretty darn quality looking with nicely defined fingers and what's clearly a decent pattern. The gold-tone shine fabric for the glove & shoe cuffs is also nice. The shoes are flat foot/usual for a fake but then the legs are super long? Also, his head is somehow hunched or forward on the body strangely. It's like some areas are really quality/they were trying while other things collected the mistakes. (All art has the white as an obvious small triangle, this fills the entire front of the doll, etc) Remember: Some bootlegs are actually nice looking items or can mix real & fake quality together. Photo discovered by
These are some NASTY bootlegs! The top box of trash is especially horrible, being beyond low effort into no-effort. The first one is probably suppsoed to be that 'meme picture' "gotta fast SANIC" or whatever the screwy-crayon art thing is, so that looks horrible on purpose. (As meme things as bootleg merchandise are apparently some kind of trend) Then, you have some horrible trashy Tails, a disgusting Silver, what is even going on with big mouth Super Sonic? Then Knuckles is a bizarre mix of all wrong colors with a distorted head. The box, of course, mixes up every piece of Sonic art they could steal from the internet.
The 2nd box of figures is still a box of garbage but these don't look like chewed up bits of refuse. There's oddly 3 Sonic regular figures in there (because that's likely the best mold they could steal) along with a strange long/tall Tails who has....no tails, a Shadow with Sonic's shoes & Knuckles with Sonic's shoes again but this time they painted them green. The box throws Movie Sonic onto there 'because he was popular' when they made the toys. (So, you can easily tell the era) What's super odd is that anyone is still falling for this / still buying this trash in the era of the movie? It just seems really wierd that anyone would bother making this junk? Photos discovered by WinDOS ExPea
This is because there's potentially literally infinite of them from endless fake trash games that steal Sonic sprites. However, once in a while it is ok to show a shabby example of what you might get, in buying one of those '888 in 1', or whatever type of Sonic-labeled phony cartridges.
In this case, a gummy looking Sonic sprite has been added to some sort of fighting game. So, the game and cartridge would both be bootleg. Notice how hard it is to see Sonic though, because whatever game this is, wasn't meant to have him in there going against Mai Mai (whoever that is) currently upside-down.
They're not fun, they're not well made, and the 'so called Sonic content' (if there is any) is usually just a visual overlay. Screen cap discovered by WinDOS ExPea
This is one of those 'bath mat' type thin rugs that's made of something similar to (but not the same as) the 'fleecy throws'. The stuff for it is shorter, but it can still use 'dye sublimate' to print very accurately onto just the same. That's the case with this colorful stolen art rug. It's likely to be some fan art of some kind of every Sonic character they could add from the games. Of course, being a bootleg, several are cropped out (like you can see part of Wave up there, etc) The other rabbit is Cream's mom Vanilla and not a fanchar. How mad would you be if you worked really hard on art and then some schlub stole it and made money?
They're obviously trying to knock off one of the Japanese 'pointing classic Eggman' plushes, but they're doing a terrible job. Can he even be considered to have a head? It's like there's a bit of a bump at the shoulder area and there should be a neck on that...but nope, that's the top of his head. The nose is actually below the armpits! Also, what's up with the nose shape? Oddly, he does have 'teeth' (there's a strip of white/gray squares fabric. They were also clearly confused on eyes vs goggles, so he got beady black dome-shapes and an odd little connector line?
That black thing on the back of the head is likely the hang loop. Another hallmark of fakery is that there are only 3 fingers on the hands, that is always wrong. What a strange, small & fake item. Photo discovered by
And this time it's...Schlemmerli the...probably pasta company from somewhere. They wanted a mascot but were so lazy they've stolen Sonic once again. Now, he's traced over quite poorly and made into a stupid looking orange 'chef cat', holding a spoon. The big body makes it look fat, and the white shoes look like sloppy socks. Cutting the spikes off/down into a ruffle of fur doesn't help either. Why people steal Sonic and then make him look terrible is unknown? Like, don't you want a good mascot to make people want your food, not look like a lazy ripoff? There's probably nothing even wrong with the Mini Maultaschen in the package, but the mascot just makes it look cheap.
What's inside? It looks like some kind of ravioli. Photo discovered by
Now with more stolen fan art! With this bit of garbage, you get 5 really ugly stupid looking fake figures. The box is trying to be convincing though, plastering art all over & using the modern logo. However...they're also ripping off fan art including stealing fan characters. You've got Knuckles McMetalfist the re-color up there, wrong-color-stripe Shadow, and the bottom has green hedgehog with tiny spikes along his top spike.
The figures themselves are the usual gummy looking junk, but you have to assemble Tails by adding his tail (seen at right) Silver's lower face is read, but Knuckles does have his fists. They're probably poorly cast copies of an early bendy maybe with mis-mix-mash heads. Photo discovered by