How much is too much for a single 1/6th figure?

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

As someone said earlier, fair enough...... to each his own. Again, I think what's most shocking to me is the cost and what people are willing to pay for a figure. I remember buying all 3 original HT Pred's foe something like 120 a pop and they re released some recently for well over 200 for the SAME figure. Nothing new and nothing different. Same figure, but just 8 years later and raise in cost of 100 bucks........wow.

There's no two ways about it, the climbing retail prices are getting brutal especially for IM collectors lol. I can't speak for Preds since I don't collect them, but if you've ever seen how many parts go into an individual IM figure (it's in the ballpark of 300 + LED's) it's not so hard to imagine why they cost $250-$350 on avg - a dollar per part and there's your $300. Were the first IM figures cheaper? Yep, no arguing it. However, the craftsmanship on the recent IM figs blows them away, so maybe I'm a little more forgiving of a price hike of $25 or so. Despite the price hikes, Hot Toys is still delivering near prototype level production figures seemingly every release large in part to an amazing manufacturing process no other company seems to be close to replicating and they're priced competitively.

 

[Iggyrox]

'Museum display pieces' eh? "Inbetween the 'Sumerian' and 'African Savannah' sections sir, Dr Doom and friends will be on the right"

"And right near the exit is the gift shop with lotsa 1/6 toy dollies."

 

[fosing]

"And right near the exit is the gift shop with lotsa 1/6 toy dollies."

its not a museum.

its a church!!! they love PFs inside.

 

[Lejuan]

There's no two ways about it, the climbing retail prices are getting brutal especially for IM collectors lol. I can't speak for Preds since I don't collect them, but if you've ever seen how many parts go into an individual IM figure (it's in the ballpark of 300 + LED's) it's not so hard to imagine why they cost $250-$350 on avg - a dollar per part and there's your $300. Were the first IM figures cheaper? Yep, no arguing it. However, the craftsmanship on the recent IM figs blows them away, so maybe I'm a little more forgiving of a price hike of $25 or so. Despite the price hikes, Hot Toys is still delivering near prototype level production figures seemingly every release large in part to an amazing manufacturing process no other company seems to be close to replicating and they're priced competitively.

They've spent enough R&D time and money on those things though, you'd expect them to be ramping up their cost and quality. Their human figures though are no better than they were 5 years ago. Still, I started out collecting medicom figures - 5 years ago a lot of those were priced at around today's HT figures. And Enterbay's Bruce Lee figures were pricey too.

One of the things that's making it hard for collectors is the depth of a lot of the lines. A few years ago HT didn't go so deep with a license's characters - a casual Batman fan could call it quits with a single version of Batman and Joker. But if you're an Avengers fan or Star Wars fan, even picking up the core characters entails a spend of thousands of dollars.

 

[Lejuan]

"And right near the exit is the gift shop with lotsa 1/6 toy dollies."

its not a museum.

its a church!!! they love PFs.

Remember that "Men of Faith" line? The company only brought out Moses. I was disappointed - I'd really like a high-end Jesus of Nazareth figure (idealised anglo-Jesus no doubt).

 

[fosing]

^there was that new jesus figure posted in OSR, the one that came with a bird flippin hand accessory.

 

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

They've spent enough R&D time and money on those things though, you'd expect them to be ramping up their cost and quality.
Their human figures though are no better than they were 5 years ago. Still, I started out collecting medicom figures - 5 years ago a lot of those were priced at around today's HT figures. And Enterbay's Bruce Lee figures were pricey too.

One of the things that's making it hard for collectors is the depth of a lot of the lines. A few years ago HT didn't go so deep with a license's characters - a casual Batman fan could call it quits with a single version of Batman and Joker. But if you're an Avengers fan or Star Wars fan, even picking up the core characters entails a spend of thousands of dollars.

Have to disagree with you bud, as a whole their human portraits in terms of likeness and specifically paint apps are worlds better than they were 5 years ago.

Take Johnny Depp for example: DX Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands:

How quickly you forget LJ!

Even if you compare DX Sparrow to the prior release of At World's End Sparrow, it's much improved:

 

[Lejuan]

Weeell... DX Jack wasn't quite 5 years ago, but 3 1/2 years ago, so it's still got some years on it. I'd say paint has gone backwards since then. And that figure was going for under $250. Other comparable figures from that era: DX Bruce Lee, King Leonidas, T2 Arnie, all of which hold up today (Arnie's less-than-awesome sculpt was more down to the artist's eye than the technology). My point is, doll technology hasn't delivered huge improvements in recent years that have legitimised the massive increase in how much these things cost.

