Asmus Toys : Lord of the Ring : Gothmog

[Asmus]

Mostly importantly.

The body.

We abamdaned Kaustic Plastik body because it was so poorly made for Morgul Lord and switched to this Enterbay-like body provide by our factory. If I may, the joint is strong, and the movement is actually alright for Gothmog, who has little postures in the movie.
However, I admit,it is not good enough.

Just as my colleagus posted in our Facebook before, we are working on our own body now.
We are so sick of buying other brands' body and just not working out as we expected.

Skully will be Kautic Plastic again like the Morgul Lord, but they dud promise will improve the quality to the standard where it suppose to.

And for Gandalf, we will use our own body.
For that, we will make no excuse if that one fails.

 

[SurlyJ]

Thanks for the updates, asmus. Love that you are here and looking for first hand feedback.

If you are still around, can I ask when we can expect stores in North america to get these in? I guess they must all be in a slow barge somewhere in the Atlantic.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys can do with your own body for Gandalf.

 

[Lejuan]

Mostly importantly.

The body.

We abamdaned Kaustic Plastik body because it was so poorly made for Morgul Lord and switched to this Enterbay-like body provide by our factory. If I may, the joint is strong, and the movement is actually alright for Gothmog, who has little postures in the movie.
However, I admit,it is not good enough.

Just as my colleagus posted in our Facebook before, we are working on our own body now.
We are so sick of buying other brands' body and just not working out as we expected.

Skully will be Kautic Plastic again like the Morgul Lord, but they dud promise will improve the quality to the standard where it suppose to.

And for Gandalf, we will use our own body.
For that, we will make no excuse if that one fails.

I only dropped into this thread to gauge the response to the Gothmog body, as I was thinking about cancelling Gandalf for fear of having to shoulder the additional cost of a replacement body. So this is great news for me, thanks for the update.

 

[Asmus]

This is the body that will be used in Gandalf.

Arms and legs are updated into Hot Toys like.

Eventually we will replace the whole body with our own design,
but at mean time, we will deal with the problematic bits.

 

[SwedishHeat]

I trust the Gandalf body will be a Caucasian color and not black??

And if so, how does this body change affect the estimated release date of Gandalf??

 

[Asmus]

I trust the Gandalf body will be a Caucasian color and not black??

And if so, how does this body change affect the estimated release date of Gandalf??

Yes, the color was only for sample.
It is happening at the same time was we making molds for Gandalf,
so it shouldn't effect the release date, it is still going in May.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Hi guys,
Just took about 2 hrs go through all the posts in this thread, really thank all of you come to this forum and give the support.

It is quite important for us to learn what you guys think. There will always be some small details we missed during the production which I believe we can do, but just didn't see it. And learn each and every time from real players like you all, really helps. (I saw some really mean comments somewhere else, those really don't help.)

I was with the QC to exam the final products of Gothmog this time, it was interesting of how they work... We ended up touch up all the facial paint-job before assemble, so we all felt pretty good on the end result.

Unfortunately, we did missed out the importance of other factors, such as the armor weathering, the location of the meat lump on the left arm... some details we didn't think can go wrong in prototype, went wrong. Which is a very important lesson to our QC team, for future projects, we need to be more thorough.

Thx you guys again for the feedbacks and solid support.

I really loved our job on this Orc bad-axx, and I do believe the experience will help us greatly when we make stronger characters like Lurz, or even the ones in production now ie: Gandalf and Skully.

Mass production quality control is a real art, my most admiration to Hot Toys in this skill. Hopefully we can speedy pick up the path to master this skill too.

Mostly importantly.

The body.

We abamdaned Kaustic Plastik body because it was so poorly made for Morgul Lord and switched to this Enterbay-like body provide by our factory. If I may, the joint is strong, and the movement is actually alright for Gothmog, who has little postures in the movie.
However, I admit,it is not good enough.

Just as my colleagus posted in our Facebook before, we are working on our own body now.
We are so sick of buying other brands' body and just not working out as we expected.

Skully will be Kautic Plastic again like the Morgul Lord, but they dud promise will improve the quality to the standard where it suppose to.

And for Gandalf, we will use our own body.
For that, we will make no excuse if that one fails.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to us. You guys are really doing some terrific work. And it is interesting to learn and understand the problems you guys face when taking on a huge mass-market line like this. I hope you will continue to give us insight into understanding your process as well.

 

[jra81984]

Thanks for taking the time to listen to us. You guys are really doing some terrific work. And it is interesting to learn and understand the problems you guys face when taking on a huge mass-market line like this. I hope you will continue to give us insight into understanding your process as well.

I could not agree more. Entering a mass market has got to be a logistical nightmare and I cannot imagine the pitfalls and difficulties associated with it. Surely Asmus will get its rhythm soon, and it is nice to know that our input is giving valuable information needed to move them in that direction!

