Asmus Toys: Merry and Pippin Lord of the Rings 1/6 Scale Figures

[warlock664]

Oh good; a petition.

 

[Travis Baumann]

You should check out the Legolas, Aragorn, and Saruman threads on here to see how Raymond and Bats and Jokes go about this and read Raymond's assessment of how hard it actually is to this with skill (and that is coming from a really talented person who has done a lot of them).

I would love all of my figures to look like theirs and I do plan on giving it a go on Jon Snow and Legolas when I can find time but I know that this is just not feasible with current situations on a production level. Look how hard a time and how many hurdles Asmus has had to go through to get their figures to the state they are now with just the bodies, head sculpts, fabric sourcing, etc. Commercial production of figures is no where near as easy as it sounds when fans spout things on forums (go ask Molecule 8).

Is rooted hair on every figure the future? Yeah but the future is still a ways off. I would love to see them approach the hair applications similar to they did on Grishnak as that seems most similar to the yak hair/glue applications of the hair we see from customizers. Even Hot Toys, who arguably have the best grip on mass production in this industry still struggle with their hairing methods whether they be rooted, soft rubber sculpts, or hard hair helmet type executions.

Petitions are for politics, not trying to strong arm an already outwardly transparent company into making decisions they are not confident or comfortable attempting.

I for one would not have even cared if they said screw the braids on Legolas and gone rooted without them as long as the forehead seam looked good and that is something they struggled with on Gandalf due to how his hair lies and would have been even more pronounced potentially on the Elf due to the slicked back look. That being said, even Raymond's first work in progress shot with mixed media hair (only the long stuff replaced at first) looked amazing to me and I may be alone here but I still like my Tauriel figure with that style.

 

[FlyAndFight]

Rooted hair has the potential of looking horrible, if not done correctly. It also runs the risk of getting messed up and becoming a bird's nest, in time, if not taken very good care of.

Sculpted hair is less risky and if done correctly, (take a look at Hot Toys' "Anakin"), looks amazing and would be difficult to top, even by customizers.

 

[hoodonit00]

IMO Raymond F is a pretty harsh critic. If he says he can see why Asmus didn't go with rooted hair on Legolas that's really saying something.

 

[superdoug]

IMO Raymond F is a pretty harsh critic. If he says he can see why Asmus didn't go with rooted hair on Legolas that's really saying something.

Plus he is fantastic with customizing with hair so I feel he has a pretty good idea of how hard it is to do it too.

 

[Jbeltram4]

Long hair, when done right, looks amazing, as Raymond and others on this site have clearly shown. Minus some Rick Grimes customs, I haven't seen too many short hair characters with rooted/glued hair work work out too well. Much rather short haired figures stay with sculpted hair, all hobbits included.

 

[asgardianboy]

To begin with: my apologies, because the slim versions of Frodo and Sam are sculpted, not rooted.

Secondly: personally, I have no interest nor time to find out what your problems with petitions are. They are very peaceful way for a collective to make itself be heard. Should we do that more often with manufacturers, things would be quite different.

Anyway, as I say, I don't give a damn about your contempt nor your prejudices.

That being said: the guy is not an engineer nor an artist. I got to talk with him. Just a fan. Self-taught.
Your point is specially pointless: do you really believe people painting headsculpts or rooting hair at the Chinese factories where HT's / SSC's / Asmus' stuff is done are ARTISTS or ENGINEERS...????? I'll break you the news: they are not.
The guy could do many, but he is not a factory with lots of workers. Good observation, I'll give you that.
If Asmus can do Gimli, Boromir and Aragorn, perfectly styled, they can do the hobbits. I won't be repeating this logical statement again.

Regarding Legolas: we'll see what customizers come with, but in any instance. I said sculpted Legolas is OK by now.

Regarding what other people prefer: OK, but I want the option of rooted hair. Thanks.

You say: "No amount of requests from a few people on a forum will ever change that. We are lucky Asmus pays as much attention to as as they do."
To which I quote Asmus' own words on their own online shop, https://adartwork.tw-blog.com: "After flooding requests for a rooted haired Aragorn 1/6th scaled figure by Asmus, we have finally taken upon the challenge to live up to it. "
I won't comment. No need.



Regards,
m.

A petition? I can't tell if you are serious or not!

That head sculpt is one guy at home true, but how do you know he is not an engineer or an artist? He could easily be both. Nevertheless, he made one great head. Could he make 1000 of them exactly the same, and not take years doing it? Not a chance. And he sold it for $39, how many would he have to make to use that as a living? And if he does it as a side business, how slow would it be to keep them coming in the numbers Asmus do, while keeping his day job.

I am sure there is a guy/girl in the Asmus factory who could have done the rooted braids and hair for Legolas, but it doesn't mean its possible to mass produce them with any accuracy or consistency. Which is why they went the way they did.

As for the hobbits, personally I would like them rooted if done well, but its just not feasible yet. I am sure it will be eventually as skills and technology develop, but Asmus is still a business and they need to find cost effective ways of making the best possible figures vs the cost vs the ability to reproduce the results consistently.
You also have to consider that not every one feels the way you or I do, many prefer sculpted over rooted so again they have to make what they think will sell well.

