1/6 Hot Toys - MMS 283 - Star Wars Episode IV: 1/6th scale Obi-Wan Kenobi

[ZE_501]

I'm not likely to buy an Obi Wan...but if I was in the market, the current HT sculpt would win.

Likeness is there, quality is high, out-of-the-box convenience is there.

I agree with everyone's points about getting a master-class repaint being an expensive and time-consuming pain with room for human error.

Which sculpt one *prefers* is subjective, personal and not worth debating.

What I suggest is not debatable, is that out-of-the-box, the HT sculpt is more or less state-of-the-art and bears enough likeness to be considered "superior" by objective, measurable standards.

Anything else is eye-of-the-beholder stuff.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wor-Gar]

quality is high, out-of-the-box convenience is there.

This is it for me.

 

[YankeesFanboy]

This just popped up on their site...

Great sculpt, whoever it is.

Not bad, not bad. That beard though.

Hope the production piece doesn't look too much like Ulysses S. Grant.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Yeah, as I mentioned, and I agree with Rory that the SS sculpt has a caricature to it, which I believe served it well in its time but now when directly compared to the HT seems even more exaggerated. That said, I find the HT more realistic (meaning more human looking) but also more subdued... and still not really Alec Guinness.

 

[Matt S]

Great sculpt; not Alec Guinness.

 

[Sidewinder]

I think HT have addressed the main issues people had with the original sculpt. He's been aged and the face has been slimmed down a bit as well. I liked the first sculpt anyway, but I'm sure there will be alot more collectors happy with this new one.

 

[TonTon]

Not bad, not bad. That beard though.

Hope the production piece doesn't look too much like Ulysses S. Grant.

View attachment 166603

Awesome. Grant looks like he has a dark secret to tell...like just maybe he chopped off all the limbs of Luke's father.

 

[davejames]

Yeah they really went over the top with that curly beard. In most of the movie it's actually pretty straight, and it's a shame they didn't use that as more of a reference instead.

 

[DiFabio]

For me, I think it's the mouth and chin that are throwing of the likeness to Guinness. Crop it a bit and I think the nose, eyes, head and hair are dead on.






Way closer than Han is to Ford.

 

[Natedog]

HT = The brow is way off, mustache is too short and the wrong color, the shape and color of the beard is way off. The rest is pretty good though.

 

[Cocoboloboy]

Grabbed small_studios repaint just for quick compare.

I still think the Sideshow looks closer to my eyes -- granted a bit of caricature there and a bit surprised looking.

Once you look at all three together like that it's an easy choice for me which one I prefer. As much as I like the SS figure HT has it on this one.

 

[user 19388]

Looks good to me! I'm ready to p/o and begin the nitpicking on their next release.

 

[davejames]

Eh, I don't think it gets any better than this myself:



Granted, it's a repaint, but I certainly don't think a repaint of the HT head could get it that close-- which to me is a sure sign of which is the genuinely better sculpt.

And I certainly wouldn't call this a "caricature" by any stretch of the imagination either.

 

[Khev]

Eh, I don't think it gets any better than this myself:

View attachment 166636

Granted, it's a repaint, but I certainly don't think a repaint of the HT head could get it that close-- which to me is a sure sign of which is the genuinely better sculpt.

And I certainly wouldn't call this a "caricature" by any stretch of the imagination either.

Then it sounds like the SSC Ben is for you. To each his own.

 

[Lejuan]

Then it sounds like the SSC Ben is for you. To each his own.

The last few pages should really have begun and ended with this. To each their own. HT reworked a pretty terrible sculpt imo into a very fine one, that's what I'm happy and relieved about.

 

[EXOTICLEX]

For me, I think it's the mouth and chin that are throwing of the likeness to Guinness. Crop it a bit and I think the nose, eyes, head and hair are dead on.


View attachment 166610



Way closer than Han is to Ford.

I think you nailed it Difabio. Case solved.

 

[TaliBane]

Grabbed small_studios repaint just for quick compare.

I still think the Sideshow looks closer to my eyes -- granted a bit of caricature there and a bit surprised looking.

Not a perfect choice there - I find the Smalls repaints to be like classic painted portraits on canvas, very "painterly", but not really feeling like it's a real person shrunken down. Almost a bit stylized.

When I have Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Vader, the Droids, Stormtroopers, etc., all displayed together I know that Ben won't be the focal point of the display. The HT version won't call attention to itself as being of lesser overall quality than the others which is more important to me than a cheaper "toy" with a better likeness among other premium 12 inch figures.

If the likeness was downright horrid on HT that'd be one thing, but looking at the SSC vs. HT comparison you just posted I totally think that HT even has the better sculpt regardless.

Yeah, you could look at say the Hasbro Dooku head, which is a terrific sculpt for a mass-produced toy, but it's clearly of a lesser quality than a newer generation head. They often come across like those custom-made heads that "no company will ever do" - they look so amazing until those companies actually DO them (this is true for all figures except Snake.)

HT = The brow is way off, mustache is too short and the wrong color, the shape and color of the beard is way off. The rest is pretty good though.

Guiness' facial hair is a bit more white than grey, and that was one of the issues with the first HT Ben proto - it wasn't white enough.

 

[Anthrapoid]

EXOTICLEX, you seem to have actually enjoyed GOTG, so your judgement and taste in matters of art is suspect.
OH NO HE DI'ENT!

indeed solved.

 

[DiFabio]

Hot Toys is stylized in their own way too. The dark, textured skin and the dead (albeit detailed) glazed over eyes. Pretty much every character they do looks like they have a tan, how about that all those stoic expressions? People don't all look like that with the same color eyes and skin so it's not realistic. When you see a Hot Toys sculpt, you can tell it's a Hot Toys sculpt.

10 years from now when the hobby has evolved, this current "look" that we perceive as highly detailed will be outdated. Hot Toys is definitely the best in the biz but I think people tend to mistake excessive details like crazy skin wrinkles and paint freckles (even on characters that don't have them) with likeness accuracy. They have a nack for "roughing up" things that should be smooth, not just headsculpts but bodies too ('89 Batman and his rough, cement textured chest armor).

 

[davejames]

10 years from now when the hobby has evolved, this current "look" that we perceive as highly detailed will be outdated. Hot Toys is definitely the best in the biz but I think people tend to mistake excessive details like crazy skin wrinkles and paint freckles (even on characters that don't have them) with likeness accuracy. They have a nack for "roughing up" things that should be smooth, not just headsculpts but bodies too ('89 Batman and his rough, cement textured chest armor).

Agreed. I absolutely love HT's stuff, but it does sometimes seem like they rely on their skin textures and detailed paintjobs to try to make a fairly generic likeness look a lot better than it really is.