HOT TOYS – SIMPLY THE BEST

You can ague which is the best: Sideshow, XD Studios, Weta, Pop Culture Shock, Project Triforce, Prime 1 Studios etc. Each one produces fantastic to not so fantastic pieces, each year, each one with its own set of franchises etc. The market of collectible statues is diverse with several triple A players and it’s up to the collectors to choose their favorites. But things change in the realm of sixth scale articulated figures. Even though there are competitors in this segment too, good ones indeed, no one can argue Hot Toys is by far and wide the best studio in the world. No other studio can capture the likeliness and the details of the characters (actors?) it portrays like Hot Toys. They work is simply astounding and unparalleled in the industry. Not only the heads but the full outfit (or armor) of the hero is perfectly translated to sixth scale with plenty of options of configuration, movement and display. The Hong Kong studio is above and beyond any competition. CEO Howard Chan says they hardly can keep up with the demand, Iron Man (and all variants) being theirs best seller product.

One needs to realize that these “toys” ain’t cheap. With great quality comes great costs and a Hot Toys figure can range from $150 to $400 depending on the size and the level of work involved on the production of the piece (not to mention the vehicles). Even so almost every new model goes sold out in a matter of months. The team commanded by sculptor Yulli and painter JC Hong begins the process of crafting a movie character, per example, while the film is still being made. They have early access to production pieces, proofs of concept to deliver the models by the time the movie is ready to go to the cinemas. And even so often the perfectionism and care of the team lead them behind schedule.

The secret to be the leader of the pack is simple, according to Howard Chan: “we seek the best in the world and hire them”. Easy said than done. But no other strategy can explain the supremacy of quality and success that Hot Toys enjoys and its capacity of grab the best franchises on the market. The competitors are getting better but so is Hot Toys, which means that the gap between them and the others will take some time to get crossed.

Who really wins with this is the collector that keeps receiving the best “toys” with the newest technology available and best craftsmanship on the market to pose and expose like trophies at home.

I GUESS I JUST LOVE POLYSTONE

Still unique

When you think your statue is one of a kind limited edition and then you see the assembling line one has to think all that harder to keep that frame of mind. But regardless the number of copies, yours is unique. Mine feel unique despite this image because it’s still a human process. And humans tend to even slightly vary the stroke of paint or the intensity of a shadowing work or whatever. (But not that much because that’s a standard set and one can’t deviate from this.) I look at my Sideshow Daredevil and it seems unique to me even though once he was on a huge table with a thousand like him. This one is mine and it’s numbered, and is sold out, hence limited. But seeing that image above steals a bit of the glamour of uniqueness from the figure. 

To be extremely honest and contradictory it doesn't steal that much because the assembling space looks so artisanal that you feel differently from what you would if you were seeing a mass market product assembling line. I like the artisanal aspect of our hobby, it’s what, besides the quality of the end product, separates a limited edition collectible from a Walmart toy. This and the weight of polystone. Yes the weight of polystone has a great deal of giving the statue it’s value and uniqueness. Yes, I guess I just love polystone.

FACE TO FACE: NEWER VERSION NOT ALWAYS MEANS BETTER VERSION

I realized that Hot Toys in an effort I admire to keep things fresh, redoes the heroes (actors?) faces for every new iteration of their characters. In my opinion, not always for the better. I don’t know if you’ll agree with me but let me show you some examples, after all an image worth a thousand words and two side by side should value even more. I really would like to hear some comments about this post. Oh, and I couldn’t left out the two versions of Hermione from Star Ace, so this not become a Hot Toys only issue.

Obs.: All of these figures (except the first Black Widow that is sold out) can be found on Sideshow Collectibles site. There's a search engine at the top so you can find the one you want to know better.

HOT TOYS HAS A NEW HAIRSTYLE FOR HER GIRLS

Looks like Hot Toys have developed a new technology to curl the dolls’ hairs and they started to use it on the new versions of Scarlet the Witch and Black Widow. See if you perceive a curly pattern here:

SIDESHOW VS THE OTHERS

I begin to understand why Sideshow Collectibles is the actual Darling of polystone figures on the Market. No other studio has the quality of finishing in casting and painting as Sideshow, besides creative modelling. Prime 1 Studios, is a good contender but doing such gigantic pieces it gets easier to do a good finishing. Although, for my taste, Prime 1 Studios creations are overall too “bulky”. Even the recent Harley Queen. I imagine if they get to do a Hulk statue. I bet it would weight 400 lbs and looks like the Michelin mascot painted green! Hahahaha.

