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Customizing is fun, but I'd rather be in Cancun, hanging out at the
beach in the lap of luxury. Eating grilled steaks and shrimp. Drinking
funny-named drinks just to find out what they taste like. Totally relaxed,
man... Taking in the view. Body surfing. Visiting Maya ruins and snorkelling
coral reefs. Partying at night. Hanging out in a pool or jacuzzi. The
list of worldly pleasures goes on and on, and I had no idea that raw hedonism
was so much fun! (Well, actually I did-- but I just can't afford it on
a regular basis.) In comparison, customizing seems so... flat.
You can't help but marvel at this oasis of pleasure on the periphery
of the relatively resource-poor and jungle-covered Yucatan peninsula.
Outside the hotel zone and the isolated pockets, the cocooning effect
of big bucks tourism sharply drops off. It's a wild and barely tamed land
with a long and mystical history, inhabited by proud, hard-working people
(and large iguanas).
The tour of the Maya ruins at Chichen Itza was disappointing as an activity--
long bus ride, too little time at the site for exploring, an overly long
and mind-numbing exposition about Mayan numerology from the tour guide,
plus it was really hot and exhausting. The Cancun hotel and beach would
have been more pleasurable. But despite these physical unpleasantries,
experiencing the magnificent site inspires awe. That's something which
lingers. It makes you curious about the history of the people, perhaps
interested enough to do some supplementary study after-the-fact. That
interest can branch out, from the Mayas to the Aztecs, and to the Incas
of South America.
With Paradise still a strong memory, the temptation to create a Mesoamerican
flavored figure (or a backyard replica of a pyramid) is strong. So is
the urge to eat steaks. Since visual costuming references are damned hard
to come by, I've been eating lots of charcoal grilled steaks and drinking
Planter's Punch instead, hoping to recapture some of Paradise Lost.
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As I said, Maya costuming references are absurdly difficult to find
on the Internet, so this will be another one of those lazy fantasy creations.
That's okay --I'm just revisiting the quasi-Mesoamerican influence that
Verotik's "Jaguar God" has already stamped on my mongrelized
and ever-evolving "Primal World" theme park. The headdress mockup gave
me a chance to test whether Peacock feathers could approximate the look
of a Quetzal feather-- hell, who knows? I've never seen a Quetzal feather.
But it's a start. And the Barbie fur coat confirms that the basic mix
is okay. All I need to do is find the motivation to plug onward...
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Yes, miniature taxidermy is weird. A person's gotta be pretty weird
to spend hours gluing hairs to a piece of leather. Or wanting to do this
in the first place. Still, a weirdo's gotta do what a weirdo's gotta do.
I decided to glue it instead of just cutting a piece of fur because the
result is less fluffy, more pliable, and looks more to scale (even though
the hairs' lengths aren't really to scale-- that's a shortcut sanity preserver).
It also lets you control the "grain" of the hair and the placement of
different hair textures.
Yes, there's something weird about making a miniature wolf pelt out of rabbit hair, cowskin and putty...
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No new figure projects in the works, but I'm taking care of some minor
things. One of those things was gold plating Queen Dragon Momma's chainmail
choker (I don't have the stamina to wrestle with her Golden Globes yet).
I hadn't checked this figure in a while, and dammit... one of her arms
was loose! When I discover things like that, I immediately try to guess
why it happened, while simulaneously considering what an hassle
it's going to be to fix. The why is pretty clear: If you know these
figures as well as I, you'll know that the reason she's called "Dragon
Momma" (besides the Inframan gag) is that she's made from
one of those broken and notorious for being breakage-prone Dragon figures
-- Klaus/Hans/Gerhard. I thought those figures were salvageable, and even
did a fix-it article. Since this is the second spontaneous breakage of
this figure (the first was the repaired torso connection), I must now
conclude that those figures are unsalvageable. Lost causes. Time-wasters.
Junk. The quality of the plastic sucks, and anything short of totally
re-engineering the design of high-stress areas will probably fail. That's
what I've had to do to fix her. For the original torso repair job, I stayed
faithful to Dragon's spring-loaded design. But when that broke some time
down the road, I said "screw it!" and adapted it to the vintage Joe design.
This time, I said "fuck it!", gutted the rest of the torso interior and
cross-elasticized the arms, similar to... gee? A vintage Gee-Eye Joe.
Hasbro really knew what it was doing back then.
