Big Chief Studios James Bond Series

[thecapn]

So I've of course been reading this thread with trepidation ever since the figures were released, and I finally got my Connery from Sideshow on Friday. Opened him up Saturday morning, and have been posing him all weekend, trying to gather my thoughts and decide on a final verdict on him. And honestly, the only word I can think of to use is...confused. There's a solid figure here, and Big Chief clearly spent a lot of time, effort, and love on the overall package - but there's a few tiny decisions they made that keep it from really being great, and they just make no sense. To use an American sports analogy, it's as if they took the ball 99 yards only to fumble it on the goal line.

The packaging is beautiful, and I love the extra steps they took to keep it safe in transit. The sculpt is amazing; I'm not seeing the caricature complaint here. The face paint is pretty good (nose rubs aside, which mine did suffer from). The hands are always great from Big Chief, and these are no exception. I love that rubbery material that holds accessories so well. The accessories themselves are well-done, and I can't think of a single thing Bond held in this suit that isn't here. The base is a fantastic piece of design (though I think I'm spoiled by QMX's USB-powered Captain's Chair, so I could keep it on all the time, but that's minor). I personally think the suit is well-tailored, with good material, and attention to detail that even Yunsil missed. They give you a nice pouch of additional buttons and other spare parts, which is always nice to have. The instructions are easily the best designed that I've gotten with a 1:6 scale figure.

But then there's the misses, and they add up:

- The packaging looks great, but it fails at its ONLY job - to keep the figure safe in transit.
- The facial paint is great, but the hair is horrible.
- The newly-developed body moves well, but is far too thin, both in the shoulders and the thighs. And if it was supposed to be designed for the Bond line, shouldn't broad shoulders have been part of the deal?
- The suit is tailored well (albeit to a bad body), but the buttons are all a dark grey/black, even on the shirt. Why skimp on this?

Now, most of this I can and have fixed as a customizer/painter. I fixed the nose rub. I painted all the buttons. I futzed the hell out of the shirt and tie (can't blame them for that, these are always a pain). I added those old Hot Toys wraparound thigh extenders they used to send out with the TrueType bodies to pad him out. All of that took like an hour. No biggie.

But most people aren't willing/able to do all that stuff. And I SHOULDN'T HAVE to. The buttons should be cast in the right color. The body used should be designed correctly. The nose shouldn't need touchups.

I feel like they got *THIS* close...and didn't quite get there. And when you look at what QMX, for example, has been doing at around the $180 price point, it feels even worse.

Look, I'm happy with it in the end. Happy enough to consider selling my Yunsil/BBkill version. And I'll pre-order Moore (despite being a huge Bond fan, I just don't have the space to display all the subsidiary characters). But I feel like they spent too much money where it wasn't necessary (even if it was nice) just to skimp where it WAS necessary...and that just doesn't make a lick of sense!

 

[Wor-Gar]

Fair points all.

I'd love to see some pictures, Capn, with your mods. Curious how Connery looks with the buttons the correct color. That's one of those things I plan on doing on my more serious 2nd futz round.

 

[ymba]

Good news

I just got a email BC will be working on getting
All affected orders a new painted head by end of
March.

Confidence restored and here’s hoping everyone
Get their Bond together with no defects

 

[Underworld54]

The end of March? Thought the heads arrived Jan 8th?

 

[Wor-Gar]

Got the notice too. Good news. I'm as eager as anyone here to get my unblemished replacement heads but I'm happy there's now a schedule.


Dear BIG Chief 007 customer,

We would like to apologies that the product you have received from us has arrived faulty.

Whilst we endeavour to make sure that all of our products reach you in perfect condition, there can be instances where errors during the manufacturing process result in a product being shipped with a faulty part or parts.

We have received a small number of support queries from customers who have received a figure with a visible blemish or paint defect on the nose of the head.

We have Instructed our factory to manufacture additional portrait heads which will be shipped directly from the Far East to those customers who's figures have been affected.

Unfortunately given the hand-painted nature of the products, the process is not a quick one and with the Chinese New Year holiday scheduled at the start of February, we have been advised that the replacement portrait heads should be available around the end of March.

Rest assured as soon as the replacements have been completed, they will be shipped out directly to you at no cost.

We look forward to rectifying this situation as quickly as possible, so that you will have the perfect Character Replica Figure in your collection.

Best regards

BCS

 

[thecapn]

Fair points all.

I'd love to see some pictures, Capn, with your mods. Curious how Connery looks with the buttons the correct color. That's one of those things I plan on doing on my more serious 2nd futz round.

Will do, I'll take a snap when I'm at home tonight. I'm usually pretty good at that, but somehow I whiffed this weekend

 

[Tom Day]

The end of March? Thought the heads arrived Jan 8th?

Only Molecule 8 delivers that quickly!

Joking aside, I'm pleased for the 'small numbers' of people who are getting a replacement.

 

[Underworld54]

"Small number" is not an accurate statement, and what happened to the replacement sculpts that supposedly arrived on the 8th of this month?

