Review – Glyos System Custom Corps Wave 1 “Sincroid”

Line: Glyos * Manufacturer: Onell Design * Year: 2009

Standard Warning: I’m an admitted fan of this series. What follows is not an objective review of a toy but, instead, me rambling about a cool art toy. Take a look at the photos, follow the links to the Glyos Transmission Web Log, and watch as I slobber all over the most playable designer toy that’s available today.

As I’ve already mentioned a couple of times now, the guys at Onell Design recently ran a Custom Corps wave through their store. Individually crafted, sometimes with hand-painted bodies (and every single one with a hand-cast head), the most playable designer toys on the market embraced the art side of art toy with a bunch of one-offs that fans of the series snatched up.

Mine arrived today. And he’s awesome.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

Custom Corps

Packaged in a black bag with a minimalist design header card, the idea behind the Custom Corps series was that all of the figures were bagged (sometimes with art cards by Jesse Moore) and then the bags mixed up; when you placed your order you were taking your chances since each figure shipped out was randomly selected. For those of you familiar with blind box toys, you know exactly how this sort of things works. If you’re new to blind box toys, check out this series at www.toycyte.com. Then come on back to learn all about my new toy.

Click to enlarge the image.
Click to enlarge the image.

After tearing the header card off, the bag rustled and out popped my new friend. A stock body with a custom head; not quite as cool as some of the other customs that have been shown online, but it’s an entirely new head (a Sincroid, take a look at this post at the Glyos Transmission Web Log) that I don’t own so he was welcome into the ranks of Glyos System figures that I already own and, after a few minutes, he was up and moving around.

Click to enlarge the image.
Click to enlarge the image.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

Custom-Cast Head

Matt Doughty, the madman behind these fun toys, wrote in the post announcing that the figures were available for sale:

“All the figures have a hand cast, hand painted head attached to a customized production PVC body.”

I’m not entirely sure what sort of material the heads were cast from, but it’s not the typical resin I’m familiar with. No, this stuff feels almost like the factory-produced Glyos System parts and my one fear — I was worried the custom would be a shelf piece and not a pocket toy — was for no reason. This guy feels as durable and pocket-ready as any of the other Glyos System figures in my collection.

Other than the custom head, the figure’s constructed of stock pieces. Take a look at my other Glyos System reviews (here, here, and here) for my thoughts on the basic body.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

Click to expand the image in a new window.
Click to expand the image in a new window.


Also hiding inside the bag was an original piece of art by Glyos System — and callgrim.com — artist Jesse Moore. Jesse’s got an awesome style — I mentioned this in my Callgrim figure review last month — and owning an original piece of art was a nice surprise. I was under the impression that the art cards would be randomly packed in bags, but the art in the bag perfectly matched the figure so it’s possible that every bag included an associated art card.

Click to enlarge the image.
Click to enlarge the image.


Closing Thoughts

At $20/figure, the Custom Corps figures were significantly more expensive than the basic Glyos System figures. Considering the fact that each was custom-built, and the extras included with the pack were amazing, $20 wasn’t a bad price at all. And since it sounds like there’s going to be another wave of Custom Corps figures, we’ll all get another chance at grabbing more of these great works of art.

Next time, I’m buying two customs instead of just one. I made a real amateur mistake in just ordering one figure from the first wave and now I’m already wishing I’d increased my chances of getting a really crazy custom.


Philip Reed is sad that he didn’t get the Beast Man custom, but all of the awesome extras — especially the unexpected variant-colored Buildman — more than made up for the lack of a custom Beast Man. Plus, he now has a Glyos System shirt!

8 thoughts on “Review – Glyos System Custom Corps Wave 1 “Sincroid”

  1. At least you were wise enough to buy one 😀

    Great review and I like how your Custom Corps
    figure has the color working through a gradation
    from dark green to green to yellow green to yellow.

    I just opened my Custom Corps blind bags
    and I’m real happy with mine too. I’ll be posting
    at the October Toys forum a video of when
    I opened the bags. The October Toys forum
    set up a section dedicated to all things GLYOS.
    Please come on over if you haven’t already
    and check out the buzz going on right now
    over these customs.

    the Glyos forum

  2. I’d love to see a book — lulu.com would even work — collecting all of Jesse’s Glyos art. I can’t wait to see all of the art cards posted over at the Callgrim blog.

  3. By the time Matt actually publishes the Glyos book, it will be too heavy to lift (see the update just prior from SDCC 2008 on his blog). Or they may have to split it into multiple volumes.

  4. I have a bone to pick with you guys… You made me want these guys so much!!!

    I bought my first Glyos System figure last night (Reverse Pheyden) , and I literally cannot wait to get him in my trashy little hands. I’m beyond sure he won’t be my last purchase from Matt and crew.

    How long does it usually take to get the figures? I sound like a plastic junkie now…

  5. @Monsterforge – Welcome to the club! These are some awesome toys. It’s gonna take roughly a week to 10 days before you see your toys; the toys ship as fast as possible but at the moment Matt’s in China so that shipments run a few days slow. And it’s worth the wait.

  6. I bet is it! I’m piecing together the backstory on the Glyos System universe from all over… somone needs to put some time into making a Wikipedia entry for the characters and such.

    Also… as a suggestion: Why don’t you do a review of what you get when you buy a figure (or set of 3 figures) from the Junk Shop. I’m curious as to what kind of fun abomination comes out of the random parts pile!

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