Re: Hot Toys The Dark Knight Rises - Catwoman/Selina Kyle
I'm confused at to why some people would prefer sculpted hair. I thought everyone wanted these figures to be as realistic as possible. What would be realistic about plastic hair? If it looks bad on the male figures it would look terrible on this figure.
There are a number of reasons why people here tend to be shy of rooted hair. For one thing, it requires a little bit more management of the figure as sculpted hair obviously is completely static. Immediately, I find this reasoning silly though because elaborate outfits always require a lot more effort to manage so this shouldn't be such a fearful thing anyway. People have to put boots in boiling water to get them to fit properly, rearrange belts and buckles, etc... I'm sure we can all manage to run some water on our hands and smooth out some fake hair.
Another complaint I hear a lot is the whole "doll" concept, which I find really primitive in thinking. So you can have Tony Stark in a black jumpsuit and that's a high end figure. Put the Tony Stark with rooted hair in a black jumpsuit and that's a high end figure. Now put Catwoman with rooted hair in a black jumpsuit and what is it? A doll. Really?
I am the kind of person that believes some characters benefit from rooted and some benefit from sculpted. The general formula seems to be that short simple hair is best left sculpted, but elaborate or long hair will likely benefit from being rooted. At the absolute highest potential rooted hair will likely look the best, but I only see that level of quality with customs. Check out Kai's Musashi if you want to see what I mean.
Also I find rooted hair really beneficial for the sheer flexibility. If you have a character in mid air you could position the rooted hair to reflect that, allowing for more realistic dynamics. Also, as evident with this thread people have already started to realize how useful the rooted hair will be here. We can use the hair to cover up the ugly neck for one thing. Plus, with some work the hair will really bring the Bat-Pod poses to life.
Only downside to rooted hair as far as I can tell is that it is almost guaranteed to have QC issues out of the box. There seems to be a complete lack of consistency with what people might get. Sometimes the hair is longer, sometimes it is parted differently, sometimes it naturally flows in the front, sometimes the back etc... These all seem like simple fixes though. Everyone gets worried you need hair gel and all this stuff, but it sounds to me like warm water is all you actually need, and maybe a small comb.