It’s kind of unfortunate that we have two kinds of nomenclature for “swirls”. On the one hand you have this kind of swirl …
And then on the other hand you have this swirl…
Which to my knowledge only G2 has been able to pull off. Both of these “swirls” are awesome, but the G2 kind is, in my opinion, even cooler because of the way it lines up with the yo-yos spinning motion. And this style of swirl is almost completely unknown outside their brand.
That is, it was, until I saw this 2018 lineup of topyo Selenes:
Notice that colorway at the top right. That colorway has never been for sale at YYE, or any of the major known Japanese or European yo-yo stores… but on the chinese vendor sites, it is technically for sale but out of stock.
That first pattern seems more “oil slick” than “swirl” to me, but oil slick sounds kinda grodie whereas swirl has nice, pleasant, ice cream connotations.
imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. You can only be original for sol long before others attempt the same, eventully, someone will get close. This looks pretty close, and hopefully more artists crack the swirl secret technique so we can have a chance at getting something that makes us all drool.
I think a few other companies have done that G2 signature swirl in the past. I remember Square Wheels had one with a swirl - Royale or rockefeller or one of those a while ago…
they gotta try harder if they wanna compete with G2. unfortunately those look like clumsy brushstrokes instead of swirls to me.
G2 also has a great fan-base not because of the swirls, but the time and effort jake puts into his videos, discord & social media accounts on a daily basis is something i respect very much. good luck Topyo, hope your ano skills get to the levels of G2
PS: i am pretty damn sure jake’s gonna bring even more innovation and try to stay ahead. time will unravel the mysteries he’s got planned
Note that I didn’t say it was better, but the complete lack of swirls from ANY yo-yo company (until now?) is … rather striking.
You can see from the +$20 on a $35 yo-yo that this is a fairly expensive, and thus probably complex, technique. Maybe that explains why we haven’t seen it more?
oh yeah for sure dude, i wasn’t trying to challenge you! it took me many edits for me to try and articulate what i was feeling about their swirls. i just wanted to participate in a discussion and not an argument; hope no offense was taken!
since im already typing this out, i feel like their attempt at the rainicorn swirl from last year’s batch produced nicer and clearly-defined swirls. but the new batch didnt have the finesse.
I’m curious, can you point to any other yo-yo company that’s ever done swirls? I can’t find any images of the Square Wheels swirl that @YoYoExpertGarrett alluded to…
oh wait LOL! Look what I found on a certain forum…
Wow I never thought I’d see one of my old posts quoted. First time coming back to the forums in a while, but I thought I’d drop in and share a pic of my square wheels REX that came out not too long after, I think it definitely shows off their swirl ano better:
This came out in 2013, and is a very unique yoyo- it’s one of the ones I kept when I sold off a huge portion of my collection, and it will probably never leave it.
You have the yoyo with the really intricate line work that I thought was screen printed on or something. It did not look like it was painted or drawn on. It was white line work a on purplish or marroonish body.
Yeah the Square Wheels Bush marks are what I tried to evolve into what is known as the G2 swirl today. I think you can see the major differences.
Competition is healthy but it’s better when a company evolves it to be something new instead of directly trying to copy someone - Which top yo is known for.
The swirl is not a secret sauce to sell yo-yos. It’s just one part of my recipe