 

[shells075]

Ok I got an email from BCS about a replacement head, Sorry BCS for trash talking you. They might be getting my money after all for the L&LD figs

 

[thecapn]

Oh! question for you guys. I bought one of those handheld craft irons a while back, specifically this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CE73F8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


There's one nasty wrinkle on Bond's suit lapel I'd like to get out. For anyone who's ironed it already, is this ok to use on it? Should I only use it on low, and will it damage it in any way? Should I iron it through a t-shirt, or is straight-on ok?

Thanks

 

[Buttmunch]

"Small number" is not an accurate statement, and what happened to the replacement sculpts that supposedly arrived on the 8th of this month?

Exactly! Which means they’ve officially lied to us at least once now. Either they got the replacements already like they said or this new email is the truth. In either case, I’ve hit the end of my patience. I might just try for full refund and return at this point. I don’t want to support a company so unprofessional that they flat out lie to their customers.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Oh! question for you guys. I bought one of those handheld craft irons a while back, specifically this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CE73F8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


There's one nasty wrinkle on Bond's suit lapel I'd like to get out. For anyone who's ironed it already, is this ok to use on it? Should I only use it on low, and will it damage it in any way? Should I iron it through a t-shirt, or is straight-on ok?

Thanks

I've never even seen those "mini-irons" before. That's pretty funny.

Anyway, I used a regular iron with guesswork on heat and all the suits of the three Goldfinger figures ironed fine without any problems. If you have a selection knob, choose synthetic or, if you don't have that, choose wool. I have no idea what material these outfits are made of but its not cotton so a lower heat might be safer.

 

[thecapn]

I've never even seen those "mini-irons" before. That's pretty funny.

Anyway, I used a regular iron with guesswork on heat and all the suits of the three Goldfinger figures ironed fine without any problems. If you have a selection knob, choose synthetic or, if you don't have that, choose wool. I have no idea what material these outfits are made of but its not cotton so a lower heat might be safer.

Thanks for the help! Lower heat setting, got it.

I picked it up on a whim a couple months back when people were talking about ironing their figures. Though it is a pretty significant wrinkle (I'll post a pic of my mods tomorrow, so it'll probably show up), so I might pull out the regular iron to be safe. It works fine, but it only has a low and a high, and I feel like the low did pretty much nothing, while the hot was too hot. Thought I'd give it a try, but since you mention using a regular one...I may try it.

 

[Wor-Gar]

. It works fine, but it only has a low and a high, and I feel like the low did pretty much nothing, while the hot was too hot. Thought I'd give it a try, but since you mention using a regular one...I may try it.

Sounds like you need medium heat. Anyway, try the little one. I like it. Good for getting into sleeves, etc. I'd like to know how it works and how hot it can get.

 

[pjam]

Oh! question for you guys. I bought one of those handheld craft irons a while back, specifically this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CE73F8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


There's one nasty wrinkle on Bond's suit lapel I'd like to get out. For anyone who's ironed it already, is this ok to use on it? Should I only use it on low, and will it damage it in any way? Should I iron it through a t-shirt, or is straight-on ok?

Thanks

I used a regular iron at medium to low to iron the pants and would have used it on the lapels but they were already in good shape. The results were terrific, still have futz round 2 coming. Looking forward to your pics, Cap.

 

[jimminy]

So I've of course been reading this thread with trepidation ever since the figures were released, and I finally got my Connery from Sideshow on Friday. Opened him up Saturday morning, and have been posing him all weekend, trying to gather my thoughts and decide on a final verdict on him. And honestly, the only word I can think of to use is...confused. There's a solid figure here, and Big Chief clearly spent a lot of time, effort, and love on the overall package - but there's a few tiny decisions they made that keep it from really being great, and they just make no sense. To use an American sports analogy, it's as if they took the ball 99 yards only to fumble it on the goal line.

The packaging is beautiful, and I love the extra steps they took to keep it safe in transit. The sculpt is amazing; I'm not seeing the caricature complaint here. The face paint is pretty good (nose rubs aside, which mine did suffer from). The hands are always great from Big Chief, and these are no exception. I love that rubbery material that holds accessories so well. The accessories themselves are well-done, and I can't think of a single thing Bond held in this suit that isn't here. The base is a fantastic piece of design (though I think I'm spoiled by QMX's USB-powered Captain's Chair, so I could keep it on all the time, but that's minor). I personally think the suit is well-tailored, with good material, and attention to detail that even Yunsil missed. They give you a nice pouch of additional buttons and other spare parts, which is always nice to have. The instructions are easily the best designed that I've gotten with a 1:6 scale figure.

But then there's the misses, and they add up:

- The packaging looks great, but it fails at its ONLY job - to keep the figure safe in transit.
- The facial paint is great, but the hair is horrible.
- The newly-developed body moves well, but is far too thin, both in the shoulders and the thighs. And if it was supposed to be designed for the Bond line, shouldn't broad shoulders have been part of the deal?
- The suit is tailored well (albeit to a bad body), but the buttons are all a dark grey/black, even on the shirt. Why skimp on this?