On the plus side... Asmus making their own bodies will be a good segue into some hobbit scale bodies? ;-)

 

[Asmus]

I could not agree more. Entering a mass market has got to be a logistical nightmare and I cannot imagine the pitfalls and difficulties associated with it. Surely Asmus will get its rhythm soon, and it is nice to know that our input is giving valuable information needed to move them in that direction!

On the plus side... Asmus making their own bodies will be a good segue into some hobbit scale bodies? ;-)

Yes,
It is what we have in mind too, if we can gain some experience by modifying the KP01A now,

Not only Hobbits and dwarfs, Urukahi needs an extra large body too.

 

[Hellion]

Hmmmm.....that's twice now you've mentioned Urukhai, Im getting the feeling one may be not too far off.

 

[nathan.never]

Hi fellow lotr fans. I just found about Asmus LOTR line, can't believe I missed it so far.

I would appreciate it if somebody could bring me up to speed on these, specificaly:

1. How many 1/6 LOTR figures has Asmus already released? Any of them already sold out?
2. Are there any reviews out? What's the verdict?
3. Where is the best place for me to order them from (I am from Europe)?

So excited about these, hope I am not too late to the show...

 

[kingbumble]

2 releases so far - Witch King and Gothmog. Both still available, both excellent although with some issues.

 

[nathan.never]

2 releases so far - Witch King and Gothmog. Both still available, both excellent although with some issues.

What issues? What is the price range on these since I find all kind of prices on ebay?

 

[superdoug]

What issues? What is the price range on these since I find all kind of prices on ebay?

Check out bbts.com for the standard retail prices. Just go there and search Asmus. You will see the three figures up for pre-order and the Witch King in stock.

The Witch King has some body issues. There have been some reports of loose joints and to get the body to support the wait they had to do some modifications to the hip area (used electrical tape to add stability). I haven't had any issues with mine and if you look at the photos in the Witch Kings thread with a little bit of futzing the figure is fantastic.

For Gothmog they switched bodies but there are some limitations to the body and the tumor/meat thing hangs low closer to his elbow than shoulder.

Overall I am very happy with the Witch King and I am looking forward for Gothmog to arrive.

 

[The Chev]

BBTS is taking forever to get This. Shame, on the plus side it's still cheaper than ordering directly from Hong Kong.

 

[nathan.never]

Check out bbts.com for the standard retail prices. Just go there and search Asmus. You will see the three figures up for pre-order and the Witch King in stock.

The Witch King has some body issues. There have been some reports of loose joints and to get the body to support the wait they had to do some modifications to the hip area (used electrical tape to add stability). I haven't had any issues with mine and if you look at the photos in the Witch Kings thread with a little bit of futzing the figure is fantastic.

For Gothmog they switched bodies but there are some limitations to the body and the tumor/meat thing hangs low closer to his elbow than shoulder.

Overall I am very happy with the Witch King and I am looking forward for Gothmog to arrive.

Thanks for the info. I'am in for these, been too long without any decent 1/6 in this licence. I already have the holy trinity of LOTR 1/6 line from Sideshow (Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas), apart from the head sculpt I love them very much. But, if Asmus improves on these, I wouldn't mind swaping.

For now, I am going for Morgul Lord since it is getting sold out everywhere, and also, being in Europe makes it hard to find decent prices as it is. Wouldn't mind if somebody from European Union can recommend a good retailer for Asmus, which offers retail prices. It is so frustrating to see such great prices in USA, can't understand why EU is so much more expensive (preorder prices for Gothmog are in the range of 210$ which is about 30% more than USA). Since these figures are importes in USA as well as in Europe, I just can't figure out where the price difference comes from? Surely the difference in taxes can't be that much.

If I order them form USA or China, the custom taxes are high, so I end up paying for both taxes - the one from retailer country of origin and my country.

Seeing that Asmus representative is present here on the forum, can you please tell us what are your direct retailers in EU.

 

[kingbumble]

Onesixthbruce.co.uk are based in the UK but will ship to Europe, and their prices are very good. They've sold out of Gothmog and Witchking but have Gandalf for pre-order

 

[nathan.never]

Onesixthbruce.co.uk are based in the UK but will ship to Europe, and their prices are very good. They've sold out of Gothmog and Witchking but have Gandalf for pre-order

OSB is just another example of what I am trying to point out. OSB had Gothmog (before it sold out) for 120£ which is roughly 200$. BBTS has it at 160$. Why the 40$ difference?!
The same (or more often even worse) is in all other stores all around Europe (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain...).
I really don't know why we are paying such a premium here in Europe? I may be missing something so I wouldn't mind if somebody can enlighten me...

 

[kingbumble]

The difference is probably tax. UK store prices generally include tax, whereas I'm not sure the US ones do. Take that into account and also the fact that shipping from the states would be a lot more, and the final price you're paying would be about equal.

 

[nathan.never]

The difference is probably tax. UK store prices generally include tax, whereas I'm not sure the US ones do. Take that into account and also the fact that shipping from the states would be a lot more, and the final price you're paying would be about equal.

If you are right, it's so strange how Americans don't pay tax on buying goods...
Anyway, enough whining, time to put out the cash