S.H. FIGUARTS General Thread

[spinc]

Just wanted to discuss the upcoming release of the Lord of the Rings SHF figures and didn't see where. Didn't want to be insensitive to the Diamond situation so I didn't want to just talk about this in that thread.

There's new photos of the upcoming Aragorn, thanks to IsaacWongToys, and honestly, he's looking rough. It's like there's a two teams working at Tamashii Nations, one who really nails the figures in everything, sculpt, paint, likeness, articulation. Their Indiana Jones, their recent Beetlejuice, many of the Star Wars figures, Marvel, and many others, they're so good, so accurate, really some of the best figures you could buy. Then there's the B team... this looks like their work. Frodo also looked real bad honestly. I was so excited for this line, these could have been the figures I've been waiting for, since honestly most of the past LotR figures just didn't do what I wanted out of them (and the Inart is just incredibly expensive). Looks like I'm still looking for such figures.

To be honest he still looks like a decent figure, the articulation looks pretty good overall, just not a good figure of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I do not know if I'll get him at this point.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

It works much better if you think of them as book-based rather than movie-based.

 

[altcunningham]

I think the sculpt is good. To my eye it's the paint that lets it down. It's a bit too cartoonish and flat. And the whites of the eyes on both of them. Our whites are not that white. It's very off-putting on any figures that do that, but certainly something that's going for hype realism in the sculpt and details here.

 

[AgentHemlock]

I've often found SHF figures look better in hand than in pictures. It's almost as if the designers understand that light will hit a 1:12 head in a different way than it'd hit a 1:1 head, and sculpt them to read under real life conditions. Crackpot theory, I think they really just woof it sometimes. But the neutral face looks really good to me in a couple pics. Though I won't be rushing to pick him up.

I'd really love a company to do book based figures with this level of articulation.

 

[Red Ogre]

I'd really love a company to do book based figures with this level of articulation.

I've never read the books. Let's just say I did not grow up in a studious household. How different are the characters?

 

[altcunningham]

I've never read the books. Let's just say I did not grow up in a studious household. How different are the characters?

Mostly faithful.

 

[AgentHemlock]

Yeah, it's not like they don't look like the characters, but in my mind it's like a Marvel comic figure vs an MCU figure. I'd like to see the characters artfully imagined in an illustrative style instead of marrying them to the actors that played them and those specific movies. There's a difference between MAFEX Wolverine and a Hugh Jackman figure. Just preference.

 

[Damien]

I've never read the books. Let's just say I did not grow up in a studious household. How different are the characters?

I think it depends on 'how do you mean that?' If you're just talking about basic costuming? Tolkien doesn't necessarily give us a detailed description of every character's clothing, so it's impossible to say. We can certainly nitpick elements - basically anything involving plate armor or longswords is definitely wrong, for example. In fact, a LOT of the armor and weapons are definitely wrong (from a book purist standpoint).

For me, if I were looking at that figure and asking myself if it fits in purely with how I see Aragorn based on how he's described in the book and what I know of the world he is supposed to inhabit? I would say he looks okay. The trenchcoat is fucking dumb and his sword is wrong in two directions at once. Frodo, however, looks pretty close to how my mind would have seen him.

 

[AgentHemlock]

This is from the 70's Hobbit cartoon. While I definitely would take an entire Fellowship of figures done in this kind of style, it may not be my ideal. But it gives you an idea how wildly different literary characters could be represented. That's a much different Gandalf.

 

[Damien]

This is from the 70's Hobbit cartoon. While I definitely would take an entire Fellowship of figures done in this kind of style, it may not be my ideal. But it gives you an idea how wildly different literary characters could be represented. That's a much different Gandalf.

Absolutely.
Although, to be fair, I don't think many people have accused those cartoons of being faithful adaptations, even just visually. Wasn't Aragorn like an ugly dude without pants - and Boromir was a viking? Weird stuff.

 

[joshsquash729]

I've always found SH Figuarts and Mafex to be a little rough in the likeness department. I never quite know how to put my finger on it- either a softness or brightness with the paint, the face printing being off, the beards often looking too thick or smudgy, more of a smoothness to the sculpt, etc. They usually excel in all other areas- articulation and ROM is usually pretty great. Then again, I always wonder if I have some form of that facial blindness or whatever- a lot of times, when other people praise the likeness, I usually think it's a bit off, and vice versa. Not just on Figuarts and Mafex, though they do seem to be one of the more common companies it happens with.

All in all, I think the Aragorn looks alright. Definitely not spot-on, but there were far worse Viggo likenesses back in the ToyBiz era. Not exactly a fair comparison, given all the advancements since then, but still- he has an oddly difficult likeness to get right, it seems. The most egregious thing on the figure above, to me, is the lazy eye. The beard is also a little off, too. I kinda dig the wash on the forehead lines, though. Not too heavy, which helps, though I could see it varying figure by figure. This is a line I'm definitely curious about. Better range on the more traditionally static, robed figures would be nice if they can pull it off.

 

[AgentHemlock]

Absolutely.
Although, to be fair, I don't think many people have accused those cartoons of being faithful adaptations, even just visually. Wasn't Aragorn like an ugly dude without pants - and Boromir was a viking? Weird stuff.

The Hobbit movie was made by Rankin/Bass and the Lord of the Rings was made by Ralph Bakshi, the designs are very different. Bakshi didn't finish The Lord of the Rings... he was going to do a second movie but never finished. Then to make it more confusing, Rankin/Bass stepped in again and made The Return of the King, which neither directly follows up their Hobbit movie or Bakshi's LoTR. But my local library never got that one in, so as a kid I was left hanging.

Above is Rankin/Bass, which I prefer. I'd love a toy company to do LoTR similarly to this. Below is Bakshi, which relied heavily on rotoscoping.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I re-read The Hobbit and rewatched the Rankin/Bass adaptation over the last year. Their Gollum design is wild, and not in a good way. Gandalf goes hard, though.

 

[altcunningham]

I re-read The Hobbit and rewatched the Rankin/Bass adaptation over the last year. Their Gollum design is wild, and not in a good way. Gandalf goes hard, though.

When I first read the book as a third grader, he looked like a translucent albino Momaw from Star Wars in my head.

Then in my 5th grade read, like... Remember those little finger puppet monsters from quarter machines? Yeah.

When I saw Rankin Bass in 6th grade, catfish was an upgrade. Honestly, the Jackson version really threw me.

 

[Mr_Saver]

Just wanted to discuss the upcoming release of the Lord of the Rings SHF figures and didn't see where. Didn't want to be insensitive to the Diamond situation so I didn't want to just talk about this in that thread.

There's new photos of the upcoming Aragorn, thanks to IsaacWongToys, and honestly, he's looking rough. It's like there's a two teams working at Tamashii Nations, one who really nails the figures in everything, sculpt, paint, likeness, articulation. Their Indiana Jones, their recent Beetlejuice, many of the Star Wars figures, Marvel, and many others, they're so good, so accurate, really some of the best figures you could buy. Then there's the B team... this looks like their work. Frodo also looked real bad honestly. I was so excited for this line, these could have been the figures I've been waiting for, since honestly most of the past LotR figures just didn't do what I wanted out of them (and the Inart is just incredibly expensive). Looks like I'm still looking for such figures.

To be honest he still looks like a decent figure, the articulation looks pretty good overall, just not a good figure of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I do not know if I'll get him at this point.

Looks like the big Lebowski to me