Now, most of this I can and have fixed as a customizer/painter. I fixed the nose rub. I painted all the buttons. I futzed the hell out of the shirt and tie (can't blame them for that, these are always a pain). I added those old Hot Toys wraparound thigh extenders they used to send out with the TrueType bodies to pad him out. All of that took like an hour. No biggie.

But most people aren't willing/able to do all that stuff. And I SHOULDN'T HAVE to. The buttons should be cast in the right color. The body used should be designed correctly. The nose shouldn't need touchups.

I feel like they got *THIS* close...and didn't quite get there. And when you look at what QMX, for example, has been doing at around the $180 price point, it feels even worse.

Look, I'm happy with it in the end. Happy enough to consider selling my Yunsil/BBkill version. And I'll pre-order Moore (despite being a huge Bond fan, I just don't have the space to display all the subsidiary characters). But I feel like they spent too much money where it wasn't necessary (even if it was nice) just to skimp where it WAS necessary...and that just doesn't make a lick of sense!

This is a fair review. I adore this figure and I am frustrated by it. I've noticed that for me, somehow the figures I have complex feelings on end up becoming favourites of a sort in the long run.

Any tips on fixing the nose rub? Or the hair? Any colours or techniques you or any of the other painters out there would recommend?

I've only ever painted things like model tanks and D&D miniatures before. It seems like the hair and nose rub might be something a careful amateur could fix if they had the right paints and some instructions to follow. I'd like to fix the paint-scraped knuckles on mine too.

And yeah I don't understand why the buttons are the colour they are.

All that said, I am just waiting to hear about a replacement jacket, and if I get that (and so have the figure as advertised), I will overall still be pretty happy with my almost-there Bond. Happy enough to consider a Moore later. The great sculpt and the love that has gone into things like the shoe and the accessories push this Bond over the line for me.

 

[thecapn]

First off, thanks to Wor-Gar and pjam for their advice. I didn't end up using that iron...though it can get pretty hot, since Wor-Gar mentioned the synthetic setting, I pulled out the ol' handheld iron, and it worked like a charm in about 30 seconds. Thank you!

jiminy - thanks for your follow up Different painters will, of course, tell you different things. The key to fixing the nose rub for me was to match the color, which is of course always a hard trick and requires a good eye. I used a mix of acrylics to do it. I prefer to use Games Workshop paints personally - they blend well and hold their color, and you can water them down. For this one, I used a mix of Mournfang Brown, Abbaddon Black, Ratskin Flesh, and Kislev Flesh. Basically, it's a fairly standard brown and black, along with a standard fleshtone. That leaves the Ratskin, which is like an orangey-skintone. Think George Hamilton. I don't use it often, but it definitely helped me match it this time. I can't tell you the measurements, because I basically kept mixing it until I got a color I liked.

Then I used a very tiny - size 00 - brush, and applied it sparingly in the rub area. The nice thing about these paints is that if you glop it on, you don't need a second coat, but if you go thinly, it becomes almost seethru. The only other trick is to make sure to blend it around the area so there's no hard edges.

It's not HARD, but it takes some patience and a few tries to get the color right. It took me about an hour, but I've done this a bunch of times - expect it to take a bit longer. And if you mess up, no worries - as long as the paint hasn't fully dried, you can just wipe it off.

For the hair, it's about the same. Try to match the existing paint as best as possible, give it a good coat, and blend it at the edges (that way, you don't have to worry about that fine detail right at the hairline, you can just let Big Chief's painters take care of that). I'd recommend then adding a tiny bit of a lighter color to your mixture (probably brown, I'd imagine), and drybrush the whole thing. Drybrushing is basically a technique where you take an older, bigger brush, and dip it in the paint, then you brush most of it off on something else so there's just a tiny bit of paint left on it. If you've ever used a roller, think about when you need to put it back in the paint and you get only like a half a coat? It's like that. Then you liberally brush the hair. What it does is just catch the highest points, and not the lower ones, so it ends up highlighting it.

Hope that helps, I'm not very good at explaining things

Ok, here's the pics I promised. Freshly ironed lapel, thigh "wideners", fixed nose, futzed, and repainted buttons. I'm happy with it:





And with my other Bonds:

 

[pjam]

Wow, Cap'n, it doesn't get much better than that. Great work! That vest looks damn perfect. And stellar display. I hope I can get mine to look that good.

Futz Round 2:

Will now hit the jacket lapels with the iron, secure the shirt lapels to the shirt, add upper thigh padding and I think I'll be done.

 

[thecapn]

Thanks!

I'm tempted to secure the shirt lapels, but I've had bad experiences with doing that in the past - aka, not much more tie/neck fuzing possible at that point. Please post pics when you're done!

 

[Wor-Gar]

He looks great, Capn. Love the gray buttons too.