Sideshow 1/6 ROTLA Toht image thread

[Cocoboloboy]

I just love how people associate HT with a $150 or even $180 price tag when you can go to AlterEgo and order most of them for $135 and under. Some of the best looking ones from $108 to $125.

 

[aussieinnyc]

Still comparing HT to SS isn't really all that fair. If the price ranges were identical, that'd be one thing, but they're not. Add a custom paint job to your head and you'll be on par with HT price-wise anyway, so that comparison's largely irrelevant.

My comparison, though, was in the degree of improvements made to the quality and realism of the paint within the company, which is more than fair. I was comparing SS to SS and HT to HT. And I still maintain that while the price has doubled, Sideshow's head sculpt realism (largely because of the paint) has improved perhaps 20%. Hot Toys, however, has less than doubled their price and improved their sculpt realism (because of both the paint and other aspects like skin texture) by maybe 50% - 80%. Disregarding how the final product compares to each other across the two companies, HT has delivered much greater improvements for a smaller increase in price.

 

[thenammagazine]

I just love how people associate HT with a $150 or even $180 price tag when you can go to AlterEgo and order most of them for $135 and under. Some of the best looking ones from $108 to $125.

I just love how people think discount pre-order bonuses or clearance prices supersede MSRP.

My comparison, though, was in the degree of improvements made to the quality and realism of the paint within the company, which is more than fair. I was comparing SS to SS and HT to HT. And I still maintain that while the price has doubled, Sideshow's head sculpt realism (largely because of the paint) has improved perhaps 20%. Hot Toys, however, has less than doubled their price and improved their sculpt realism (because of both the paint and other aspects like skin texture) by maybe 50% - 80%. Disregarding how the final product compares to each other across the two companies, HT has delivered much greater improvements for a smaller increase in price.

Granted, but that's still, despite the smaller increase, nearly double the cost.

 

[EVILFACE]

I just love how people think discount pre-order bonuses or clearance prices supersede MSRP.

John Connor is on Sideshows site for $140. I love SS's stuff, but he has a outfit that I don't think SS could reproduce even if they charged $150.

 

[SwedishHeat]

But still, the fact you're ignoring, even with the price hike, Sideshow's products are still considerably less expensive than HT's. With all the HT stuff I have on order, I could easily cancel and fund exclusively Sideshow products for the next two years. Then you have the argument about HT's choice of rubber and their weak wrist pegs. Should those be problems a collector faces at $150-$180 a figure?!

How do you figure that I'm ignoring Sideshow's less expensive figures. I thought I said that after you spend the money improving Sideshow's figure to reach Hot Toys' level, they cost the same. Doesn't that mean Sideshow's figures are cheaper to start out??

I don't know about your argument about rubber and weak wrist pegs. I've got 7 Hot Toys figures and they're all in great shape. I've read once or twice that somebody's had a figure whose wrist peg broke, but compare that to floppy bodies, floppy ankles, which probably EVERYONE experienced with their Indiana Jones figure. My Indiana Jones figure can hardly stand up straight. I've had more problems with Sideshow figures than with Hot Toys, but I own more Sideshow than Hot Toys, so the ratios work out in the end.

Should we really just accept these problems simply because they come from a less expensive figure?? I don't need a Toht with skin texture, or a hyper-realistic paint job, just one that doesn't have caterpillar eyebrows (which is a recurring problem). There are things with Toht that are just WRONG, not things that could be improved with another $50 added to the pricepoint. Sideshow's been at this longer, I expect them to make some revolutions and not follow Hot Toys example. Go America, and all that jazz!!

I bought the set of 5 Grail Knights so many years ago for $150, that's $30 a figure. They're more than decent, but the figures now are still plagued by the same problems that plagued them. Some headsculpts were bang on, Sir Lancelot, others were . . . ahem, NOT, Sir Galahad I'm looking at you. Toht is TRIPLE that price, and it really seems like apart from a new body, not much has changed. Sure we've added a lot to the outfit, but the tailoring is still clunky, and the material is still bulky. THAT is what is frustrating about Sideshow, price vs. quality. Making 1/6 scale spectacles should not be an issue still plaguing them.

What's the point of Trevor Grove sculpting amazing heads if you use a 3-inch brush to paint the eyebrows??

 

[Entropy]

It won't. No worries.

LOL. On the money again, Josh.

 

[aussieinnyc]

John Connor is on Sideshows site for $140. I love SS's stuff, but he has a outfit that I don't think SS could reproduce even if they charged $150.