 

[fosing]

factor in cutting corners/slack work...im looking at you TSANG and what he did to the predator line.lolz
even repeating the same failed shat over again, and applying it to later releases...robocop, ed209, etc.

but overall, HT does not represent the whole 1:6 format.

 

[jkno]

I don't own any PFs and I specifically don't buy any for financial reasons - buying even one of them could lead to more and more and more and so on (as was the case with 1:6 figures or indeed any scale of action figure).

But.....it seems to me that some pretty major fan favourite characters end up falling hugely short of expectations with these PFs. I mean....that T2 BD T-800......I'm sorry but if anyone thinks that is better than the Enterbay ''doll'' you are deluding yourself. Sometimes it really is that simple. I honestly don't feel there is any scope for subjectivity in that particular case. There is only fact. The PF looks awful. The strength of PFs is supposed to be that they choose one pose and they sculpt the whole thing in accordance with that pose to make it look as natural as it possibly can. Now, fine in theory. However the pose they selected is....... what do you even call it. It's not anything. Neither enough to be called 'aggressive' or sufficiently neutral to be called 'museum'. Neither does it look movie accurate particularly.

And that's before you even get to facial likeness and accuracy of the battle-damage - it bares a resemblance to Arnie, I can tell who it's supposed to be, but that's not huge praise. And the battle-damage is all sorts of wrong, seems like they didn't particularly care about making it accurate.

Tailoring - not great. That T-shirt is awful, it looks like a polo neck....sorry, HT managed far better on a 1:6 dolly.

Texture and paint - again, poor.

So truthfully anyone who says the T2 PF is better than Enterbay's BD T-800 or even Hot Toys DX13 is trying to justify the money they spent. I mean, if you just like collecting PFs then fine, sure, buy it. However there is no way in hell it is superior in appearance to either HT or EB, and it is certainly not better in 'presence' to EB.

I believe at least some of the same points could be made if you compared the Reeve Superman PF to the HT MMS152 and the Keaton Batman PF to the HT DX09.

Exactly. And this goes for Star Wars PF's too.

Most people I know look at 1/6 as toys and 1/4 as movie room collectibles ( almost all of my PFs are movie/tv characters ). There are some truly beautiful 1/6 figures out there, but to me they've never lost their "toy" feel where as a well done PF has a more "museum piece" feel. Sure, there are some PF fails out there, but overall they are just more impressive IMO.

If you want true museum pieces then go 1:1. PF's are just dollies for 1:1 collectors

 

[fosing]

If you want true museum pieces then go 1:1. PF's are just dollies for 1:1 collectors

Boom.

 

[Stryker2011]

I'm in the boat that $250 is too much for a figure. That being said, I paid $257 (with shipping) for the ACI Aragorn EE and I don't regret it. It was a Grail figure, and probably my favorite figure right now. But I've pretty much stopped collecting HT (aside from POs I'm still waiting on, and maybe the occasional character here and there). Their prices are going up, and frankly I haven't been all that impressed with ANY of the Avengers:AoU figures. None of the sculpts (of the actors) look all that great, except maybe Don Cheadle, but that sculpt looks like a pin-head on the body. None of the robot (ie, Iron Man, Ultron) figures do it for me, and frankly paying $800 for Hulkbuster, you'd have to be either stupid-rich or just stupid. HT seems to be getting lax on quality more and more, skating by on reputation, rather than nailing those head sculpts, which imho is half the figure.There are so many newer companies out their doing things far more affordable to me (Star Ace for example) that I find much more interesting (Steve McQueen) than yet another super-hero movie character. Eventually, HT, and even Sideshow, will price themselves out of the market.... or they'll have to lower their prices (but I don't see that happening).

 

[DiFabio]

I don't own any PFs and I specifically don't buy any for financial reasons - buying even one of them could lead to more and more and more and so on (as was the case with 1:6 figures or indeed any scale of action figure).

But.....it seems to me that some pretty major fan favourite characters end up falling hugely short of expectations with these PFs. I mean....that T2 BD T-800......I'm sorry but if anyone thinks that is better than the Enterbay ''doll'' you are deluding yourself. Sometimes it really is that simple. I honestly don't feel there is any scope for subjectivity in that particular case. There is only fact. The PF looks awful. The strength of PFs is supposed to be that they choose one pose and they sculpt the whole thing in accordance with that pose to make it look as natural as it possibly can. Now, fine in theory. However the pose they selected is....... what do you even call it. It's not anything. Neither enough to be called 'aggressive' or sufficiently neutral to be called 'museum'. Neither does it look movie accurate particularly.

