Concerned over the future of OWN

I have concern over the future of OWN. When I first seen this site I was excited to see that there were people out there like myself who shared my love and passion for O-Ring style GI Joes.

I was even more excited when I learned that the part of the aim of this site was to get new O-Ring style parts made for everyone. The possibilities were endless. I met a few new friends on this site but I slowly started to notice the lack of new posts from the members except for a small few.

The only thing the members got excited about was when Veteran feed the members a bunch of lies and false promises about casting parts made by Krexx from Project ARAH that Cyko had purchased from Slayer Dave. I know Slayer Dave ripped a lot of people off myself included but what Veteran did was even worse in my opinion. He promised to reproduce the sculpts and make them available to all if Cyko sent him the pieces he had. Veteran then kept delaying when these parts would be casted for months after he said it would only take a couple of weeks in the beginning. It was at this time I started to have my doubts about Veteran.

Then in December after 8 months he says he casted the parts and is now taking payment for the castings. members sent off there money only to learn that Veteran has now totally disappeared from the OWN site causing every one to file claims to get their money returned. It was Slayer Dave all over again. The reason I stated this is it seems to have caused distrust on this site where everyone doesnt want to spend a penny on anything anymore.It was for this reason I started my poll and contacted Krexx about commissioning some new O-Ring parts.

I started a poll and after a lot of thought decided to fund this project all by myself  but make the parts available to all OWN members at no cost except for the casted parts they buy purchase from Krexx.

My question is how dedicated are you to donating to future commissions are you in getting new parts as a member of this site. If the interest doesnt exist then I will continue to commission new O-Ring style parts and possibly entire figures such as Pythona on my own without any help from this site.

I do know my finances may be greater than most due to the income I receive from my job but if everyone donates then it is cheaper for all. No matter what happens the winner of the poll will be avaliable for purchases but I have other items planned in the near future which include all the items in the poll and old style Kwinn/Pythona/Krake/O-Ring versions of ME style only joes like Helix and Shadow tracker among others.

I already agreed on a Feb 4th commission with Krexx for a Image style O-Ring Storm Shadow head,waist and torso. which I will post when I receive it from Krexx. I hope the members realize that there are honest people willing to do whatever they have to so there love of a hobby can be shared and grow. Its up to all to make this happen and commit to it.

Bob Braeger

I understand the concern.

The reality is that we as o-ring Joe aficionados aren't at the same life stage as we were 10-15 years ago. The majority of us are children of the 80s, and as we entered the new century we were starting adulthood. We were mostly single with new, decent paying jobs and we had the disposable incomes to build the collections we always wanted.

Now, those collections are, for the most part, built. Sure, we would like some new fodder to spice it up, but barring a full on release of waves and waves of new product in the format we know and love, it is hard to get quite as enthusiastic as we once did. Add in the fact that many of us aren't single anymore and don't have the disposable income we once did, and you get a recipe for what would seem on the surface to be waning interest.

You are also quite correct that it doesn't help things that the attempts at selling ARAH style parts has turned out to be a scam. I know I am hesitant at pulling the trigger on supporting these types of "kickstarter" type of projects with little guarantee of receiving any sort of product. I am even hesitant to buy an already available product on a casting site because I often have a hard time determining if the part is truly ARAH style or if it is more in line with the New Sculpt era (including those pin-heads on the comic pack Joes.)

You are obviously a very talented sculptor and I applaud your efforts. I can only hope that someday something can be released that really captures the attention of not only the dedicated o-ring community, but the Joe community as whole.

Also, a suggestion... and please don't take offense. But in the future, could you put some indentations in long paragraphs? It can be really hard on the eyes to read a large block of text.

Like I stated earlier, I'm most likely willing to donate when I get to see the first results and succeed in ordering and receiving the first new sculpt that you're working on with KREXX right now.

I believe in your goals, but since there were scams, you have to prove first to earn trust. Please don't take this as offense, but this is how stuff works.

I also don't have many funds to back a project, but I do what I can. Just look at back the previous OWN projects.

I think the community will grow as soon as we start showing off more of what we can do as a small group. If you look at other groups, Joe declassified, Joe customs ect..... They all have a specific name brand and ppl who like to see either there site or whatever flock to them daily .

This brings me to a point that I have wanted to bring up here for awhile . We are still a new small group and are starting to get traction . I can tell by our # of members and interest. Things are slow but I can see the writing on the wall. I believe the commission of krexx on these parts might start to show more interest and boost level of intensity. It's a good start. I feel that I am just starting to get into my real groove of customizing and I have plans for so much. imhave only been really customizing for 8 years, and my early stuff was crap.

With that being said I think we need to consider the expansion of our group into the bigger realm . I go to 2 or 3 toy shows in Ohio a year and occasionally see different websites with booths set up. Usually they might not even sell toys but sell merchandise with logo on them. (shirts, keychains, car decals, patches, ect.... I was thinking this may be a good idea for us to get involved in.

We would look into different toy shows including Joe con across the country and designate a member or members to attend and start showing off our work, and getting people interested again not just in the old school figures but into really cool customs. If members want to they can offer commissions or just hand out free stickers or whatever. The points is that I think there is huge potential here that we need to seriously look into. I know tables cost money and so forth but i think it would be a great way fro some of us to actually meet and hang out and really show the toy community and gi Joe community what we are about.

With that shows more interest in ppl who have never heard of us. I really think there is a bigger crowd of true arah Joe fans out there that would love to see what we can do. I see nova all the time at these shows and he always has his pieces for sale. Don g this then we could really start to establish ourselves and eventually get more money from ppl wanting more arah style figs. Plus who doesn't like getting praise for your work.

OWN's future depend on us. This site is for showing our O-ring customs.

Cool if we can unite and commission new parts but it is also cool to keep making customs with current parts.

What is sad is to see little to no comments on threads with customs. It costs nothing and bumps our community.