Mimetic fandom and one-sixth-scale action figures

Abstract

Within material practices that emphasize reproduction, customizers often extrapolate, creating new material to fill in gaps. Bricolage transforms mass-produced items into individualized creative works by improving the perceived accuracy of licensed merchandise or by recycling and repurposing items to achieve realistic and imaginative results. Customization's material fan practices reproduce items in order to create transformative narratives. After duplicating a beloved fan object's definitive appearance, clothing, and/or accessories in one-sixth scale, customizers often pose and photograph action figures in recreations of iconic scenes. Other images and photostories use miniature reproductions of material objects to rework existing media texts and characters or to tell completely original narratives. Images also disrupt and deconstruct the valorization of accuracy. Living rooms, pets, and other aspects of everyday life intrude into photographs of accurately reproduced items and characters. Figures in photostories may be made to break character. Such transformative moments call attention to the toys' status as toys and to the constructed nature of poses, dioramas, and narratives.

Women in fandom: Participation patterns and perceived authenticity.

“…Although there are many distinctions between transformational and affirmational practices, there is also considerable overlap with some arguing that the different practices can be seen as interdependent, relying on one another to create meaning (Godwin, 2015; Hills, 2014). This is because even when transformed, the transformation relies on elements of the world remaining recognizable to others in the community.…”

“…This is because even when transformed, the transformation relies on elements of the world remaining recognizable to others in the community. Affirmational authenticity, then, functions as a foundation for transformative activities as without underlying "affirmational support" many transformative practices would not make sense (Godwin, 2015).…”

Making the Fantastic Real

“…However, the issue of what type of fandom The Hacksmith can be said to perform and why needs clarification. In this section, we will present some reflections on The Hacksmith's lightsaber construction in relation to the phenomenon of mimetic fandom as defined by Matt Hills (Hills 2002(Hills , 2014Godwin 2015;Kiedl 2018).…”

More Than Wargaming: Exploring the Miniaturing Pastime

“…customizing) miniatures clearly resembles customization of character toys, such as dolls or action figures. A trend connecting with the doit-yourself (DIY) and maker cultures, the customization and personalisation of toys represents an important direction of creative play practices over the past years (see Godwin, 2015;Heljakka, 2016). Many players want to personalise their dolls through physical interventions, such as modifying facial features through painting or changing the hairdo by 're-rooting' hair.…”

“…Heljakka, 2015;Hills, 2010). Customizing miniatures can also be seen as an expression of mimetic fandom (Hills, 2010) with both transformative elements, such as when a miniaturist creates a novel physical rendition of a character described in fiction or reinterprets an existing model or character, and affirmative elements, such as accurately replicating historical or fictional uniforms and gear or painstakingly reproducing a piece of two-dimensional artwork with miniatures (see Godwin, 2015).…”