I think it's pretty telling that SS stated they had no idea how HT could produce and sell the Tumbler for the price they are doing it - that SS would have to charge over $1000.

That said, though, I'm not sure I agree that SS couldn't reproduce a HT outfit for a comparable price, I think that outfits are probably one of the stronger elements of SS's 1:6 offerings these days. For me, I think that their paint work is by far the weakest element, and I honestly don't see much - if any - improvement of it over the last couple of years.

Granted, but that's still, despite the smaller increase, nearly double the cost.

I'm not sure what you mean - that the HT figures cost nearly double Sideshow's? If so, well I dispute that (the Godfather is $150 or so through Sideshow, Toht is $100) but even if that's the case, it still doesn't address my point, which is that Hot Toys have improved far more than Sideshow over the same period of time for the same (or less) percentage increase in price. If your point was to say that HT have almost doubled in price over time, then again I don't agree, but even if they had it makes price increases moot, and we can simply look at improvements compared to their own product, and again HT comes out miles ahead.

I'm not saying that HT don't have problems. My Batman lasted all of 10 minutes before I snapped his wrist peg (partly my fault for carelessness, partly HT for bad design of a major moving part). They seem to have scale issues sometimes with their heads. Their after-market customer service sucks giant hairy monkey balls. Etc. I don't necessarily expect a $100 figure to look as good as a $150 one. What I do expect, though, is to see an improvement in quality as prices go up. And I'm just not seeing it with Sideshow.

 

[thenammagazine]

John Connor is on Sideshows site for $140. I love SS's stuff, but he has a outfit that I don't think SS could reproduce even if they charged $150.

When you look at some of the stuff they did on LOTR, for a lower price, I'd beg to differ.

 

[Cocoboloboy]

I just love how people think discount pre-order bonuses or clearance prices supersede MSRP.

Those aren't discount preorder or clearance prices. Those are AlterEgos everyday, ordinary prices. Check them out. You might save some money on your next HT purchase.

 

[SwedishHeat]

Those aren't discount preorder or clearance prices. Those are AlterEgos everyday, ordinary prices. Check them out. You might save some money on your next HT purchase.

Yeah, but it's still a discount off MSRP. What he's saying is that people are disputing that Hot Toys are $150 and pointing out that Godfather is $135, while maintaining that Toht is $100. Taking Hot Toys' price at its lowest and comparing it to Sideshow's price at its highest.

And actually, I've been mistaken this whole time I thought Sideshow was offering Toht for $89.99. . .haha, that makes this whole thing even worse.

 

[IrishJedi]

John Connor is on Sideshows site for $140. I love SS's stuff, but he has a outfit that I don't think SS could reproduce even if they charged $150.

They couldn't reproduce the paint apps, either.

 

[thenammagazine]

Those aren't discount preorder or clearance prices. Those are AlterEgos everyday, ordinary prices. Check them out. You might save some money on your next HT purchase.

Just checked. Yes, the small discounts are nice but not sure it's necessarily worth losing SS's customer service. Additionally, that's one retailer out of the many that have them listed at the higher prices.

They couldn't reproduce the paint apps, either.

Actually, comparing in hand pieces, my Gandalf and Clone Obi don't look any lesser quality than HT's Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

 

[SwedishHeat]

Actually, comparing in hand pieces, my Gandalf and Clone Obi don't look any lesser quality than HT's Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

And just to really ram that point home, and because everyone expects it. . .

Let's compare apples to apples here as close as we can. Everyone knows Gandalf and Clone Obi are some of Sideshow's best paint jobs and best figures overall in the past few years. When we start comparing Gandalf and Clone Obi to Vito Corleone or Bank Robber Joker, you start to see where your extra $60 goes.

If Toht's paintjob had the quality of Gandalf. . . or even looked just like the prototype, I wouldn't have devoted all this time to these responses. However, again, it's not just the paint job, it's the glasses, the weird stripes on the shirt. I couldn't really care less about the belt, that's a corner I can accept being cut for a lesser expensive figure.

Sideshow is capable of doing better, as they've demonstrated, I just don't understand why they aren't doing it consistently.

 

[thenammagazine]

And just to really ram that point home, and because everyone expects it. . .

Let's compare apples to apples here as close as we can. Everyone knows Gandalf and Clone Obi are some of Sideshow's best paint jobs and best figures overall in the past few years. When we start comparing Gandalf and Clone Obi to Vito Corleone or Bank Robber Joker, you start to see where your extra $60 goes.