No amount of requests from a few people on a forum will ever change that. We are lucky Asmus pays as much attention to as as they do.

 

[asgardianboy]

Read my previous post, you genius.
m.

Oh good; a petition.

 

[superdoug]

I still do not see curly short hair like the hobbits have as being the same as the type of hair Aragorn and Boromir have. Personally I think factories have a ways to go before they can produce rooted hair to rival what we are seeing by a look of the customizers. I think they can get certain hair styles now or at least close enough that semi-skilled futzers can deal with but for certain applications they are a ways off. In my opinion Asmus made the right call on Legolas. Until they can make the forehead work and the braid rooted makes more sense. For the hobbits short curly style I have not seen any mass produced examples that work.

 

[asgardianboy]

Travis,
thanks for your very respectful contribution.

Could you please provide links to the fan works and that assessment you mentioned?

Travis, please spare me. I have bought a frigging rooted and styled Aragorn head, with shipping, directly from Asmus, and if memory serves, it was $40. $40. With worlwide shipping. Not my idea of "too complex to manufacture".
Why don't you all check the facts before deriding other people's thoughts?

Petitions are for everything. They are a tool. It is up to you how you use them.

We have rooted Saruman, Gandalf, Boromir, Aragorn, because we asked, and because Asmus listens. A petition is no offense. It is organized expression of a community's will. No attack. No nothing. Make clear you want something, and Asmus will see to it that you get it. They will expand, hire, buy whatever it takes. We will pay for it.
That's it.

Thanks,
m.

EDIT: grammar fixed.

You should check out the Legolas, Aragorn, and Saruman threads on here to see how Raymond and Bats and Jokes go about this and read Raymond's assessment of how hard it actually is to this with skill (and that is coming from a really talented person who has done a lot of them).

I would love all of my figures to look like theirs and I do plan on giving it a go on Jon Snow and Legolas when I can find time but I know that this is just not feasible with current situations on a production level. Look how hard a time and how many hurdles Asmus has had to go through to get their figures to the state they are now with just the bodies, head sculpts, fabric sourcing, etc. Commercial production of figures is no where near as easy as it sounds when fans spout things on forums (go ask Molecule 8).

Is rooted hair on every figure the future? Yeah but the future is still a ways off. I would love to see them approach the hair applications similar to they did on Grishnak as that seems most similar to the yak hair/glue applications of the hair we see from customizers. Even Hot Toys, who arguably have the best grip on mass production in this industry still struggle with their hairing methods whether they be rooted, soft rubber sculpts, or hard hair helmet type executions.

Petitions are for politics, not trying to strong arm an already outwardly transparent company into making decisions they are not confident or comfortable attempting.

I for one would not have even cared if they said screw the braids on Legolas and gone rooted without them as long as the forehead seam looked good and that is something they struggled with on Gandalf due to how his hair lies and would have been even more pronounced potentially on the Elf due to the slicked back look. That being said, even Raymond's first work in progress shot with mixed media hair (only the long stuff replaced at first) looked amazing to me and I may be alone here but I still like my Tauriel figure with that style.

 

[asgardianboy]

OK, but I want to be able to choose.
m.

Rooted hair has the potential of looking horrible, if not done correctly. It also runs the risk of getting messed up and becoming a bird's nest, in time, if not taken very good care of.

Sculpted hair is less risky and if done correctly, (take a look at Hot Toys' "Anakin"), looks amazing and would be difficult to top, even by customizers.

 

[asgardianboy]

https://www.ebay.es/itm/222441101486?rmvSB=true

m.

Long hair, when done right, looks amazing, as Raymond and others on this site have clearly shown. Minus some Rick Grimes customs, I haven't seen too many short hair characters with rooted/glued hair work work out too well. Much rather short haired figures stay with sculpted hair, all hobbits included.

 

[superdoug]

For some reason I cannot see those pictures on eBay when I click on the link.

 

[FlyAndFight]

Unfortunately, the photo in that auction is not showing up for me. Were you able to save a shot of it? I would like to see what it looked like.

 

[Manannin]

I wasn’t going to reply as you came off overly aggressive and unnecessary, but I decided why not try anyway as this should be a fun place for a fun hobby…

Secondly: personally, I have no interest nor time to find out what your problems with petitions are. They are very peaceful way for a collective to make itself be heard. Should we do that more often with manufacturers, things would be quite different.

Anyway, as I say, I don't give a damn about your contempt nor your prejudices.

There was no contempt, merely a statement that I couldn’t tell if you were serious. This is text. There is no inflection, so I wasn’t sure. Personally I don’t think it would make a difference, but if you do. Go for it.
If you don’t give a damn what some random stranger on the internet says, then good for you. But there is no need to be rude about it. You like petitions for their peaceful nature, why not keep your posts the same way?

That being said: the guy is not an engineer nor an artist. I got to talk with him. Just a fan. Self-taught.
Your point is specially pointless: do you really believe people painting headsculpts or rooting hair at the Chinese factories where HT's / SSC's / Asmus' stuff is done are ARTISTS or ENGINEERS...????? I'll break you the news: they are not.

