Charitymates 3: Everyone loves a trilogy..., Another year, another successful project! Thanks to everyone! Options

[Reideen1313]

Well, if we are doing literary characters....... why not make it like the "Monsters for Blood" event.
We took licensed (or mostly licensed) characters and made them our own.
Maybe take a character, do our own spin on it or update it, change it's time period or whatever....give it a name that resembles the orignal?

I'm not sure, just trying to throw out some ideas.

I think that would work, but again, do some research before starting your customs to be safe.

[MinimateEspo25]

well, i don't have any customizing skills, but i would like to help out, so with that, if everyone would like me to, i'd like to make a logo for the contest. if yes, let me have all the pertinent info in a pm so i can come up with something. also i'll need a deadline for it, so i can make room in my schedule

[luke314pi]

how would someone go about checking whether certain characters are PD or not?

Search for the title or author on Project Gutenberg.

Well, if we are doing literary characters....... why not make it like the "Monsters for Blood" event.
We took licensed (or mostly licensed) characters and made them our own.
Maybe take a character, do our own spin on it or update it, change it's time period or whatever....give it a name that resembles the orignal?

For the Monsters for Blood event, all of those characters were public domain as well. That is why no one could do a Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. But I agree that customizers should feel free to put their own spin on the character if they choose to.

This post has been edited by luke314pi: Mar 25 2009, 10:01 PM

[minimadman]

Fujis will correct me if I'm wrong but 90% of Charitymates are sold to Forum members so WTF should we care whether 'our' charity is 100% PC for ebay?

If this is the case why don't we skip eBay and have a silent auction on the board. We form some sort of committee to put a minimum price on them and then everyone can PM their offer, best one wins.

[robomate]

i have a question about the customs do the customs have to be the book versios or could you make them like star captin ahab or dorothy the assasin

[jcastick]

I think what we should do first and foremost, is decide the theme, charity, timeframe and deadline before anyone decides on what custom they wish to do.
Timeframe should include a decent amount of time to research their character and then plenty of time to finish.

I would hate to have someone be psyched about making a custom and then find out it doesn't fit the finalized theme.

[Bob Harris]

Since I'm well trained in collecting suggestions lately, I tried to cellect the charity projects that are still in the run - as far as I see it:

UNICEF
Books For Kids
War Child
Amnesty International
Doctors Without Borders
Education Across Borders
The World Library Partnership
(No, I won't make a poll and this won't be a "TM" List )

I'm fine with all of those, but if I had to choose I'd say "Education Across Borders", since this would fit pretty well with our current idea of creating fictional characters of any literary works.

[buttheadsmate]

Since I'm well trained in collecting suggestions lately, I tried to cellect the charity projects that are still in the run - as far as I see it:

UNICEF
Books For Kids
War Child
Amnesty International
Doctors Without Borders
Education Across Borders
The World Library Partnership
(No, I won't make a poll and this won't be a "TM" List )

I'm fine with all of those, but if I had to choose I'd say "Education Across Borders", since this would fit pretty well with our current idea of creating fictional characters of any literary works.

'Education Across Borders' is ,like all charities,probably very worthy. I would like to point out however that according to my initial 'google' the only border it actually crosses is that of the Dominican Republic.

Just letting you know.

[buttheadsmate]

.................. can't fairy tales be included? Just curious.

If fairy tales are included I'll take new dibs on 'Liberace ' ......

[Rad]

How does everyone else feel about Education Across Borders or The World Library Partnership? I think either would work with our current theme of characters from literature.

I looked at both websites after you linked to the Fujis. EAB looks to have very close ties to the Roman Catholic Church and the WLP's website appears to be a holding page. None of the links at the top of their page went anywhere.

I'm not saying this to be difficult, just making the observation. I love the theme of characters from literature and would just like to mention that I believe a lot of the characters from League of Extraordinary Gentleman are public domain. Bagsy the Invisible Man for my custom.

[Fujis]

Fujis will correct me if I'm wrong but 90% of Charitymates are sold to Forum members so WTF should we care whether 'our' charity is 100% PC for ebay?

If this is the case why don't we skip eBay and have a silent auction on the board. We form some sort of committee to put a minimum price on them and then everyone can PM their offer, best one wins.

This project is difficult enough to manage without a silent auction and PM's with bids. eBay Giving Works and MissionFish make it very easy to list an auction with a percentage of the auction end price being automatically sent to the desired charity.

Also, the main goal of this project, as with past projects, is to donate to charity; not get custom Minimates to forum members - that's just a great by-product because we, of course, are the fan base. I'm not sure of the exact percentage that forum members purchased over the years, and while it's high, eBay gives us access to a wider range of collectors and those interested in helping out a good cause.

i have a question about the customs do the customs have to be the book versios or could you make them like star captin ahab or dorothy the assasin

A spin or new interpretation of the character is more than welcome!

