Posted by: @misfit

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Posted by: @sepster

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Cell-shading, cross-htahcing or whatever other "artistic" aesthetics, whether comics or animation inspired, sucks. I'm fine with it in an instance like this, where the figure has already been released "clean" and it fits into a specific subseries or exclusive.

But, in no way, shape, or form should cell-shading be a default look for an action figure line.

 

NECA's comic book inspired line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles disagrees with your conclusion. Any line can make paint effects like that a key component, the company producing them just has to actually do it well.

 

NECA's Turtle line is depicting a very specific style from a very distinct and specific comic book. I get it.

However, to say, "comic books have shading, therefor comic figures should have shading".... yeah, no.

Posted by: @misfit

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It's totally fine to look at a product, or hear the pitch for one, and conclude "That's not for me," but I guess I don't get your "not getting" the want for a screen accurate character when the toyline is based on a TV show. 

there are probably lots of people who grew up on the cartoon and want a toyline based on the cartoon to actually resemble the source material. Everyone has their own degrees of compromise when it comes to a figure's likeness, but when there's clearly not much effort being put forth to make the figure accurate to the source material it's not on the consumer to accept whatever a manufacturer is throwing at them. Some inaccuracy that doesn't bother one collector might be the final straw for another. Settling for a workable option is just that - settling. 

I guess what I'm saying is that to my eye the retro carded versions of characters are screen accurate enough to pass.

But I understand the point you're making there -  so I suppose my question is are there ENOUGH people hung up on the pinpoint accuracy of the toon likeness in the figure that catering them will result in enough sales to make the production worth it?     

The answer may be yes,  but it may not be.    The fact that the VHS sets are a Hasbro site exclusive would suggest to me that the audience may be narrow enough that retailers don't want to jump on board.   If that is the case then it makes a lot of sense that such figures wouldn't get a ton of dedicated new resources for new sculpting.   

There is some new sculpting though - Smythe for example - and I would attribute that to the fact that since they aren't selling to a retailer at a discounted wholesale price they can afford to invest a bit more in the product itself.

And, as I said, for a character like Kingpin - who garners high prices on the secondary market for both the BAF and retro -  it might be worth putting him out again in that format.   

But for something like Scorpion... the retro figure looks spot on to the cartoon to me:

vs

If the retro version doesn't work for you it's hard to imagine how different an "animated" version of the figure would look

@panthercult I think you're just getting into the more subjective end then. That Scorpion may look perfectly acceptable to you because you're not that invested in getting characters from the show as figures. Where as I look at the figure and the show and I note that Scorpion was much larger in the show than the figure depicts him and the end of his tail should be dark green. Small differences to some, though to me his bulk was a defining feature of the character so I'd never bother with that particular release for my animated shelf. I'm actually not that invested in this line. I liked the show well enough, but I don't have the same affection for it I do X-Men so a better example for me personally is the new Sabretooth in the two-pack with Logan. He's bigger than past Hasbro Sabretooths, but he still isn't animated series big for me to use as a stand-in.

What works against a line like this one is that there are action figure lines in a similar price range that do prioritize authenticity. NECA will make a C-list character from TMNT out of all new tools that will likely never be utilized again because it's a priority for them and their line. That just isn't Hasbro's business model and their customer base seems more open to compromising on these things so I definitely don't expect them to change. Personally, I'd probably be interested in this line if it were a 30-35 dollar per figure line if it was more committed to the source material even after saying I wasn't huge into the show. And obviously the same is true of X-Men animated. I don't think they're ever going to go that far though and I'm fine with it. I'll go without like I have been for 30+ years at this point.

Posted by: @panthercult

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Here's the thing....   the Retro Card Kingpin was an animated Kingpin -  the color scheme and the neckerchief were animated series conceits and aren't comic based.   

No. It was his comic look

This is Animated KingPin:

I mean... I guess.    Although the figure doesn't match the comic picture either since the pants on the toy aren't pinstriped

so, let me ask you this.  For an animated Kingpin would you accept the exact same figure with the ascot painted purple, the vest painted black and the pants painted grey?    Or is that still a no and you also need the double breasted coat buttoned shut?

Because if it's the former then maybe you've got a shot of getting it.   As I said before, both iterations of Kingpin previously released are crazy expensive to buy now.     But if it's the latter and your expecting an entirely new torso sculpt it seems unlikely.    Not impossible, but unlikely.

I honestly like that these are figures I can throw into my preexisting Legends displays without them feeling out of place, but I get why others might not feel the same. I more just don't like it it when they don't even put in the effort to make them make at least still FEEL like their animated counterparts translated to the standard Legends style, like with that pitiful retro carded Hobgoblin and the VHS Carnage. New headsculpts would have done wonders for both (and a new cape for that Hobgoblin).

In general, the paint has been a problem, both in terms of consistency and application in some cases. Both this Daredevil and that Carnage suffer from a serious lack of black paint, leaving too many barren red spots that make their respective paint jobs feel very half baked. Really, the whole line feels half baked. I get why characters like Daredevil, Venom, and Symbiote Spidey would have cel shading/highlighting, it's downright integral to their designs. But then, why does regular animated Spidey need cel shading? Why does he have it when many other don't? Why is the flagship character exclusive to a store, while most others are exclusive to Pulse? Why are some on retro cards, but others in VHS boxes?

