Recent reports have exposed an interesting scandal involving robot costumes. A person by the name of Jeff Leininger in Jacksonville, FL runs the website Robot Costumes USA — http://www.robot-costumes.com, where he claims to be the world leader in design and manufacture of robot costumes. However, suspicion has arisen.
Jeff recently added a “Transformer-like” costume to his inventory. However, this costume is the very same one made by Lionel Lum and worn to numerous conventions across the US. Jeff simply took an image of Lionel from Wonder Con and photoshopped it to suit his own purposes. http://www.robot-costumes.com/2009Transformers.html
Attempts were made to contact Jeff Leininger, but he is unresponsive to our email requests.
This action is simply outrageous. The notion that one can steal someone else’s work, call it their own, and then also attempt to sell it is just despicable. We hope that this matter can soon be resolved and the offending parties brought to justice.
The original image of Lionel can be seen at http://gamegirl.blogfaction.com
Jeff Leininger’s photoshopped image
Lionel Lum
Good for you on posting this. I’ve been in the costume/prop hobby for years and have everything from the MIB Neuralyzer to a 59 Caddy Ectomobile. One of the few things that really brings this hobby down for me is seeing someone else pass of another builder’s work as their own. Make it or don’t. Past accomplishments don’t allow one to start getting flexible morals and start stealing someone else’s work. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen my own props or those of my friends put up for display on other people’s webpage/MySpace/Facebook and passed off as their own.