Big Chief Studios 9th Doctor review

[Michael Crawford]

As I prepared to do a quick HotToyCast this afternoon with Jeff and Eamon, I realized I haven't looked at a lot of sixth scale figures in the last few weeks. Let's see if we can't change that over the next couple starting with a look at the newest Doctor Who figure to come from Big Chief Studios - the 9th Doctor! This is a slightly early review, but the figure should start shipping by the middle of the month. You can find my review here:

https://www.mwctoys.com/REVIEW-120516a.htm

or with the rest of the reviews at the usual:

https://www.mwctoys.com

Thanks for reading!

Michael

 

[Underworld54]

He looks really good but not $270 good.

 

[pixletwin]

Great review. I am excited to get this figure.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Johnny Utah]

Neckgate. Calling it now.

 

[Michael Crawford]

I updated the pricing - you can get it direct from BCS for a much better price if you're in the U.S., around $190.

 

[Johnny Utah]

See its stuff like this - the premier trusted source for details that we really nitpick about that makes me lose any excitement I had for Bond. How can the figure leave the factory with that neck.

 

[Michael Crawford]

The head can jam down harder, but as you turn it, it tends to ride up -- I think you're getting a little excited over the neck length. The smooth exterior? That's what I find more annoying.

 

[Johnny Utah]

It's the exterior I'm talking about. The different paint jobs. I'm Team one piece. Separating the head and neck never looks right.

 

[pixletwin]

BCS has always had an issue with hands and heads matching the color of the bodies. It's annoying, sure. But it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has collected this line.

 

[Michael Crawford]

Ah, yes - but I also prefer the posability of the two piece. But like you, I hate the smooth texture and lack of paint. We just did a Hottoycast today and I whined about this with all the mid range manufactures - BCS, Asmus, Star Ace, ThreeZero...

 

[Johnny Utah]

Word travels fast in this hobby. Selene and Tyler really hurt their respective companies. This is a similar sin in my opinion. Once again I have tried to get into other companies efforts but the final product almost always lets you down. I find in the end HT always wins.

 

[The Green Goblin]

It's the exterior I'm talking about. The different paint jobs. I'm Team one piece. Separating the head and neck never looks right.

I think Hot Toys makes the separate neck and head work sometimes because they sometimes hide the seam, and they also paint the stock neck to match the head.

A little paint goes a long way.

 

[Underworld54]

Word travels fast in this hobby. Selene and Tyler really hurt their respective companies. This is a similar sin in my opinion. Once again I have tried to get into other companies efforts but the final product almost always lets you down. I find in the end HT always wins.

Selene turned out fine, it seems people who have her in hand think she's a great figure for the most part.

 

[Underworld54]

I see what you guys mean about the neck, it's just a chunk of flesh colored undetailed plastic, yikes!

 

[Ex-Parrot]

While it is true that BC figures have always had undetailed/underpainted/cheap necks, every previous Doctor had shirt collars, ties and scarves to cover up the ugly neck, so it wasn't that much of a problem at the end of the day. But with Nine wearing open necked clothing, it really should have, at the very least, been given a matching paint job to the head sculpt, but preferably fully sculpted and painted. It also looks too long to me, even taking into account Eccleston's own giraffe neck.

Not overly impressed by the jacket, personally, either. It's very plasticy looking, and all hints of the great weathering job have clearly vanished along the way. The cut seems a bit bulky, too, but hopefully some futzing will help. A shame, as the solicited jacket looked so damn good in terms of weathering:

By the way, the green top is supposed to have the seam down the front, so that's actually accurate:

At least the paint job seems good this time around, even if I'm still not quite sold on the likeness of the final figure personally. But we've had good paint jobs on some of their releases before, so the big question remains to be if they'll be able to sustain that as a base level, without having any releases slip back into truly substandard paint jobs, as have happened too many times in the past. To me it has never been a question that Big Chief are capable of delivering on a basic level of quality, it is doing so reliably and consistently that has always been the or biggest problem. Hopefully they have finally turned a corner in that regard, but we'll have to see how the next few releases turn out to really know one way or another...here's hoping.

 

[DioramaMaker]

If memory serves me right the 11 s7b 12 sculpt had a painted neck actually. But that seems to be the outlier.

 

[xequae]

Thanks for the review. Glad he is finally ready for release.

 

[Michael Crawford]

Yea, I assumed it must have been (the seam) - not like them to do something like that without a reason. I just think it's weird.

The prototype weathered jacket looks identical to me in terms of cut and style - the collar and lapels are the same size, slightly too big. But the weathering does go a long way to adding some realism, and looks great, wish they'd done that on the final product. Of course, the talented collectors here will do a lot of that themselves, but it should be there out of the box.

 

[BagginsOfBagEnd]

Excellent review as always! Looking forward to getting him, it's been waaay too long since the last Doctor Who figure release.

 

[davejames]

Hmm, saw a comment from BCS on FB that the final jacket we'll all be sent actually would be weathered. Guess we'll just have to wait and see...