And that's before you even get to facial likeness and accuracy of the battle-damage - it bares a resemblance to Arnie, I can tell who it's supposed to be, but that's not huge praise. And the battle-damage is all sorts of wrong, seems like they didn't particularly care about making it accurate.

Tailoring - not great. That T-shirt is awful, it looks like a polo neck....sorry, HT managed far better on a 1:6 dolly.

Texture and paint - again, poor.

So truthfully anyone who says the T2 PF is better than Enterbay's BD T-800 or even Hot Toys DX13 is trying to justify the money they spent. I mean, if you just like collecting PFs then fine, sure, buy it. However there is no way in hell it is superior in appearance to either HT or EB, and it is certainly not better in 'presence' to EB.

I believe at least some of the same points could be made if you compared the Reeve Superman PF to the HT MMS152 and the Keaton Batman PF to the HT DX09.

Nothing more needs to be stated really. Well put. None of the comparative PF's have been more impressive than their smaller dolly counter parts. Not one.

- Hot Toys DX 13 BD T-800 > T2 BD T-800 Premium format
- DX 09 Keaton Batman > Batman 1989 Premium Format
- Hot Toys Reeve Superman > Reeve Premium Format
- Hot Toys Robocop > Robocop Premium Format
- Hot Toys Man of Steel Superman > Premium Format MOS Superman
- Hot Toys Police Shootout T-800 > Premium Format T-800


The Indiana Jones PF's are the exception though. Those look better than the 1/6 scale figures.


I love statues, especially detailed ones in really cool dynamic poses. Sideshow has made a lot of great ones from their comic lines to things like Lord of the Rings. But those ones listed above don't hold a candle to the dolly counterparts. Not in detail, paint, likeness or features.

 

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

If you want true museum pieces then go 1:1. PF's are just dollies for 1:1 collectors

Ouch.

 

[SwedishHeat]

- Hot Toys DX 13 BD T-800 > T2 BD T-800 Premium format
- DX 09 Keaton Batman > Batman 1989 Premium Format
- Hot Toys Reeve Superman > Reeve Premium Format
- Hot Toys Robocop > Robocop Premium Format
- Hot Toys Man of Steel Superman > Premium Format MOS Superman
- Hot Toys Police Shootout T-800 > Premium Format T-800

Comparing Hot Toys to Sideshow is going to get you in trouble. It's not even a comparison.

Even on a technical level, you can't paint "polystone" with the same type of layered skin techniques that you can with PVC, so you can't capture that realism. I think SSC had the right idea going with PVC on that MOS PF, but the execution was bad. Had they cast the body in a tan, skintone PVC and done some skin effects on it, I'm sure it would've been awesome. . . but then the PF snobs would whine that it didn't have "heft".

The HT 1/4 scale are miles better than the SSC 1/4 scale. I'm sure HT's 1/4 Boba will be more impressive than the 1/6 Boba, just for the amount of detail you can get in a larger scale.

 

[willocrew]

I remember back in the day when enterbay bruce Lee figures were $200 and that was premium pricing back then and I was buying only $100+ figures. Oh how times have changed...in such a short time.

 

[CatWoman'sPenPal]

$300 is my limit which is what it became with the signing up for the news letter $10 discount on my Hot Toys 1/6 Iron Man Mark III diecast and even that is divided over four months otherwise I wouldn't have done it.

I'm interested in the Hot Toys 1/6 Iron Man Mark 45 but if the price is $330+ then I probably won't order it.

 

[hockeyflow33]

$300 is my limit which is what it became with the signing up for the news letter $10 discount on my Hot Toys 1/6 Iron Man Mark III diecast and even that is divided over four months otherwise I wouldn't have done it.

I'm interested in the Hot Toys 1/6 Iron Man Mark 45 but if the price is $330+ then I probably won't order it.

With the pricing now that may be your last Iron Man at the $300 mark

 

[CatWoman'sPenPal]

With the pricing now that may be your last Iron Man at the $300 mark

Yes probably unless Hot Toys sells less product due to more people not buying and because of that is forced to lower the prices.

 

[Rock83]

I remember when i was introduced to this hobby.90-100$ a figure
For those who collected the Rambo and Rocky figures,you know what im talking about.

In all honesty though.I could agree on slight price increase on high end statues and figures worth it.But when the standard price is 220$ and up these days ive passed on many figures,i have to take custom fees and overseas shipping into consideration too.When Sideshow's Snake Plisskin was priced at 160$ i considered that a bargain compared to what figures cost today.
I do think the Batman Armory was fair though.350$ with Batman.