Which leads very nicely into what Hasbro's doing today. I haven't
been a very active patron of the TRU circuit lately, so I was a bit out
of the loop about most of the stuff people have been talking about. Natch,
I had to see for myself. Even though I didn't feel tempted enough to buy
anything, it's clear that Hasbro is launching a major blitz. The giant
has awakened. Obviously, the movie "Pearl Harbor" offered a big opportunity
and they're throwing more resources than usual into drumming up interest
in GI Joe, generally. Whether the general public will buy it is something
we'll have to wait and see, but I have a gut feeling that Pearl Harbor's
coattails won't be that long. And I'm somewhat skeptical as to
whether Joe will ever rule the toyshelves as it once did-- the world's
changed a lot in 30 years. And if Hasbro has disappointing sales, they
may turtle again. I think that they have a tendency to set themselves
up for disappointment, by flooding the market with too much product in
such a short timeframe. Yoda might say that they have no patience. Still,
it's nice to see them play the game as if they really cared.
Of the new stuff, I can't say that I'm particularly thrilled about the
"Gung Ho Grip". While it may have great play value, it's definitely not
a looker-- besides being grossly oversized. However, the figures it's
currently available on are kinda neat-- the idea of offering different
headsculpts for a figure is a good one. The only stuff I was tempted to
buy were their foreign soldiers-- the Zero pilot looked pretty good with
decent-sized hands and a nice headsculpt, and the Russian soldier also
seemed well done. I was looking back and forth at 21C's Russian and Hasbro's,
and decided that Hasbro's probably had the better balance of overall kewlness.
But nowhere near the amount of gear. On the other hand, Hasbro's other
Japanese offering-- the bald-headed guy-- looks ridiculous. Over at KB
Toys, there are plenty of clearance bargains to be had on 21C's stuff.
I finally gave in and bought their German Grenadier-- waiting was a good
idea since after the product corrections had been made, 21C routinely
put buttons on the Greatcoats and eventually packaged it with their new
Super Soldier figure (which unfortunately, still can't stand). For the
amount of stuff that this figure comes with, $15 is a great deal.
It's also hysterically funny to see how much rubber 21C used in places
where steel rings were obviously the best solution. Assuming that this
was done to "protect the kids" per some child safety standard, the amount
of frustration that a kid would have assembling this (and bending his
own replacement rings) almost guarantees that a kid would hate this product.
21C deserves some kind of "Darwin" award.
I don't mean to rub salt in wounds. For us adult-type customizers, 21C
was probably one of the best things to happen. Their puzzling market strategy
worked primarily to our benefit-- it provided us with lots of great fodder
that most of us wouldn't have been able to scratch build or sculpt, at
a bargain price. Most of the fixes for their figures required simpler
customizing skills, like making replacement straps, rings, and repaints,
so it's very accessible. Taking a Formative Int'l figure to the same level
would require much more work and skill. In this respect, 21 Century Toys'
product was closer to a "model" than Dragon Model's. Dragon's stuff is
more refined and finished out of the box, and hence, more Toy-like.
We'll have to wait to see what Jakks Pacific's likely acquistion of
21C will bring... In the meantime, despite some website changes, 21C is
acting as if nothing has changed... right on down to their upcoming S&M
Queen figure, The Baroness. That's one I'll definitely pick up at TRU!
;^)
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There are some more pics of the Volks
Neo Guy figure on Z-Man's page, including a comparison with a Dragon
figure. It looks very cool and the side-by-side comparison makes you wonder
why Dragon did such a funky stylized body sculpt: In this direct comparison,
it looks awful, LOL! Neo Guy appears to have some innovations, although
the pics don't really explore them deeply. Technically, the shoulder turrets
aren't really innovations, since the Neo Henshin Cyborg 99 has 'em...
and from the rifle sighting comparison, it's not clear that they contribute
anything to that pose. That pose tests the hand's articulation on the
forward grip and the neck articulation. (A pistol-holding stance would
have better shown the shoulder articulation.) The neck articulation is
clearly better than Dragon's, although that's not saying much. One of
their best ideas is the neck connector, designed with an adaptor for the
"standard" head. Now that's a hopeful sign from a manufacturer!
