With every major Marvel blockbuster released, you’re almost certainly guaranteed a high-end Hot Toys collectible of the major characters. Captain America, Thor, Star-Lord — these are franchise heavy hitters, and something you can count on being able to add to your collection. What doesn’t always happen is the release of those characters or variations that only makes it to the screen for a few seconds (unless, of course, you’re Iron Man). Well, Hot Toys has taken one of the brightest spots in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and brought it to plastic form. The immensely adorable Dancing Baby Groot — or Little Groot, as he’s call here.
Packaging
Little Groot is packaged in a small window box. It’s attractive but also pretty basic. Whether you’re an opener or not, a good package can really add to your toy-buying experience. Hot Toys generally does an outstanding job with its packaging, but Little Groot doesn’t exactly get the grand treatment. The box keeps the figure safe, is completely collector friendly, and shows you exactly what you’re getting, but there’s zero “wow” factor. After all, this is a $50 4-inch toy and I expected some wow.
Sculpt
Any and all thoughts about the packaging are immediately forgotten about as soon as you get this figure out of the package. For the size, Hot Toys have crammed in a lot of detail. The tree-branch body has a wonderful overall sculpt with a very fine textured surface, so it doesn’t seem plastic-y at all. The flower pot base is well done and the rock/soil filler is greatly detailed. The best parts, of course, are the head sculpts. Groot comes with three heads with different expressions: laughing, closed-mouth smiling, and neutral. The three different expressions add so much to this simple toy’s playability. Even with high-end collectibles with swappable parts, I typically find my favorite look and the rest go back in the box and into storage. With Groot here, I’m going to find a way to keep all the heads easily accessible. They’re just that good.
I should say that the heads are a very tight fit on the ball. So tight, in fact, that I snapped the peg clean off when trying to switch them out. I contacted Sideshow Collectibles, who were great to deal with, and they sent out a replacement figure within a couple of days. With this new Groot, I didn’t take any chances and used a hair dryer to warm the heads up before attempting to swap them out.
Another thing of note is that this is advertised as a quarter-scale figure. It’s somewhat of an odd choice, seeing as how Hot Toys are typically sixth scale. In my eyes, I think the scales look fine together, but if Hot Toys truly wanted a different scale for Baby Groot, I don’t know why they didn’t just go with a full-scale replica. I certainly would have bought it.
Paint
Hot Toys is known for their hyper-realistic paint jobs, and they’ve done a great job considering the source material. After all, he is just a tree branch in a pot. I would have liked to see more of a wash in the pot to bring out the rock sculpt. It’s just a touch too uniform for my tastes.
Articulation
Groot is made out of a softer plastic with a wire insert that provides the basic body articulation. It’s about the best that can be done considering the size and sculpt, but it is rather limited. As with many Hot Toys figures that incorporate rubber overlays, Groot comes with an instruction sheet noting his limitations. The arms can only be bent up to 45 degrees without risking damage to the figure. The body itself can move up to 30 degrees — which apparently I forgot to do in any of the pictures. My fault! The articulation is limited but it’s enough to get him into the poses you’ll most likely want to use. The real plus in terms of articulation is the ball-jointed head. It provides a fantastic range of motion and will give you the chance to add so much personality to your poses.
Overall
After shipping, Little Groot came to about $55. That’s a lot of money for a 4-inch toy that really operates as a standalone. At first opening, I’ll admit I was a bit underwhelmed (especially when it broke). It wasn’t until after playing around with the replacement that I really started to love this little guy. The sculpt and paint are wonderful and there is just so much personality in those little faces.
Dancing Baby Groot was a highlight in a thoroughly enjoyable movie, and I’m thrilled that I can to add him to my collection.
Thanks for reading!