Timeframe should include a decent amount of time to research their character and then plenty of time to finish.

Agreed, although it took some participants over four months to send me their customs on the last project (you know who you are ). After we finalize the details of this project, I'd like to set an 8-week deadline.

How does everyone else feel about Education Across Borders or The World Library Partnership? I think either would work with our current theme of characters from literature.

I looked at both websites after you linked to the Fujis. EAB looks to have very close ties to the Roman Catholic Church and the WLP's website appears to be a holding page. None of the links at the top of their page went anywhere.

I'm not saying this to be difficult, just making the observation. I love the theme of characters from literature and would just like to mention that I believe a lot of the characters from League of Extraordinary Gentleman are public domain. Bagsy the Invisible Man for my custom.

Hmm, okay, as I said before I'd like the charity to be as 'international & secular' as possible. These were two that came up when I searched for an international charity using the keyword 'books' on eBay Giving Works.

We can keep looking for a 'literacy-based' charity or maybe go with War Child - I think the theme of characters for literature and the name of the project can still fit. Or maybe calling it 'Imagining a better world..."

As for the theme, I think 'characters from literature' can include classic works or fairy tales, what needs to be stressed is the character must not be owned by someone.

This post has been edited by Fujis: Mar 26 2009, 08:37 AM

[buttheadsmate]

i have a question about the customs do the customs have to be the book versios or could you make them like star captin ahab or dorothy the assasin

There is absolutely no need to customise their names as well

Assassin as in ass ass in as not as ass as in assassin as its as a sin.

[TM2 Dinobot]

Found mine. I call Titania, Fairy Queen, wife of Oberon. XD Thank you Mr. Bard.

[robomate]

all i meant about the dorothy and ahab thing was could we do a scifi equevilant

[Fujis]

Charitymates III: The Mind's Eye (April 1-July 1, 2009)

Custom Minimates of some of your favorite literary characters lifted right off the page and filtered through the imagination!

Current Participants

*Bob Harris- Mad Hatter or Pippi Langstrump
*boyd - Aladdin
*buttheadsmate - Zorro
*clayface1
*dr baghead
*Fujis - Sherlock Holmes
*jcastick - Scrooge or Captain Hook
*Lobsterman - Sinbad the Sailor
*Luke314pi - Romeo & Juliet
*mabait1020
*Mattallica- Captain Nemo
*minimadman - Robin Hood
*MINI_MYTE - Queequeg
*robomate- The Tin Man
*thepunisher=D - Odysseus
*TM2 Dinobot - Titania, the Fairy Queen

16 customizers on board so far - I'd love this year's project to have the most customs up for auction yet! The first year had 15, the second had 18 (although only 16 were sold).

I'll add people's character choices once we've solidified everything.

And speaking of which, I'd like to settle on a charity so people can get down to searching for public domain characters from literature. I think the World Library Partnership fits well with our theme but it also satisfies the 'international' aspect (being that it benefits children in developing nations) - I'm also partial to smaller charities. UNICEF, Amnesty International, and War Child are huge charities and don't need a few more hundred dollars.

Rad: Thanks for looking into the WLP. I see what you mean about their homepage but they have to be a registered non-profit organization to register with eBay Giving Works. I've sent an email to the WLP asking for more info on the organization itself and asking what they would do with our support (however limited).

MinimateEspo25: We'd be more than happy to have you create a logo for the project (or anyone else that's interested for that matter)! You might want to check out what Luke and Shamrock created for the two previous projects for some ideas on content and formatting.

This post has been edited by Fujis: Apr 21 2009, 09:53 PM

[luke314pi]

This page has additional contact information for WLP. I also like the idea of going with a smaller charity, but if WLP doesn't work out, War Child would be my next choice.

[Fujis]

Thanks for the link Luke. I edited my post above so people might have missed it but I've sent an email to the WLP asking for some more info, etc.

I've also been thinking about the scope of the project and wondering if it's possible to bring in customizers from other boards? I'd like to broaden the participants and hopefully the overall appeal of the project (and the auctions to raise more money).

Once things are completely solidified how would people feel about posting links back to the project thread on other toy forums? Would it be worth it? Could we attract more customizers and/or buyers?

[Lobsterman]

I'm in! To go a little further afield in literature, I call Sinbad the Sailor.

[vbpanizzi]

This page has additional contact information for WLP. I also like the idea of going with a smaller charity, but if WLP doesn't work out, War Child would be my next choice.

Sorry it made me laugh.

[luke314pi]

I've also been thinking about the scope of the project and wondering if it's possible to bring in customizers from other boards? I'd like to broaden the participants and hopefully the overall appeal of the project (and the auctions to raise more money).

Once things are completely solidified how would people feel about posting links back to the project thread on other toy forums? Would it be worth it? Could we attract more customizers and/or buyers?

Once everything is finalized I will make a post on the Factory about it, which has attracted several minimate customizers outside of MMV.