Iron Studios owners - are you happy/unhappy w. price/quality?

[Sassafras]

Read a lot of threads about different figs, but still can't get a real handle on IS quality/value. I'm a newbie collector - and far as I can tell, I can kick myself for missing the 1/10 IS line re price/value/sculpts (e.g. WS, BW, Cap etc.).

So 1/4 scale...first I want WS/Falcon, then not, then maybe...

Read some posts and folks love their IS. Others not so much. So:

1) Should I be bothered IF I purchase IS and a head/portrait is not poly?! like this guy says in this review for Cap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q****JxueMA

and I got freaked out (no pun intended) over what looks like the use of eye decals:



from this vid - that's not paint, you can see the pattern. Or - why not, decals make for consistency and help prevent googly eye paint jobs. Can you even tell re decals unless it's zoomed in w. a good camera this close? Why not make the head poly tho, or is this not accurate and the Cap head or other fig heads ARE poly? Should I worry about the varnish over a decal yellowing w. time?

2) How do these IS statues feel in hand? Don't mean the occasional plastic piece - but overall, do you feel like you purchased a quality piece re the weight or care taken, even if you feel like you overpaid some (or underpaid, even).

Thanks for any thoughtful opinions. It's a budget thing - e.g. huge Black Friday sales coming up. But for IS pieces IMO I need to save now for potential releases $$$ sale frenzies or not. I just can't get a good handle on IS, overall. So far I kind of feel, from what I've seen, that they are pretty good, but overpricing their stuff 10-30% depending based on posted complaints re different issues. Which is fine IMO if you know what you are getting, and you know ahead of time *shrug* but not so fine if all you have is PO pictures and then you get it in hand and it's cheesy/lightweight.

 

[ambasah]

their first iron man was too small and had bad paint.

their magneto is perfect.

their second iron man is perfect...assuming you didn't get one from the second batch that was prone to breaking in shipping.

their spiderman was plagued with issues and even if you get a good one, the seams detract from it. My first one had lots of issues but the second was was very good (again except for the seams).

their cap is excellent except for some issues with the shield.

In the end, they are worth the risk assuming you are able to exchange / return it without hassle.

 

[Iko Iko]

I only have one Iron Studios item - the Iron Man Age of Ultron 1/4 statue - and I think the quality is there.

 

[Collectorcol]

Oooooo...

My local retailer won't touch IS anymore.

And SS use eye decals, nothing new there.

 

[PeepsChicken]

They aren't worth it. At all, IMO.

I've owned:

1) Four 1:10 scale Marvel statues. One (Rhino) arrived with horrible, peeling paint on his face. The other three were fine, but at ~$150 a pop (with shipping), they were a bad deal next to the much cheaper Kotobukiya 1/10 statues that were of the same general quality.

2) I had a Magneto/Sentinel Ex that arrived broken (the crest on his helmet snapped). They wouldn't replace it, but they offered to repair it if I shipped it back to Brazil ($$$). I returned that one and later got another regular version that was nice, but not worth the money I paid. The paint on Magneto in particular was really flat.

3) I bought the IS Spidey, and we all know how that one turned out. Honestly, I'm thankful mine had so many defects. That meant I could return it for free. Otherwise, I would have been really dissatisfied with the amount of plastic pieces. It felt like a GI Joe playset.

Regarding eye decals, my Sideshow Doom LSF used them as well, I noticed. I have no issue with them.

 

[PeepsChicken]

Oh, and the edition size fiasco really turned me off with them.

 

[Chapter 2099]

Wow. Surprised by the reception in this thread.

I don't own an IS pieces, so it's hard for me to comment further, but the eye decal thing wouldn't bother me in the slightest, if applied correctly.

 

[dan350zr]

I have Iron Studios 1:4 Age of Ultron Iron Man & Captain America, both are flawless, the only issue I Had was with Cap that his head came lose during shipping, it's suppose to be glued into the body, luckily the portrait itself had no scratches or chips on it so I just glued it back in and it looks perfect.. Other then that QC on those two statues are awesome.....

I also own around 40+ of the 1:10 statues and I've only had one problem and that was two of Groot's fingers broke during shipping...

I have Iron Studios Superman vs Doomsday statue on pre-order so I'm not sure about that one yet....

 

[Phoenixblazes]

I've got the 1/4 Cap and Iron Man pieces and they're among my two favourite statues in my collection.

I've also got their Spider-Man statue which even with the issues I'm more or less happy with it. The seams which look to be intentional are annoying but the use of plastic didn't bother me nearly as much as many other collectors as I was expecting alot of the base to be non polystone because of the design.

I've also got the 1/6 Cap and Iron Man diorama pieces. The Iron Man is great, but the Cap face could be alot better. But I'm still thinking of getting the rest of the 1/6 Age of Ultron diorama line if my local store ever has them on sale.

