Fans are making custom Nendoroids of Genshin Impact characters and more

Howl Pendragon, the young and shrewd wizard. Howl’s Moving Castle, might steal the hearts of fans, but the dreamy eyed heartthrob doesn’t have his own official Nendoroid yet. That’s where fans come in: building their own by buying Nendoroids and mixing and matching the parts to create their own custom figurines.

The palm-sized figurines of chibi made by Good Smile have become a favorite choice for collectors as well as fans. Good Smile lists over 1,800 variations of their big-headed figurines. My Hero Academia, video games like OverwatchYou can also find Disney characters, franchises and many more. There are still plenty of characters that don’t have an official Nendoroid, so fans use the parts from characters that Good Smile sells, as well as individual parts from unofficial retailers, to bring their favorite characters to life.

Rose.Arrow, a 21 year-old Texas student, started creating custom Nendoroids in 2021 as a hobby. Her figurines are posted to her Instagram and TikTok accounts. Since starting, she’s shared custom Nendoroids for characters who don’t have them yet, like Howl Pendragon, as well as characters from games like Genshin Impact.

“The process starts with studying the character you want to make. It helps to really know what their outfit, hair, and face look like before going to buy parts,” she told Polygon via Discord. The Nendoroids can be swapped for parts so that you can change faces, clothes, hair and even clothing between figures.

Kate says that although there are many places where you can buy Nendoroid components, it is not always easy to find the right parts. “The trickiest part of the process really is finding the right parts to use,” Kate said. “Sometimes, I’ve had to buy a whole Nendoroid for a single part. Though I try to avoid this as much as possible.” After mixing and matching Nendoroid parts to get as close to a replica as possible, Kate modifies the figurines with air-dry clay that she paints on later.

Each one takes Kate a different amount of time depending on how detailed it is. “Howl’s jacket took me quite a while with all the small lines!” she said. “However, I’ve also made custom Nendoroids with much simpler recolors that took me substantially less time, such as Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss.” Kate told Polygon she typically pays anywhere from $90 to $120 for parts and materials, but the number can go way up if she has to buy an entire Nendoroid for just one part.

After Apeachbun posted a video of a Tartaglia Nendoroid, Kate had the inspiration to create them. Kate felt inspired to take on the hobby herself: “During this time, I was completing a college semester completely online, so I wanted something fun to do from home!” From there, she was able to get support from custom Nendoroid groups and Discord servers, and she has since gone on to make characters from series like Ouran High school Host Club, Kamisama KissFind out more.

As for her favorite, she said it’s hard to pick. Characters like Xiao, Razor, and Haruhi will “always hold a special place in her heart,” but “some of my absolute favorite custom Nendoroids are characters from books! There really aren’t any official Nendoroids from books outside of Harry Potter, so I really love having them!”