If Toht's paintjob had the quality of Gandalf. . . or even looked just like the prototype, I wouldn't have devoted all this time to these responses. However, again, it's not just the paint job, it's the glasses, the weird stripes on the shirt. I couldn't really care less about the belt, that's a corner I can accept being cut for a lesser expensive figure.

Sideshow is capable of doing better, as they've demonstrated, I just don't understand why they aren't doing it consistently.

Shall we have a peek at HT's attempt at Aliens? I notice you didn't post those. Their likenesses are equally bad. How about their John Travolta? Ed Norton or hmmm., Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Duhamel, or Wentworth Millar, etc. Be fair if you're gonna bring up $#!+ from the past. I used relatively recent releases as comparisons, you trolled to find the worst, and old releases at that. Kinda pathetic, yes? The irony is I seriously doubt HT could've done better on the outfits and accessories of the first two.

 

[EVILFACE]

People need to drop that Pamela picture. My figure isn't close to as bad as that pic plus the figure was $40 and is over 5 years old. . .

Faramir, yea, that is a ^^^^ paint job on a expensive figure.

 

[DarthNeil]

Let's please not derail this thread into an incessant game of look-at-this paint comparison-- It's been done-- and it's tired.

 

[SwedishHeat]

Shall we have a peek at HT's attempt at Aliens? I notice you didn't post those. Their likenesses are equally bad. How about their John Travolta? Ed Norton or hmmm., Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Duhamel, or Wentworth Millar, etc. Be fair if you're gonna bring up $#!+ from the past. I used relatively recent releases as comparisons, you trolled to find the worst, and old releases at that. Kinda pathetic, yes? The irony is I seriously doubt HT could've done better on the outfits and accessories of the first two.

I'm not familiar with Travolta, Gyllenhaal or Duhamel sculpts. But as far as the Aliens go, weren't those sculpts generic because they didn't have the likeness rights, much like their first Terminator figures??

I knows there's an Army soldier who has Ed Norton/Bruce Banner's head, it looked accurate to me. Certainly they couldn't sculpt it to look exactly like him because they had no rights. Besides, I'm not sure you want to bring up those Hot Toys Military when debating price vs. quality cuz those things are LOADED down with gear for around $100.

And Wentworth Millar/Michael Scofield, again, the Prison Break figures were when I first noticed Hot Toys could nail head sculpts.

Finally, I was talking about paint jobs here, not likenesses, if you are curious why I didn't post certain pictures. I know Sideshow is capable of great sculpting. I could've posted a more recent picture of ANH Han, but I thought Bespin Han captured more of what I was talking about in one figure rather than two, wrong hair color and caterpillar eyebrows, much like Belloq and ANH Han, respectively. There was a reason behind the pictures, I didn't just choose random bad figures. From sloppy beards, inaccurate hair colors, to eyes and eyebrows, these are things that Sideshow gets wrong repeatedly.

And for the record, I thought Pamela was funny, I didn't realize it was a no-no zone.

 

[thenammagazine]

I'm not familiar with Travolta, Gyllenhaal or Duhamel sculpts. But as far as the Aliens go, weren't those sculpts generic because they didn't have the likeness rights, much like their first Terminator figures??

I knows there's an Army soldier who has Ed Norton/Bruce Banner's head, it looked accurate to me. Certainly they couldn't sculpt it to look exactly like him because they had no rights. Besides, I'm not sure you want to bring up those Hot Toys Military when debating price vs. quality cuz those things are LOADED down with gear for around $100.

And Wentworth Millar/Michael Scofield, again, the Prison Break figures were when I first noticed Hot Toys could nail head sculpts.

Finally, I was talking about paint jobs here, not likenesses, if you are curious why I didn't post certain pictures. I know Sideshow is capable of great sculpting. I could've posted a more recent picture of ANH Han, but I thought Bespin Han captured more of what I was talking about in one figure rather than two, wrong hair color and caterpillar eyebrows, much like Belloq and ANH Han, respectively. There was a reason behind the pictures, I didn't just choose random bad figures. From sloppy beards, inaccurate hair colors, to eyes and eyebrows, these are things that Sideshow gets wrong repeatedly.

And for the record, I thought Pamela was funny, I didn't realize it was a no-no zone.

Clearly reading comprehension isn't one of your stronger suits. Look at the post above yours.

 

[SwedishHeat]

Clearly reading comprehension isn't one of your stronger suits. Look at the post above yours.

You asked questions, I answered them.

Enough with the personal insults already.

 

[Entropy]

I haven't seen anyone bust out the Pamela in awhile.