This I totally disagree with. You think people could make these things without being engineers? Think of the equipment needed to make the bodies, cast the metal items, mold things whatever. Its not something I could do without some training for sure.

Not artists? Again I am artistic in some ways, but being able to pull off the detail in the paintwork that the people in the factory is something I have no hope at doing.

And the guy that made the Frodo you linked to? Self taught or not, he is an artist. Maybe not professionally (although now he has sold a head he made, there is an argument for that!) but he is definitely talented.

The guy could do many, but he is not a factory with lots of workers. Good observation, I'll give you that.
If Asmus can do Gimli, Boromir and Aragorn, perfectly styled, they can do the hobbits. I won't be repeating this logical statement again.

Boromir and Aragorn are both bigger and with longer, straighter hair so I would assume easier. The hobbits are smaller, much curlier hair and by the fact they come in packs of two, there would be twice as much workload on a harder to complete task. So until the techniques or technology advances, I would imagine it is not cost effective for them to do this, which is probably why they went the route they did. And you say logical statement, I say opinion.

Regarding Legolas: we'll see what customizers come with, but in any instance. I said sculpted Legolas is OK by now.

I have someone ready to root my Legolas head, and I have confidence he will do a great job. I am looking forward to seeing what he can achieve, as he is definitely an artist in my humble opinion. If sculpted is ok for you (in Legolas’ case at least) then thats great, I am happy for you.

Regarding what other people prefer: OK, but I want the option of rooted hair. Thanks.

You are welcome to want whatever you like, so you are welcome

You say: "No amount of requests from a few people on a forum will ever change that. We are lucky Asmus pays as much attention to as as they do."
To which I quote Asmus' own words on their own online shop, https://adartwork.tw-blog.com: "After flooding requests for a rooted haired Aragorn 1/6th scaled figure by Asmus, we have finally taken upon the challenge to live up to it. "
I won't comment. No need.

Asmus made a great figure with Aragorn, but unfortunately the hair sculpt (and I specify hair, as the face part was actually pretty good) was terrible. That lead to a lot of criticism. For a business such as theres, this kind of bad press is damaging to both reputation and sales. So they found a way to rectify it and do it in a cost effective way, and the Slim version allows them to re-use the tooling etc that they developed for Aragorn so increase profit margin (without which I doubt they could justify doing only heads).

This doesn’t mean they can do any head. If they could do it confidently and make money, I am sure they would have done. Look at their recent post about Gimli/Legolas;

“After taking into accounts of all the suggestion and feasibility, we opted to take a step back and stick to sculpted hair for this release because we cannot overcome the technical difficulties for rooted hair at this moment. So ultimately the sculpted hair will have better result than the much anticipated rooted hair.”

They have admitted there are technical difficulties with rooted hair, they consider both options and then they go with whichever version they think looks best and is within their production capabilities. I have no doubt they are aware that some of their fans (you and me included) would like to have good looking rooted hobbits, but cannot at this point achieve it to a standard that is worth them doing. They already get plenty of fan feedback here, Facebook, reviews etc.
Hence why I thought a petition would be of no benefit. I still believe that is the case, and that is just my opinion.

Sorry for the wall of text, but we both have opinions, and you know what? That is ok. It is going always going to happen with everyone on the planet. If somebody doesn’t agree with you don’t take it personally or get aggressive. I certainly meant no offence, I was merely participating in the ‘discussion’ part of the discussion forum.

I hope we all get the figures we want

 

[superdoug]

Manannin, I normally try to stay out of back and forths that get heated because well this is a hobby and in my opinion should be a friendly place (doesn't mean everyone has to agree on things) but I do want to step in here and say that I appreciated the way you responded. Instead of ratcheting it up you brought it back down to a discussion sharing your opinions and leaving asgardian the freedom to have his. There are many different views with rooted and sculpted hair out there. Personally I tend to prefer sculpted because I suck at futzing with the hair where sculpted if done right looks fine right out of the box to me. Also I have concerns about deterioration over time. Rooted hair is something I am slowly starting to warm to as the production pieces improve so maybe Aragorn or Boromir will push me to the other camp.

 

[asgardianboy]

For some reason I cannot see those pictures on eBay when I click on the link.

 

[asgardianboy]

See pics in my previous pic.
m.

Unfortunately, the photo in that auction is not showing up for me. Were you able to save a shot of it? I would like to see what it looked like.

 

[superdoug]

Thanks for posting them. I have to say it's the best haired Frodo I have see by far but I do not think it's screen accurate. It is a great attempt but I just do not see it being closer than good sculpted hair.

 

[asgardianboy]

It beats the hell out of any previous attempt, and that is using a not-so-great Elijah likeness.
Give me a break, baby.
And stating that this rooted hair looks less realistic than any sculpted hair... really... I just can't get it....
m.

Thanks for posting them. I have to say it's the best haired Frodo I have see by far but I do not think it's screen accurate. It is a great attempt but I just do not see it being closer than good sculpted hair.