Why are these NOT bootlegs? Because their owners are not trying to pass these off as official goods, and in most cases, there is only ONE of each item you see. No one's in some factory somewhere mass-producing things only hoping to grab money. Most of these are crafts created by Sonic fans, will they inspre you?
It's a fan...wig!
That's right, an entire hair wig all styled and clipped into Sonic spikes shape. What's funny too, is that the ears are somehow also hair. A triangle is stencilled onto each ear for the interior color part. This fan continued to have fun by giving the manequin head some big gold ring earrings to go along with the wig of blue hair.
Much like a topiary tree, an item made of dense hair is difficult to clip and style into such a complicated shape as this & have it look tidy. Whoever did this fan wig has put forth a lot of effort. You can write in if you know who made the wig.
And this time, it's Super Sonic themed. Usually, fan helmets paint portraits of Sonic or Sonic themes onto the helmet, but this one paints the helmet as if it were a Sonic head. And the result is a little...strange? Because the head isn't helmet shaped the face comes across as slightly distorted and scary-ish somehow? It's quite well done though, as it takes into account the ears folded back from the wind & shadows the nose on the bottom part of the face. The visor part is covered in that paintable 'screening'
And one that's different! Each cookie here is quite tidily frosted with a satin-finish frosting. The hedgehog cookie cutter used was a realistic type one, but someone's having fun and coloring one with blue frosting for Sonic, and has made the feet red & white. There's even a little candy googly-eye on there for good measure.
This is a fun thing to do for a tray of cookies. Photo & frosted by Alan Writer.
It seems 2021 is the time because someone has (inevitably, perhaps) made a cosplay for Uganda Knuckles. The way of doing it...is to make a costume as terrible as the original item, so they've gone into a floppy red bag with a blobby mask/hood and crouched down to create the short look of the art. With white gloves and some googly eyes, it's exactly clear just what this cosplay is supposed to be.
Who's with him though? There's clearly Cuphead from the Cuphead game there to the left, but there's 2 other people sort of guarding him. Another interesting bit is that the photo inspired one of the participans (unknown who) to do fan art of it! Although, in the art, everyone's having a fright at such a strange character appearing.
You can write in if you know who did the art, or who took the photo.
And, in this case the culprit is (oddly) Jakks Pacific. With the Mario figure in the bottom right there, it's obvious that they own and regularly use metallic silver paint. So then, why didn't they use it for their Metal Sonic figure? He is METAL after all, while Mario generally isn't. There's no good answer.
However, with some metallic paint from off the shelf and a good brush, here you can see the results of the fan fix. It does look better shinier / more like the games when he is actually metallic. Figure customized & photo by SonicHedgehog 11
In this case, a fan has built a mini custom 'arcade cabinet', to house the portable screen of the Nintendo Switch. It's themed for Sonic Mania all over, with nice logos and graphics. The cabinet borders are all color coordinated to the graphics as well. You can see they've loaded Mania onto the screen there too.
The cabinet is nice and classic looking, so it is a good compliment to the classic style of Mania as well. This was made & photo by AVE Custom Cabinets.
There have been Sonic themed cars on Fan Gear before, but this one brings a new gimmick to the table. They've painted Sonic shoes directly onto the car tire so that when it rolls, it gives the effect of his feet spinning like how it looks in the game. Since it's on the side wall of the tire, the shoe marks are unlikely to wear off. See how they made the sole level with the track on the tire-edge so it looks like the shoe has real 'tread' on it. The wheel has no hubcap. The Sonic art may be a decal or he might be painted onto the white car surface. But, who's car is it? You can write in for credit if you know.
This cake uses only fun frosting to get the Green Hill Zone look. Each square for the checkered ground had to be piped on. Wiggly icing forms the waterfall, and they have decorated it with gold rings. To top the cake off, it uses the 'waving pose' for Jakks Pacific's 4 inch line of action figures and the emerald he came with. So, it's a cake that comes with a gift, too!
To carry and display the cake, it is on a base with the birthday message as well. This cake was made for and photographed by Dragon SmallZ
This fan cake is totally covered in fondant, a semi-edible but clay-like substance that can be folded, rolled out, sliced and formed into shapes like a sculpture. In this cake, the cake has 2 round layers checkered to look like Green Hill Zone, complete with grass and fondant rings. There are cute blue and white stars to go with the green/white candles.
