EXOTICLEX
Super Freak
Mine is pushed to July 25
Hot Toys - MMS185 - The Avengers: Iron Man MK VII Official Specs & Pics
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I got a MKVII head in the mail today.
I have made some very interesting discoveries, and what I believe is a mistake in the paint job/construction of the head itself.
Not counting the battery compartment and resultant electronic components, the head is made up of 4 elements.
Face mask, upper helmet, lower helmet and neck connector.
In stripping the helmet apart, I have discovered a possible reason for the eyes not lighting up as brightly as they should. I will state it is only a *possible* reason. I could well be wrong.
In any case, the ultrabright LED in the head does not point at the eye holes. It points down at perhaps a 30 degree angle, towards the neck connector part.
The neck connector part, as has been remarked upon, is curiously painted white on the bottom.
This is, in fact, just the colour of the plastic used for the part.
It is also curiously painted black on the inside...I believe this to be a production error. The plastic will luminesce under lighting. I believe the INSIDE should have been left white, and the outside should have been painted black. If this had been the case, the white inside would have acted as a parabolic light reflector and spread the light more evenly within the head, perhaps resulting in a better look for the eye lights.
This is all just supposition on my part based on previous experience with lighting. I am going to experiment with light reflectors in the head to increase the luminosity of the eyes. There's also, in my opinion, room to fit more than one LED in there. That could be an option too.
Here are the images of the part stripped down:
I have made some very interesting discoveries, and what I believe is a mistake in the paint job/construction of the head itself.
Not counting the battery compartment and resultant electronic components, the head is made up of 4 elements.
Face mask, upper helmet, lower helmet and neck connector.
In stripping the helmet apart, I have discovered a possible reason for the eyes not lighting up as brightly as they should. I will state it is only a *possible* reason. I could well be wrong.
In any case, the ultrabright LED in the head does not point at the eye holes. It points down at perhaps a 30 degree angle, towards the neck connector part.
The neck connector part, as has been remarked upon, is curiously painted white on the bottom.
This is, in fact, just the colour of the plastic used for the part.
It is also curiously painted black on the inside...I believe this to be a production error. The plastic will luminesce under lighting. I believe the INSIDE should have been left white, and the outside should have been painted black. If this had been the case, the white inside would have acted as a parabolic light reflector and spread the light more evenly within the head, perhaps resulting in a better look for the eye lights.
This is all just supposition on my part based on previous experience with lighting. I am going to experiment with light reflectors in the head to increase the luminosity of the eyes. There's also, in my opinion, room to fit more than one LED in there. That could be an option too.
Here are the images of the part stripped down:
looks like if you put a reflective wedge between the two eye slits, it would send the light out each eye slit instead of down the middle...
That could work.
My idea is to built a small light box encapsulating the LED and the eye light hole from the inside. That way, the light only has one route out.
That sounds like it would work. Are you going to try to correct the painting issue you mentioned before? Maybe making the black part a reflective color instead of just white?
I was thinking of just stripping the black paint off with oven cleaner. Then I will try painting the inside white or silver. That may be all it needs.
It would be great of that's all it took. Easy fix for everyone interested.
Well maybe not everyone would want to tear their mask apart to try it...
That's why I said "everyone interested"
I know we shouldnt have to do any of this to a $250 figure, but the easier the fix, the better.
I know we shouldnt have to do any of this to a $250 figure, but the easier the fix, the better.
captainjamesbrooke
Super Freak
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Cheers mate. It'd look ok if I could have been bothered to dig the box out and use the neck ring bit!! But it's under the bed with all the rest!
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The eyes are too big, why would you want to make them brighter? Would look even worse if the light was brighter IMO.
El-Vi-Riachi
Super Freak
Do you think there is anything that can be done to reduce the size of the mouth username? Perhaps the issues with the head are a 1st batch problem. Perhaps they may correct this in coming batches? Guess we shall see once this hits the US
you dont want to just light up the inside of the eyes, even if they are too tall. They need to be lit up all the way across...
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doubt it very very much! It's the entire sculpt for gods sake.You will understand when you have the sculpt in hand. The problem isn't the LED placement. It's the gap between the clear plastic eye piece and the actual enclosed lighting section of the head.
The eyes are so big you can "look into" the gap in the head. Moving the LED direction around as Username suggests, will solve nothing. The only way to solve this "issue" is to move the light section closer to the eyes,
diffuse the inside of the eyes (easy) and/or add another light source. But they would HAVE TO move forward to make ANY difference.
And it will still look poor even with rewiring, unless someone can resculpt the eye section. Not an easy job with an Ironman figure. All the sandpaper in the world won't replicate engineered/moulded plastic.
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@username - how hard was it to disassemble the helmet? Is everything glued on or just snapped together? Instructions would be great
Thanks!
Well mine just popped apart. It could even be said it wasn't glued together. But i hope for everyone's sake the production copies are not like this(I doubt they are).
I have stated my theory about this kind of thing before but i will say it again.
I think a lot of places on Ebay that sell parts are actually in the employ of HT.
Lets say they get 4,000 pre-orders for the MKVII, but run off 6,000 copies. They fill pre-orders and the rest of the parts get painted and mostly assembled, then sold on Ebay through a multitude of usernames. If you look at a HT figure retailing for $200 in China, a percentage of that will go to the store that sold it. I have no idea what HT will see as the gross price for the items.
Let's say the actual price HT gets for a $200 figure is $130.
And then imagine a Black Widow HEAD goes for close to that...
I bet HT would like a slice of that pie!
Imagine a full day's worth of Black Widow heads are destined just for Ebay... That will be straight profit considering you pay your workforce anyway...
Anyway. The point was mine wasn't glued together.
I can do a short video tutorial on how it goes together if anyone is interested.
It will *not* be corrected.
It would cost a fortune.
But the black line is on the lower part. Just re-paint it gold.
El-Vi-Riachi
Super Freak
What can I say I'm a glass half full kinda guy 
Not been in the collecting game for that long compared to some.
Not been in the collecting game for that long compared to some.
What can I say I'm a glass half full kinda guy
I have a roll of black electrical tape here. I am going to see if i can reduce the eyes on the inside.
Hang fire.
DoubleTap
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Thanks - that would be tremendous!