Unfortunately, that concept isn't followed through: The hand's articulation
and redesign doesn't appear to be an improvement-- there doesn't seem
to be an additional rotation axis (like Sideshow Toy's figure), and switching
hands for gloves in this manner is of dubious benefit (much simpler just
to pull out the whole wrist/hand assembly, the way Dragon currently does
this). On top of that, the disassembled hinge looks fragile and
doesn't seem to be more than a simple friction fit. That raises a minor
flag: Volks' female figures have a slight "model kit" quality to them.
Their hands pressure-fit into a slot and can fall out unless you glue
'em in. It's also unclear whether the extra torso sockets do anything
of value except increase the assembly part count and make the figure look
more complex. I remind you that this is just speculation based on what
it looks like to me. Obviously, a more informed review is going
to have to wait until these things are released to the general public;
from a submission in the Guestbook, that could be sometime in August for
around 30 bucks?
UPDATE, 06/11/01: From the Guestbook, Paulo provides more pics of Neo Guy which answer some of my questions: The torso articulation really does make a difference, and the the additional views show the utility of the added shoulder articulation a little more clearly. This looks like a great figure folks, and thanks to Paulo and others in the Joe community for giving us this heads-up.
I stumbled across a site from a nearby-parallel universe, where plastic
figures also get augmented with oversized boobs and put up for sale: Fury
Dolls. It's a Mike Cherry-like enterprise from the Barbie universe,
where there's apparently little awareness of, or interest in the Joe universe.
There's the obvious overlap in the appeal to male hormones, but what's
also interesting is the area of differences. True to the Barbie universe
(and what seems to distinguish the universes), is an apparent disinterest
in the quantity of articulation, and a focus on the tailoring of outfits
and hair styling. Regardless, for the open-minded and hormone-ruled, there's
some off-beat and imaginative work worth perusing.
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Little wolfie here is one of those stylish headwear things, but I'm
not making it for any specific figure. It's just an idea I've been curious
to try, centered around the technique angle. It's kind of a tough modelling
problem. You could make something like this as a sculpture since
that's the most obvious way to get the shape, semblance of texture and
coloration-- a manufacturer would probably do it in flexible plastic,
and you can easily visualize the result. It's also easy to see that getting
a soft, wrap-able fur-like body skin mated with the head is a problem:
If you do the whole thing in a flexible plastic (or latex), the body skin
should be very thin to be as flexible as fur-- difficult to do, with the
dimensional thickness that sculpted texture would add. And awfully fragile,
if you were able to do it. Real fur, leather or fabric seems like a more
practical and workable choice for this body section. You could do a hybrid--
sculpted head and material body --but mating the two sections would look
cheesy, no? So that's the thought process I went through when I decided
to sculpt the head, cover it in fur and blend that into the fur of the
body section. (That would be the next step here... but I'm extremely confident.)
As usual, there are some trade-offs. The hairs of the fur covering are
severely out-of-scale, and make wolfie look kind of like a rat. You don't
have that problem with sculpted detail. Still, it has an organic
textural realism that you can't achieve with painted sculpture, kinda
like taxidermy. (I'm still waiting for some more ballsy customizer to
do the H.R. Giger thing...)
[About 5 minutes after I uploaded this, my wife comes in from work and
sees this on the kitchen countertop-- steps back, grossed out, thinking
it's a rat's head...]
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Buffy's here, and I don't know what to say! So... I won't be
doing a review-- there are already plenty on the net. There really wasn't
much surprise for me since I'd already seen the pics and read the reviews,
and from those, I expected to be somewhat disappointed. Still, it's exciting
to get that package you've waited months to receive: You've gotta see
for yourself.
The reviews were right-- the feet suck. Molded boot-feet don't bother
me, but ankles that don't work do. It's an overly tall and skinny figure
(Jacqueline/Matilda-sized), with lots of articulation. The head does look
a little large, but not horribly as some pictures indicated. The facial
likeness is very good although the expression is a little catatonic. The
crossbow looks kewl and has a great finish, but wasn't as detailed as
I'd expected.
One big component of the disappointment is Hype. Their website presentation
(naturally) made her look great. In person, she's good, but she's
not great. For the consumer, disappointment is one of the risks of preordering
and buying anything sight unseen. Expectations fulfilled or unfulfilled
has a huge impact on a company which elects to do direct sales on a preorder
basis.
