Should We Know You, Boskoes Toys?

There have been a lot of customs in my past. A scant handful that I’ve made myself, roughly twice that which I’ve ponied up and purchased… but by and large, most customs are those which I’ve scoped out and drooled over online. More often than not, these were the work of a customizing duo known as Boskoes Toys. If you’re not the aficionado of action figures, the peruser of plastic men, the connoisseur of customs that I am – well then, you just might ask yourself…

PoP!: Should we know you?

BT: Wow…

PoP!: Yeah, we don’t waste time… but actually, let’s take a second to GET to know you. Who is “Team Boskoes?”

BT: Boskoes is actually two people, me – Benjamin Derr, and my wife – Danielle Palmer.

PoP!: And what led the two of you to action figure customizing?

BT: I’ve always been a big toy/action figure fan, I just never grew out of the stuff. We first got into customizing as a way to improve things in my own collection, and it just kind of took over until nothing on my shelf was left untouched by a Dremel, epoxy, or some paint. At a certain point I was just getting way more out of doing work on action figures than I was collecting them… Now everything is reduced to buckets of heads, joints, random body parts, and scraps. I still pick up lots of cool toys for projects and still get a kick out having them around for a bit, but everything here gets the hatchet – no matter how expensive or rare. That’s also probably the reason me and Danielle don’t keep any of our work around and we sell everything we make. I think if we kept sentimental projects around we’d end up going back again and again and editing them. Boskoes motto: Devastation is the path to recreation.

PoP!: Now THERE’S a motto. So what made you decide to “go big” and make it profitable?

BT: I really think we owe it all to our fans. They like our work enough and pay enough for it that Danielle and I can afford to make a full time go at this – who wouldn’t wanna get paid to play with toys all day? Before this, we both still worked as artists – just the starving kind. This is the first artistic medium we’ve really ever gotten decent pay for.

PoP!: So it’s safe to assume you’re accepting commissions?

BT: We do take commissions almost year round, but unfortunately can’t take all of them. We look for the jobs that sound interesting to us, or are a challenge for us creatively, or if we do a figure that’s really popular and it’s practical for us to make it available to more people, we’ll keep commissions open on it for a awhile.

PoP!: What is your favorite work to date?

BT: I always like the fresh meat – so probably our newest version of Lion-O, or maybe our Transformers ROTF leader Class Bludgeon. Danielle’s vote would go to either our first District 9 Mecha Prawn or our Bioshock Big Daddy/Litter Sister combo.

PoP!: And what lies ahead for Boskoes?

BT: I think we’re both in agreement that our best work is still ahead of us. There are quite a few artists on the scene that are getting so good at what they do, everybody seems to keep raising the bar higher and higher, so… It’s kinda a job requirement to keep up to speed and to try and redefine just how good you can get a toy to look.

That's right... Inhumanoids customs!

Redefining just how good they can get a toy to look is something that Benjamin and Danielle do constantly. Be sure to take a look at the evolution of their craft at www.boskoestoys.com Give them a challenge, and you might just get your commission made.

Filed Under: Columns • Should We Know You?