Too bulky for my taste. And too big too.

I was very excited with Tweeterhead’s Batman & Robin 1966 series version but I saw a buyer picture of Batman and the finishing of the leg looked like cement not to mention the painting of the cheeks. I big disappointment, mine go straight to eBay without even open to see the pieces up close.

Look at Batman's arm finishing

Another disappointment was with Project Triforce Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Collector’s Edition statue. I looked awesome on the promotional pics. I still think the concept of the piece phenomenal; instead of going the easy way and put Faith on a gravity defying badass pose jumping from some building, they chose to synthetize the story of her life in a diorama which shows a sad little Faith girl on one end and the actual freedom fighter she became on the other end separated by a cracked glass. Very emotional and out of the box design. Bet it used in game 3D models to build the figure. Everything looked perfect, so perfect in fact that I ordered one at Triforce (I liked the first Mirror’s Edge very much). But then I saw some fan pics took from some fair and the painting job is just lame. Gone were the mat tones from the promo pics since all the blacks and reds of the finished product are shiny, glossy, ugly. Besides this the painting finishing looked sloppy. Another one that goes sealed to eBay. I’m on my toes about the Evolve’s Goliath I’ve pre-ordered last year and will come in October, if everything goes fine with the production (as they haven’t gone until now). At least the Goliath is all shades of grey and is a huge piece there isn’t much room to painting ruining this one so I hope I’ll get a stunning massive monster for my collection. So no glossy shades of grey on the Goliath pretty please Triforce!

 

The promotional image

The real deal

I’m not saying Sideshow is perfect. (Hot Toys is perfect but I don’t like action figures). Far from that. But Sideshow is evolving very fast and things I didn’t like about their figures are changing. First of all the face of female characters. Apart from one Red Sonja figure, I never liked any female face Sideshow did… until Batgirl, Captain Marvel and principally Dark Phoenix arrived. Before them all faces looked the same, now they’re trying to give each female figure a different yet beautiful face and it is working very fine to me now. I’ve preordered Dark Phoenix solemnly because of her face. It’s so beautiful yet so normal it looks somebody you know or could cross on the street. Even though I hate transparencies effects on my statues I accepted that PVC fire “phoenix” (so ugly and mediocre, an excuse to make her fluctuating) just to have that face.

This face... oh, this face...

The girls’ faces is a big evolution to Sideshow. They’re getting more creative on the poses as well. Not all, I must admit. The Masters of Universe series (both He-Man and Skeletor are five stars to me) poses are improved copies Pop Shock Culture He-Man Show statues, even the bases are similar. But the new Deadpool has a hell of a cool pose I’ve never seen before. So slowly Sideshow is moving away from improving poses from older studios and creating their own. Of course Deadpool is a character that gives the sculptor a lot of freedom but so is Spider-Man, Daredevil, Black Panther and all these acrobatic heroes. Hope to see more creative poses from Sideshow, even though I must admit no studio I know take risks with poses. They all go for the cool heroic pose. After all you cannot take many risks when a limited edition piece is so expensive.

Looks promising...

Talking about pricing, one more thing about Sideshow and all the others collectible figures studios. I know it is a fast growing business but you shouldn’t have fast growing prices of your figures this way. It’s absurd a figure with a 2500 copies edition to cost $500. Of course with such a huge quantities of figures produced the costs are watered down, instead of growing. But I believe things will slowly change as more and more quality players enter the ring. Iron Studios from Brazil is one of the newcomers and the quality of their productions is improving fast. I wouldn’t mention but one of the more expensive and worst studios out there is First4Figures (with rare exceptions). They are much better than at the start, but they have a lot of ground to cover if they want to survive beyond their Nintendo exclusivity license.

Meh.

So besides its flaws Sideshow is a studio I - and I believe all collectors - grown to love and trust. It’s not too heretic to say it’s the new Bowen Studios when the subject is polystone images in terms of dominance and fame. Hot Toys dominates with all merits the realm of sixth scale articulated figures. And PVC figures is the business of Japanese, they’re master in anime PVC figures and I love to see what they’re doing with Western-side statues like that Harley Queen seated on a ball from Kotobukyia (if I’m not mistaken) that is simply the most beautiful Harley Queen figure I’ve ever saw (and I saw a lot). I ordered the black & white limited edition of this figure to go along with my b&w Batman figures and am completely in love with her.

Hot!

Well that’s enough for a first post. I would like to hear your comments.