What if we told you that you could become a Funko Pop! collectible? No need to become famous, and no need to travel to one of the brick-and-mortar Funko store locations where personalized Pops! have exclusively been available for the past few years.
Soon, anyone and everyone will be able to become a Pop! figure, thanks to Funko’s upcoming Pop! Yourself experience. This custom collectible ordering process, which Funko has been teasing for a while, is set to launch online later this year. However, it was available to select visitors at last week’s Comic-Con International: San Diego (SDCC), and we were lucky enough to get the invite! To summarize, the process was a Pop-lover’s dream.
I got to create my personalized Pop! at a touch-screen kiosk, which offered a more visual experience. It seems that the menus and options will be very similar in the final version, but just formatted for your personal device. From the start, the customization process feels like creating an in-game avatar or (shoutout to my fellow Wii-generation gamers) a Mii.
You start by selecting a skin tone and a body type (either traditionally masculine or feminine). From the start, your selections show up on the screen and immediately update. So, if you want to try out each body type and skin tone to find your best match, it’s easy to do so before moving on to the next step — you can even spin the virtual Pop! 360 degrees to make sure you know exactly what it will look like.
The next step is the eyes. Pop! figures are known for their dark, round eyes, so there isn’t much variation available here. It’s just lashes or no lashes.
The real customization starts at the next step, where you choose your Pop!’s hair. There is a wide variety of styles available, each with multiple color options. Some of the styles are down, others are up, and some even include a hat. As with every step, you can preview multiple hair options and get a view from every angle.
The final choice for customizing your Pop!’s face is adding glasses, if you want them. The options here include both standard glasses and sunglasses.
The remaining steps are where things really take a turn for the personalized. You select an outfit, then up to two accessories for your Pop! to hold in its hands. The available options — such as an engagement ring, a graduation robe, an elf costume, and a party hat — really hint at the special occasion possibilities that Funko imagines for this line.
Dave Beré, Vice President of Brand & Marketing at Funko, confirmed this when speaking with The Pop Insider, explaining that they imagine people using these Pop! figures a way to commemorate life milestones. Overall, there are more than 250 new customization options available, which is a massive increase from what Funko previously offered at its store locations.
“It’s all about the life moments,” Beré says. “We have so much fun developing. It’s just, what do people celebrate? Birthdays. Weddings. Proposals. … We already know fans make their own wedding toppers. So let’s embrace that.”
Personally, I was going for an everyday version of myself that I could display on my desk forever. The options don’t disappoint for this purpose, either. I opted for a casual jeans and T-shirt look that is definitely part of my regular rotation. When it came to the accessories, my first choice was a no-brainer. I picked the black over-ear headphones that very closely resemble a pair I wear all the time (and may or may not be wearing as I write this article…). The second accessory was a slightly harder choice, but I went with a book. I love to read, and we can also pretend that it’s the most recent copy of The Pop Insider magazine.
With your accessories locked in, you get to add a name for your figure, which gets printed on the box. At this point, the Pop! figure costs $30 — in my opinion, this price point is more than fair for the amount of customization and the speedy production time, which I’ll get to soon. But first, I have to talk about my favorite part of the process.
Before you check out, you can add some Pop! buddies to the order. For those who aren’t familiar, buddies are tiny figures that sometimes come alongside a Pop! figure (think Pudge the Fish with Lilo, Pizza Dog with Kate Bishop, etc). The selection of buddies in the Pop! Yourself experience include a Christmas tree and a variety of dogs and cats. As a dog owner, I was so excited to be able to add my best bud, Parker, to my Pop!. It really elevated the experience in a way I wasn’t expecting!
Finally, you check out and provide your shipping information. And then my Pop! arrived in — no lie — less than a week. I was shocked and very pleasantly surprised. This was something else that Beré noted about the process.
“One of the things that we’re striving for is that this is going to be delivered as if you ordered anything on funko.com,” he says. “Those same shipping times.”
The packaging of my Pop! was also thoughtful — The Pop! (inside its box) comes set inside a larger box, which ensures that the collectible is undamaged. It is fun to open regardless, but really lends itself to gifting. There is even a spot on the back of the Pop! box where you can include a customized message. I also noticed and appreciated that the Pop’s box came unsealed. This meant I could take my figure out for a closer look without worrying that I might ruin my custom packaging.
The dedication to speed, making the process as seamless as possible, and thinking about the details is why it took so many years to make Pop! Yourself a reality. “A whole team has put in so many hours to bring this to life, as you can imagine,” he says. “Everything going out the door is one-of-one, in theory. So it’s highly complex.”
For the Funko fans at home, you can expect this full experience to launch on the Funko website soon. Those who participate in Funko’s loyalty program will be among the first to get access to Pop! Yourself.
As someone who writes about pop culture merch for a living, I may be a bit biased in how much I enjoyed this experience and loved the final product. Yet, even some people in my life who have never touched a Funko Pop! were impressed by photos of my personalized figure. Which Beré says is the point.
“We connect people to fandoms today, and that may make up a large part of a person’s life or a small portion of a person’s life,” he explains. “And there’s so much that makes us who we are. Now, we’re able to tap into so much more of that. But in Pop! form. So you can imagine the possibilities — or, we say, the pop-sibilities.”
There is even more in the works for this line, including ever-expanding customization options and a selection of customizable baby Pops!, so collectors can create their whole family in Pop! form. I can absolutely see this becoming a go-to gifting option for myself and many others.
For now, you can get a sense of the Pop! Yourself experience at the Funko website, but you can only save your final creation as a virtual avatar. Soon, though, that customized Pop! can arrive at your door in all of its 3-dimensional, vinyl glory!