But what's the Sonic on top? Is he an action figure, or is he fondant too? (If he is, he's quite-quite well done because fondant is tricky to make big shapes with) The cake is for "MJ" , apparent by the stars at the bottom. It is festive and cute, perfect for a birthday party. But, who took the photo?
In this case, it's a very convincing section of Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2. Just look at all of the things they were able to include, using regular Lego items that weren't part of a themed Sonic kit. You've got that round lift, the edge red/white spring, pink round dots for the 'chemical' that was always in there, a clear tube just like the games, and plenty of the iconic caution striping. Then, they've even crafted badniks! (These are also surprisingly accurate) The curve/ramp area and spring are also a great touch.
Hopefully whoever this is sends it to Lego to prove how easy it would be to let out a set for Chemical Plant for everyone to play with. Discovered by Taaron
Here's Barry Evans, with his certificate for having collected up the most official Sonic merchandise ever measured. He did it in 2022, and the record number of things is 3050.
He has several glass cases and a sort of arcade themed room dedicated to collecting. Does he have everything Sonic? No, because there are way more than 3050 things you can see here on Gear...though some of them can't be collected (like racing car helmets and things where there's only 1 so it doesn't count) However, getting that many items is a great feat of collecting, and there's clearly super rare and expensive things here too. There's the famous SA1 shoe-ended guitar, you can see the big embroidered patch behind the necklace holder (What's the necklace?) of course the big display statues, sad Caltoy Tails, there's clearly some movie stuff slipping in...and what else can you find?
It would be super interesting to inspect the items to see if there's something here that's not on Gear. It would also be interesting if he'd do an interview or something to see what his collecting specialty would be. It looks like a mixed bag of modern and classic, but it would be impossible to see if he also had numerous tees or things that don't fit in a case.
This is probably the big Jazwares anniversary classic style Sonic figure. Instead of making it into a new/different character, it has been customized into a 'metal look' weathered figure. There are added rivet textures, an all new paint job, and probably cut-apart and put back together panel for the head. The joints are all original and probably all still work. Metallic tone paint and faux paint aging effects have been added to help it look like it's constructed of metal (and much larger than it is) and also somewhat older.
This is an interesting effect...but why did they make the legs beige? The figure starts out correct, so it seems odd to purposely add a wrong detail while doing everything else so well. Who has customized this?
You can write in if you know for credit
The event is held in York, which is in England, and each year it seems to have a different theme. However, there is always live ice carving demos, food, crafts, and of course the big draw: the already-done sculptures to take photos of. Naturally it is held at the height of winter to make the sculptures last.
And, for the event, someone's carved this temporary fan item. It is a real ice sculpture of running classic Sonic. He's on an ice block base, which has the label for who did it and the number for the entry. (Its 13) However, due to the photos' original resolution you can't read the tag. The thing in the background on the tripod is a photo light. Transparent items can be difficult to capture detail for in certain scenes.
Ice sculptures are pretty difficult to make, especially with top-heavy items like classic Sonic here, so this person is doing quite well. It is fun to see such a large size fan item at such a popular event. The photographer was apparently also the artist that did it, but that doesn't help read the label for the name. You can write in if you know,
Apparently they were both Sonic fans! So much so, that they made it the star theme of the cake, as well as the guest cookies. The cake has a gold rings theme, and the classic Jakks Pacific action figures for Sonic & Amy are on the top. The guest cookies are cute too, each with a cut out Sonic or Amy faceor a purple chaos emerald with rosettes of icing to choose from. The gray bar is a censor over the names of the people that was inscribed on the 'ribbon' of the emerald. Cookies, cupcakes and a bigger cake all come together to make a nicely themed wedding sweets spread. Photo by Sissy's wedding photographer
Apparently so, because a Scottish person named Shannon also got married with a Sonic theme. This cake also has a Sonic/ Amy topper, but it is done in cut-out silouette style rather than action figures. This cake has 3 tiers, roses up the side and rings. The bottom teir is also checkered. Notice that the stand its on features faux grass