Clothing
Where do you begin with Boromir. I guess I’ll start from the core and work my way outward. First off, I was surprised and delighted to see a full undershirt, and blown away at how many components it is made of to create the final look. I’m not sure what the rubber material is for, but I think it helps to bulk his arms and looks good in instances where the chain mail is too low on his arm and reveals some of the rest of his shirt between the chains and the red shirt. I won’t say much about his pants, they’re a nice material and look fine, but with these figures, they’re more so there to keep them from being naked and exposed lol. Now onto the chain armor; one poster displayed images of Boromir with some rubber chain armor from another company, and while the look is better than the SSC version, I imagine rubber is limiting on posing and runs the risk of tearing, so in the end, I think clothe was better for putting some action into this figure, and for a cloth representation of chain armor, SSC did a great job, I love the chain like appearance to the threading, you can see it in one of my pictures I think, and the weaving in of shiny silver material adds a nice metallic quality to it. On to the red shirt. Jimmy Smits talked about his outfits in Star Wars Ep 3 once stating how the quality of the costumes allowed him to feel like the royalty he was to play, and I think the same concept applies to many of the LORT costumes, and Boromir’s certainly reflects a very royal quality. His red shirt is made from a nice, silky material that works great for the character, features beautiful applied gold patterning on the sleeves, and the black and gold work on his collar is just as beautifully done, and I see why some would opt not to display him without the Elven cloak because it is hidden once that’s on. Moving on from the red shirt we then add, well for lack of knowledge of what word to use, the vest. This seems to be made of the same material as the Terminator T-800 leather clothing, and it’s great because it has a leather look, but because it’s quite think for the figure scale, it allows a better flow and range of motion for the figure where a thicker material may be constricting. As with the red shirt, this vest also features a fair amount of detail. I am very impressed by how elaborate the silver trim on the vest is, and the clasps at on it are also nicely detailed and really capture the royalty and elegance of Gondor. Next up we have Boromir’s vembraces, which I think were done perfectly. Even though the straps are just glued and don’t work, they have the appearance that they could work, which is great because their construction makes them sturdy, but the design and execution makes them look like they should, and they’re a fairly flexible material so the pointy tips at the hands allow the wrist articulation to work as well as it does on other SSC figures, which is one thing about the Buck body that I love compared to other 1/6 figure bodies. As is shown in my photo, the vembraces are quite detailed and look leathery as well. The boots are another great SSC job, and in fact, Aragorn is the only SSC figure whose boots weren’t great and even his were great but for the feet looking a bit Ronald McDonald like. At quick glance, Boromir’s look like great sculpted boots, but a closer look will reveal some bluish paint applied to give it a bit of weathering, even Gondor royalty get their feet dirty. Lastly, some may call it an accessory, but I consider it an element of wardrobe, and that’s his belt. I’m not sure if we ever see it in the film, but there is a small knife sheath and knife in the back which feature the same paint quality we have come to expect from SSC and is done really nicely and hangs well from the belt. The belt itself is great like Aragorn’s, it’s soft enough so you can tie it off on him like a real belt and not just clasp it together or something like that, and it is very film accurate where the sword hangs off of the belt as well. Lastly is the Elven cloak, for those getting the Exclusive version. It’s the same as Legolas’, and even though there is no texture to the material, there is a graininess of green shades in it that gives it a visual texture that works great, the broach is off to the side again, but I personally feel that if it were in the middle where it should be for film accuracy, it would make it harder to clasp the cloak so I’m ok with how it is and the hood features the same wiring we get with SSC hoods and it helps to lay the hood down on these figures because there wasn’t a lot of hood up action, especially for Boromir.