MAFEX Robocop 1/12 scale

[Rogerbee]

I just got a card from Royal Mail telling me there's a customs charge for Murphy It's £19.80!!! One of the highest charges I've ever had. I'm dreading what's going to happen here in the UK after Brexit with importing stuff......we'll probably end up paying for stuff from Europe as well. Well I suppose I better go pay my figure's bail money.

I got hit with the self same charge for mine! Hurts, but, it's an occupational hazard when you buy from Japan. I love the figure, certainly the best RoboCop I've owned. I do have a 1/6 one, it's an old vinyl kit I've had since the 90's, it was originally made by Huia and then reissued by Wave. The kit itself is really nice, but the paint job is showing its age now.

I've always wanted a fully articulated one and did get the old McFarlane one when it came out. The Mafex blows that into the weeds! I hated the NECA one. The only slight quibble I had with my Mafex was the bottom back edges of the chest plates, they don't line up with the ones on the back plate very well. You can carefully bend the chest plates and the fit can be slightly improved, but, lining up all the pegs gets in the way a little. This varies from figure to figure, I've seen ones in video reviews that look better than mine and ones that are like mine. Thankfully though, the rest of him is so good that it does distract you from the flaws.

Argonauts did a nice 1/12 ED-209 kit that would scale nicely with him, but, it is rare and pricey. Such a shame the NECA is too big. Anyway, here's some pics of my figure:

I highly recommend him. He's all the RoboCop I need right now so I doubt I'll go for the 2 version.

 

[retrohead]

So I've had a bit of time to check him out and I'm really happy with him. The colour on the lips of the attached face sculpt look better out of the box. Mine has a very small defect though. When I removed him from the box I noticed there is a tiny fleck of skin coloured paint on the black part of his chin. I could probably fix it with a tiny carefully placed touch of black paint. Overall i'm really happy with it though. Sorry to hear you also got a customs charge Bee that really sucks. I'm not too bothered about the charge though....like you say it's just the price we have to pay for getting good quality japanese imports. I'm just glad it didn't have any more major flaws.

 

[Rogerbee]

A Sharpie would probably suffice if the fleck is really tiny. I'm certainly glad mine was in good shape as it'll be the only one I'll get. I only ever wanted the one anyway and it was always going to be from the first movie. I don't think we're likely to get a better one in 1/12. I wouldn't put it past NECA to do an ultimate one that could have the accurate look and a Murphy head, but, are we likely to want it as much!? Heck, maybe, we'll just have to see.....

 

[Otomofan]

Nah, that ship has sailed for Neca. It was never a priority for them to give us a Murphy head.

I have my fingers crossed that Mafex could finally be the ones that do it. Prices are already high and that proves there's a market for decent Robo figures at this size. Hell, I'd spend over a hundred for a battle damaged Murphy from Mafex.

Now ED? Well...their ED would only be slightly smaller than NECAs and probably cost about $300. I think I'm good with my neca, slight oversize and all.

Cain is the real question mark.....what are we willing to pay for the first and only REAL toy of RoboCop 2 Cain??

 

[Rogerbee]

It's always seemed odd to me that NECA have done a really nice ED-209 and not a RoboCop to match it. You're probably right about the Mafex, it would be the right size, but, it would be very expensive. There are Thai KO's of that Argonauts kit I mentioned, but, the scale and quality would be questionable to say the least.

There is a Cain on a 3D printing site that could be printed out to 1/12 that can be fully articulated. A friend on FB is currently printing it in 1/6 and it is really nicely detailed. It is very expensive though and might be more than one by Mafex would be. I'm not sure they'd do another full RoboCop, though they could maybe do a cop Murphy with the Murphy/Robo head as an extra, that I could see them doing. A Lewis and Clarence wouldn't go amiss either.

 

[retrohead]

The mafex Robo looks really good in photos. I've been sending some to my non-figure collecting friends who like the movie and even they are impressed by it. It'd be quite cool if I could find a toy police car that scales with Robo in a similar style to the movie ones and maybe get a custom decal to make it look like Robo's detroit police patrol car. Or maybe just get a generic street diorama and get custom printed billboards from the movie like the Delta City one. I just feel like I need to make some sort of display or backdrop for him to compliment how great he is.

 

[Rogerbee]

The chest plates on yours look to fit slightly better than mine do. The cars in 1/12 wouldn't be that hard, they wouldn't necessarily have to be diecast. Just as long as they looked accurate and the figures could interact with them they'd work. I remember seeing some 1/12 DTM cars once, they were all plastic, quite nicely detailed and I'm sure they were under £50. I think cost would be a factor. The police car would be ok, but, a 6000 SUX would still be a pretty big vehicle.

 

[retrohead]

When I put the damaged plate on for that photo I don't think it was actually tabbed in properly. After I took the photo and swapped the undamaged plate back I noticed it didn't look like it was all the way in.

Yeah that's exactly it. I wouldn't really want to spend too much on something like that just for a background display. I just feel he needs something else to go with him in my display cabinet since I have no other Robocop related figures or merch other than the movie and a making of book. He's currently sharing a shelf with some AT suits from the anime series Armoured Trooper Votoms and he doesn't look too bad alongside them but I feel he should have some other stuff that fits with him more from the movie. I considered the NECA ED-209. I actually had it on pre-order when it first came out but the company I ordered from kept on jerking me around as to whether they were getting it in stock or not and I cancelled and never got round to picking it up.