I think that some of my disappointment comes from having too high expectations
from a new toymaker, Sideshow Toy. Their first releases were very promising
with new features to get excited about, so some weaknesses of those product
were overlooked. I guess there's a natural (maybe unrealistic) assumption
that the future stuff will be even better. Realistically, they're just
another toymaker who makes figures designed for the mass market, despite
their recently changed distribution focus. These are MSRP $25-$30 figures,
utilitizing the familiar construction techniques and materials of comparable
figures in this price range, with a few extra tricks thrown in. So you
shouldn't expect much beyond the familiar mass production thinking (make
it cheaply).
The feet are indicative of this type of thinking. By now, toymakers
should realize that the soft plastic hinge construction does not work
well if you're designing a figure to stand unassisted. If your mindset
is MIB Collectible, maybe that's not important. They've extended this
use of questionable materials to other areas too: the rotation joints
in the limbs don't have that sure, solid and smooth twist of a nylon bicep
rotation pin, or even the hollow & mated feel of a two-piece hard plastic-enclosed
pin... Instead, you get a rubbery PVC pin inserted between the harder
plastic segments. When it works as designed, it works okay (even though
the flexibility allows the pieces to bend away from each other-- not a
good "feel" design) If the pin binds, then you're just bending
rubber when you should be rotating. In addition, the ball-socket joints
of the torso and neck don't have much stay-put range and have that funky
"why bother?" feel... and the legs have that destined-for-floppiness design
curse. But within low-cost modern figure parameters, it's not surprising--
you get what you pay for.
Naturally, Sideshow Toy is very conscious about designing things out
to meet their targeted price point; the outfit and accessories further
illustrate this balance of cost and value. The heavy solid molded rubber
"Vampyr" book and the crossbow are both good, but would have been much
more cool (and expensive) if they'd been more functional. The outfit is
appropriate, but minimalist and nothing to get excited about: The subject
matter justifies that. Throw in a couple of molded plastic stakes, a flat
plastic stand and you've got a middle-of-the road figure set priced to
sell at or around $25. The price/value ratio doesn't compare well against
21C's Jacqueline/Matilda figure, but this is a licensed product, which
adds to the overhead.
A point worth mentioning is that this isn't being marketed to folk like
me. The typical Buffy fan isn't interested in esoteric construction details.
While I like the show, I don't need a plastic idol of Ms. Geller for a
shrine, and I don't have any desire to create Buffy adventures-- I'd rather
Mr. Whedon make those Buffy stories, and I'll just watch 'em. I wanted
to see what Sideshow Toy was gonna do with their first female figure.
This has helped me make my decision about preordering their Monty Python
figures. I like Monty Python and their movies, but I'm not looking to
erect a shrine to them either. The Medieval costuming is cool, but November's
an awfully long time to wait for a heap of fair-quality figures in (probably)
fair-quality outfits. Like I said, you get what you pay for. And I suppose
that as a customizer, the cost has become less important to me than the
desire to be really impressed. I should give up ranting about this
stuff, but I still hold hope that someday a manufacturer will approach
figure design with an uncompromising passion, designed from both the heart
and mind. But good news: Thanks to Volks, I get to keep dreaming, hoping
someday to see their Neo
Guy made available to us (so I can bitch about it!).
In terms of customizing potential, at this time, I'm not convinced that
Sideshow Toy products are good prospects, especially their female body
design. Customizing is a stable, long-term hobby which favors using stock,
well-established figure designs. ST's products are produced in a brief
window of time in limited quantities, depicting specific individuals and
with little priority given to fitting in with the increasingly disordered
"standards" of the hobby. Sure, with enough cutting and gluing, these
aren't absolute limitations. But they do make their figures less accessible
for these purposes. The first question that will likely pop up is how
to do a headswap: Their unique design doesn't make the task a no-brainer,
and the limited availability of their figure isn't likely to motivate
many third parties to make it a no-brainer. With their production strategy,
ST would have to find quite a few female personalities to render with
their body design to give it some hope of longevity.
Meanwhile, Takara's/BBI's "Cy-Girls" line is making rapid
inroads in this area by producing lots of variations on their theme--
something you can easily do if you're producing generic, outfit-defined
figures instead of specific media personalities. Hasbro is probably the
current de facto leader in this by having been there first (after the
old standby of last resort, Mattel's "Barbie"), but has only haphazardly
devoted resources to protecting this. To this day and two floundering tries later,
Dragon seems to be thrashing about in their efforts to produce their
standard female figure...
So there... Aren't
you glad I didn't do a review?
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