 

[danny_addick]

Iron Studios - loved captain a,Erica 1/4 scale but sold it eventually. When the spiderman turned up, i decided never to buy from them again. Worst statue I could possibly imagine.

 

[TheWhatWhatNow]

I got Nothing Bad to say about Iron Studios at all.
I own the following:
1/6 Spider-Man Vs Venom. As nice as any Bowen Version. No flaws.
1/4 Spider-Man. Very Cool Piece! No Flaws that I noticed.
1/6 Magneto Vs Sentinel. Best 1/6 Magneto ever made! No flaws.
1/10 Thanos on Throne. Lot of detail for a small piece. No flaws.

 

[Thundercleese]

I have the 1/4 AoU Cap and Iron Man and they are stellar. No issues at all. I also have the 1/10 Black Panther. No issues and its really solid too. I canceled my IS Spidey because of the issues they were having and I didn't want to wait until next year when I had paid most of my payments. I have no worries about buying more pieces from them.

 

[Sassafras]

Thank you to everyone for comments!

Seems like a real mix re IS - so re getting Bucky/Falcon sounds like I should just talk to stores ahead of time, to make sure I can return as needed - I mean any dealer is probably gonna know about the recent Spidey problems. And I'd like to think IS learned something from all that (BTW hope those waiting on replacements etc. finally get rewarded, in the end.) ~ 1400$ is a LOT of money but IMO prices keep climbing and love the CW versions of these characters.

Good to know eye decals are more or less in use by companies too and no big deal. I'd rather NOT have googly eyes or even those "pinpoint staring psycho/scared eyes" I see sometimes.

 

[Chapter 2099]

I have Iron Studios 1:4 Age of Ultron Iron Man & Captain America, both are flawless, the only issue I Had was with Cap that his head came lose during shipping, it's suppose to be glued into the body, luckily the portrait itself had no scratches or chips on it so I just glued it back in and it looks perfect.. Other then that QC on those two statues are awesome.....

I also own around 40+ of the 1:10 statues and I've only had one problem and that was two of Groot's fingers broke during shipping...

I have Iron Studios Superman vs Doomsday statue on pre-order so I'm not sure about that one yet....

I was just asking you about the 1:10 scale pieces in the other thread.....This looks awesome!!

 

[DVDVampire]

I love my 1/4 scale Cap and Mark 43 from Age of Ultron, but I didn't care for their ES re-adjustments on both of those pieces

Didn't care for the Mark 42. IMO it was horrible, but they did learn from their mistakes.

Not sure what happened with Spidey (I didn't order one).

 

[Sassafras]

Didn't care for the Mark 42. IMO it was horrible, but they did learn from their mistakes.

Not sure what happened with Spidey (I didn't order one).

Seems like Spidey would have been one of the most amazing figs ever - except "issues". Good to know IS is learning! - am sure that Sideshow wasn't too happy and in turn IS wasn't too happy re complaints/issues plus all that cost IS $$$ and folks like me who are way more cautious re ordering, than they might have been.

 

[berkolo88]

Well ı only have the 1/10 scale marvel pieces. And they are all great. But ı heard some of the 1/4 scales had paint issues. For me, the line of 1/10 scale is perfect. Im happy with it. :

 

[Chapter 2099]

Seems like Spidey would have been one of the most amazing figs ever - except "issues". Good to know IS is learning! - am sure that Sideshow wasn't too happy and in turn IS wasn't too happy re complaints/issues plus all that cost IS $$$ and folks like me who are way more cautious re ordering, than they might have been.

I was hyped by with the Iron Studios Spidey piece, but after hearing/reading in-hand reviews, things really took a turn. I think the concept was excellent - it was just the QC that hurt it in the end.

 

[Sassafras]

I was hyped by with the Iron Studios Spidey piece, but after hearing/reading in-hand reviews, things really took a turn. I think the concept was excellent - it was just the QC that hurt it in the end.

Yeah, and IMO Iron Studios is paying for that e.g. folks like me wary of buying (when, if I were going to go after an XM piece, I wouldn't worry at all, just from reputation). Not like word doesn't get around the collecting community. IMO Iron Studios can't afford another release like that - so, in a way, it may be a good time to do a PO with them. Maybe.

Sux for the folks who really wanted that Spidey, tho.

 

[Chapter 2099]

Yeah, and IMO Iron Studios is paying for that e.g. folks like me wary of buying (when, if I were going to go after an XM piece, I wouldn't worry at all, just from reputation). Not like word doesn't get around the collecting community. IMO Iron Studios can't afford another release like that - so, in a way, it may be a good time to do a PO with them. Maybe.

Sux for the folks who really wanted that Spidey, tho.

I think they'll learn though from this. This was a pretty big 'hiccup' but I'm confident they'll bounce back.