 

[Rogerbee]

I haven't really seen any decent pics of the two of them together to decide once and for all if I really want an ED-209, if the size difference is too obvious I don't want to bother. Side by side with my old McFarlane RoboCop the Mafex looks to be less than an inch shorter. If there wasn't much in it then I'd be tempted if there was one at a bargain price.

 

[Otomofan]

I think it's always been really hard to determine the exact scale of Robo and ED due to a lot of factors. Obviously their action sequences were filmed with the stop motion puppets that didn't necessarily scale or even match up in details to the large models, at least not 100%.

Then on the shots were we see Weller and the full size prop, there's always a considerable distance between them so it's hard to determine.

I'm sure Robofanatics have gone through the film frame by frame to get the best idea.

I have a few pics here which are interesting. I took these from the Japanese "mook" (magazine/book) of the movie called "RoboCop Technical Photo-File" that was published in 1987.

The back cover shows a trashed Robo standing in front of Ed with his left arm blown off. But notice, Robo is standing quite far in front of him, so he appears a lot taller due to the perspective.



Found a clearer photo here:



Inside the book we get lots of behind the scenes shots of the crew with ED, particularly director Verhoeven. It would appear the average height man's head come up to just about the top of the grill on ED's face. Where a taller guy's head is even above it. Also notice that in some of these shots ED was on wooden pallets, presumably to roll him around, so that might have affected his height.






Finally, there's a pic of Phil Tippett working on the stop motion puppets. Here is the only pic that really gives a sense that the MAFEX and NECA could work in true scale together, but that's a stretch cause they're puppets!



So unfortunately, RoboCop's head really should come up to the top of the grill, but when you stand MAFEX right in front of him, it's only about to the middle of the grill.

It's only off by a VERY small percent. I know there are collectors that are an -al enough to let that ruin their day, but I just love both of these toys so much, I'm willing to live with that small inconsistency. Besides, isn't it more exciting when the bad guy is bigger and badder and can easily overpower the hero? I still get goosebumps in the office scene where Jones activates ED and he comes barreling out at Robo...that's genuinely scary!!

 

[Rogerbee]

The interesting thing there is that all the pics show ED-209 in a powered down stance. Mind you, that was probably all the full size prop could do. I've seen a video of Phil Tippett looking at the Chronicle version and I'd say that was about 1/8, it's a lot smaller than the HT one. Pose the NECA in a powered up attack stance and maybe the height wouldn't be that noticeable as it would always be a lot taller than any RoboCop.

Oooooh, I'm getting tempted now...

Don't suppose you could take a pic of ED in the attack stance with Robo!?

 

[alucard1138]

This figure is the Robocop I've wanted since my Kenner Robo with caps you could insert into the back. This makes me very excited for John Wick, Mafex seems to have gotten around their QC issues, this figure just makes me happy on a weird level. Need a 209, I'd buy that for a dollar...

https://imgur.com/LShWqOz
https://imgur.com/cwXm8KB
https://imgur.com/IxKZ5Yt
https://imgur.com/kdL0U9o
https://imgur.com/7HSDhiS
https://imgur.com/y0L1lgS

 

[Rogerbee]

Nice pics!

In Imgur, if you want to put the image itself into the post, there's a an arrow icon next to the copy button. Click this and there's a drop down menu, click 'Get share links' and click the copy button under BBCode (Forums). Paste the link in your post and the image will be there when click to post the reply.

 

[alucard1138]

Nice pics!

In Imgur, if you want to put the image itself into the post, there's a an arrow icon next to the copy button. Click this and there's a drop down menu, click 'Get share links' and click the copy button under BBCode (Forums). Paste the link in your post and the image will be there when click to post the reply.

Serious? I've been trying to figure this out for months. Thanks so much for the tip, gonna try it now and post a pic here. This has been driving me nuts, I've tried "image link" and "direct link" and just couldn't get it to work.

 

[P.]

Serious? I've been trying to figure this out for months.

well, it's designed for hоmo sapiens, you failed.

 

[alucard1138]

well, it's designed for hоmo sapiens, you failed.

Precisely why I'm ok with Skynet calling the shots. Us bags of meat are not the future... machines are.

 

[Rogerbee]

You got there anyway, I was used to doing it in Photobucket so I looked for a way to do it in Imgur.

 

[alucard1138]

You got there anyway, I was used to doing it in Photobucket so I looked for a way to do it in Imgur.

I've had varying luck posting from my phone or using different providers and kinda just gave up on being able to figure out how to imbed the pics. This is why I love this community, thanks again Rogerbee!

 

[Joda]

Otomofan - I spend too much time on Facebook, apparently - I keep wanting to 'Like' your posts. I love it when people really get down and dirty with the details. Especially with pics.



In all seriousness, you guys are making me want this now to compliment my Mezco One12: Collective Dredd...

 

[alucard1138]

Otomofan - I spend too much time on Facebook, apparently - I keep wanting to 'Like' your posts. I love it when people really get down and dirty with the details. Especially with pics.



In all seriousness, you guys are making me want this now to compliment my Mezco One12: Collective Dredd...

I have mine with Dredd on display (disco dredd in the background). Would probably pair even better with my ThreeA Dredd!