Hot Toys Royal Guard

[Felinx]

Both of my sets arrived today. Now to find some junk bodies to hide under these.

Do you have a HT version? Just wondering if the colors are close to a match or not. In the video they looked a bit different to me but you can never tell for sure on a vid.

Also, it looked in the video like they swapped out the tinted red clear visor for opaque black plastic - is that the case?

Interested to see a somewhat futzed pic of these to see how well the outer red cape drapes. It seemed noticeably less drapey vs the HT in the vid but the guy didn't seem to make much of an effort to futz.

 

[Customikey]

Did you already have them ordered or did you just do it? I really wanted to get a pair for my display but I can't find them on OSK anymore

I ordered one several months go and the second more recently.

 

[Customikey]

I’d love to see a side by side comparison with the HT figure! Anyone having both?

 

[Chopper Face]

Phew. Looks like I can breath a sigh of relief and feel content that I sold off my two HT RGs for two of these.
Looks like they’ll do the job just fine.

 

[Chainedstream]

Wow this did indeed turn out much much better than anticipated. I retract what I said a year or so ago. Very well priced.

Ouff, $105 in total. Crazy expensive for bootleg rags. Then you need to buy a truetype and stand.

 

[Stryker2011]

Do you have a HT version? Just wondering if the colors are close to a match or not. In the video they looked a bit different to me but you can never tell for sure on a vid.

Also, it looked in the video like they swapped out the tinted red clear visor for opaque black plastic - is that the case?

Interested to see a somewhat futzed pic of these to see how well the outer red cape drapes. It seemed noticeably less drapey vs the HT in the vid but the guy didn't seem to make much of an effort to futz.

Sorry for the late reply. No, I don’t own the HT version as I thought it was too expensive for a background figure, so I have no way of knowing if the colors match. I don’t have usable bodies at the moment to put these outfits on.

 

[jaztermareal]

Mine arrived. Need to locate a body (should have one in a box somewhere).


Now, to track down some HT Praetorian guards... or maybe use the crappy Hasbro ones as stand ins for a crimson display

 

[Chopper Face]

Ouff, $105 in total. Crazy expensive for bootleg rags. Then you need to buy a truetype and stand.

It’s hardly a tough pill to swallow for a more than passable set.

$105 for the outfit
$12 for a basic body
Stand not necessary or get the cheapest one imaginable for a few dollars.

Or the HT figure on the secondary market for $350-$420

Having owned the HT and the KO now; for newcomers, going the KO route is the only common sense choice given that these are mostly only ever used as accessories/companion pieces to Palpatine.

 

[Chainedstream]

It’s hardly a tough pill to swallow for a more than passable set.

$105 for the outfit
$12 for a basic body
Stand not necessary or get the cheapest one imaginable for a few dollars.

Or the HT figure on the secondary market for $350-$420

Having owned the HT and the KO now; for newcomers, going the KO route is the only common sense choice given that these are mostly only ever used as accessories/companion pieces to Palpatine.

If you read what I wrote in my new post (where I quoted myself), I retracted my old statement.

Cheapest I could get for two guards is at OSK (no other vendor seems to have it) for $334. Cheaper than one used HT. As seen in video above and in pictures, it is impossible to distinguish this third party costume from Hot Toys’s

 

[Felinx]

The HT figure was only $205 at time of release. Had HT done a two-pack, as they should have it would have been awesome because it might have been in the $330-350 range for two guards.

Even a 40th ROTJ re-release two pack would have been maybe $400-425, which is less than $100 over two bootleg figs price.

This bootleg is a great deal given the ebay context, but it's a pity it even had to come to this.

Interested to see when mine arrives how well this goes alongside the HT figure. The lack of a see-through red-tint visor (seems to be opaque black plastic on this) and the inferior drapiness/fit of the outer robe seem to be the only two things bugging me about the bootleg.

Hopefully they are unfounded concerns, though I seriously doubt this figure will be able to be displayed side-by-side with the HT version. I get that it is what it is, and it's a more background fig, but in my display "background" means about 6" further back than "foreground" so still pretty up-front.

 

[Chopper Face]

The HT figure was only $205 at time of release. Had HT done a two-pack, as they should have it would have been awesome because it might have been in the $330-350 range for two guards.

Even a 40th ROTJ re-release two pack would have been maybe $400-425, which is less than $100 over two bootleg figs price.

This bootleg is a great deal given the ebay context, but it's a pity it even had to come to this.

Interested to see when mine arrives how well this goes alongside the HT figure. The lack of a see-through red-tint visor (seems to be opaque black plastic on this) and the inferior drapiness/fit of the outer robe seem to be the only two things bugging me about the bootleg.

Hopefully they are unfounded concerns, though I seriously doubt this figure will be able to be displayed side-by-side with the HT version. I get that it is what it is, and it's a more background fig, but in my display "background" means about 6" further back than "foreground" so still pretty up-front.

Unfortunately, newcomers to the hobby can’t time travel back to when the Royal Guard was cheap or expect Hot Toys to respect the OT enough to help them get ahold of golden oldies, and we can’t use hypothetical two-packs either, so we need to live in the here and now and use the price they currently go for as comparison to best help people decide which version they go for now.

May as well throw inflation into the mix too, which would put a current day single release at nearer $240.

 

[Felinx]

Unfortunately, newcomers to the hobby can’t time travel back to when the Royal Guard was cheap or expect Hot Toys to respect the OT enough to help them get ahold of golden oldies, and we can’t use hypothetical two-packs either, so we need to live in the here and now and use the price they currently go for as comparison to best help people decide which version they go for now.

May as well throw inflation into the mix too, which would put a current day single release at nearer $240.

This bootleg is a great deal given the ebay context, but it's a pity it even had to come to this.

I did, but this figure is also part of a wider conversation.


I was hoping to do something like this with mine alongside the HT version, so will be interested to see how closely the fabrics and helmets match. The HT fig's outer cloak is a super-drapey, somewhat unusual fabric so will be interesting to see if they were able to source pretty much the same fabric for the bootleg.

 

[pixletwin]

Wow. It’s been a few years since I saw a Rebel scum archive photo. I’d almost forgotten about that site!

 

[Customikey]

Yeah really curious how folks are attaching those boots. It kind of looks like the ankle ball joint from the body may have to be glued to the inside of the boot for it to work.

 

[TonTon]

Just got my set today. Curious as well how people are putting these together, what body works best, etc. I sold my emperor a while back so I may have to pose with ROTJ Vader when he arrives.

 

[jaztermareal]

Just got my set today. Curious as well how people are putting these together, what body works best, etc. I sold my emperor a while back so I may have to pose with ROTJ Vader when he arrives.

standard narrow shoulder body is what I used. Boots popped on to the standard ankle ball just fine for me, just put them on before either the inner or outer robes

 

[Felinx]

I recall that the boot ball joint was sort of unique on the original HT fig. I bought parts for a guard from TA and discovered the boots didn't fit any of the ankle joint pegs I had. I ended up having to buy original ankle joints from the next TA part out to accomodate the boots.

I would have hoped the people who made the bootleg fig would have changed the mold slightly to accomodate a more common ball joint size, though the Russian guy on the YT video seemed to get the boots onto a stock/generic body okay so maybe there's a simple solution.

Will have to see if I bought an extra pegs set to suit my bootleg fig if a simple/available solution can't be found.

 

[Chainedstream]

I recall that the boot ball joint was sort of unique on the original HT fig. I bought parts for a guard from TA and discovered the boots didn't fit any of the ankle joint pegs I had. I ended up having to buy original ankle joints from the next TA part out to accomodate the boots.

I would have hoped the people who made the bootleg fig would have changed the mold slightly to accomodate a more common ball joint size, though the Russian guy on the YT video seemed to get the boots onto a stock/generic body okay so maybe there's a simple solution.

Will have to see if I bought an extra pegs set to suit my bootleg fig if a simple/available solution can't be found.

Hair dryer. Not optimal but works.

What body did you get?

 

[Felinx]

Hair dryer. Not optimal but works.

What body did you get?

Oh I'm all over this kind of stuff like a rash and the hair dryer didn't cut it for that original HT guard. Also the boots have this soft chamois type pleather that I really wasn't too keen to cook too much, and it was difficult to get intense enough heat down the "chute" of the boot.

I have a "library" of HT and other manufacturer bodies and will decide based on shoulder width once it's here. Looked like the YT Russian guy went with slightly too broad of a shouldered body.

 

[jaztermareal]

I did not need a hairdrier for the KO guard boots. They popped right on to the generic narrow shoulder body I used so likely not the same ankle cups that the real HT uses. You just need to ensure the ball aligned with the cup before pushing as if the ball is off to the side it may seem like it is not popping in when really it hitting the side wall of the cup