That this Daredevil feels more like a comic shaded DD rather than an animated shaded DD kinda says it all. This line is an afterthought. It wouldn't surprise me if they just wanted to do a comic Daredevil with the heavy black shading, but thought it'd be out of place in the main line. So they just slapped an animated label on him, packed him with an easy reuse Hydro-Man with minimal paint, and then called it a day.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for a tritone goggled Scorpion and a blue and yellow Electro from Spider-Friends.

Posted by: @panthercult

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so, let me ask you this.  For an animated Kingpin would you accept the exact same figure with the ascot painted purple, the vest painted black and the pants painted grey?    Or is that still a no and you also need the double breasted coat buttoned shut?

 

Because if it's the former then maybe you've got a shot of getting it.   As I said before, both iterations of Kingpin previously released are crazy expensive to buy now.     But if it's the latter and your expecting an entirely new torso sculpt it seems unlikely.    Not impossible, but unlikely.

You're asking would a "close-but-not-quite" easy repaint be a good enough substitute for an actual animated Kingpin ( and you can substitute Kingpin for any character of your choosing in this conversation).  It depends on what kind of collector you are.  I personally think Hasbro banks on most of its audience being satisfied with the bare minimum and thus, that's what we get.

You are correct.  Expecting the later entirely new sculpt does seem unlikely because youcanonlyuseitoncelicencingshareholders but that's Hasbro's problem to deal with.  The fans don't have to deal with it if they don't want to.  They don't have to settle for inaccuracy if they don't want to.  They don't have to buy it if they don't want to.  But Hasbro operates knowing that most people will.  They would rather have half-assed than a hole in their collection, so the result is mediocre releases.  

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I would be interested in seeing Hasbro try a premium limited line of figures - something like the Spider-Man animated figures, with proper dedicated sculpts and paints to get the figures as accurate as possible. They'd be priced accordingly, in the $35-50 range for regular figures. I wonder how the line would perform? Because Hasbro's model relies on reuse in large part because they know their buyers are price sensitive and accustomed to normal figures costing a certain amount. I suspect people would flip their lid if they tried such a thing, even if the figures were bang-on to the source material.

Posted by: @darkxorn

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I forget where but you have this emoji after another one of my posts too, but I don't know what it is.

Posted by: @panthercult

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So, let me ask you this.  For an animated Kingpin would you accept the exact same figure with the ascot painted purple, the vest painted black and the pants painted grey? Or is that still a no and you also need the double breasted coat buttoned shut?

Kinda...New buttoned coat (that's very easy to make), "animated" paint and maybe new head sculpt and it's all good. I'm fine with repaints when it make sense. Sometimes the bare minimum is fine, sometimes it's not. Scorpion in the other episodes was smaller, the same size as Doc Ock. So I'm okay with him. You can just repaint Shocker and it will be also fine. Kraven - will do, I gave him fist hands and he looks better now. A new head sculpt would be great though. Actually, this could be fixed by releasing animated Chameleon with a bunch of heads...

But, just like Animated Doc Ock, there are characters with unique designs (Vulture, Chameleon, Mysterio). And you have to give them all new sculpts.

Posted by: @panthercult

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 Because if it's the former then maybe you've got a shot of getting it.

Posted by: @vondoom

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I more just don't like it it when they don't even put in the effort to make them make at least still FEEL like their animated counterparts translated to the standard Legends style, like with that pitiful retro carded Hobgoblin and the VHS Carnage. New headsculpts would have done wonders for both (and a new cape for that Hobgoblin).

Posted by: @panthercult

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I mean... I guess.    Although the figure doesn't match the comic picture either since the pants on the toy aren't pinstriped

 

so, let me ask you this.  For an animated Kingpin would you accept the exact same figure with the ascot painted purple, the vest painted black and the pants painted grey?    Or is that still a no and you also need the double breasted coat buttoned shut?

 

Because if it's the former then maybe you've got a shot of getting it.   As I said before, both iterations of Kingpin previously released are crazy expensive to buy now.     But if it's the latter and your expecting an entirely new torso sculpt it seems unlikely.    Not impossible, but unlikely.

I think your assumption is bang-on. I don't know if the Legends team ever outright said it before, but it's clear that at least some of them view the Retro Card series and the VHS series as essentially the same thing:

https://twitter.com/DanYunIsTrying/status/1755218824427634942

For that reason, if a character was released on the Spider-Man 94 cardback I would be very surprised if it gets a re-release in the VHS line. Kingpin would probably be a long shot too since I would guess that the next Kingpin release will be an MCU one given his role in Echo and likely return in the new Daredevil show. I'm also guessing their philosophy on the retro card vs VHS line is the same when it comes to X-Men VHS and the X-Men 97 waves. That might be why they moved off of X-Men so fast for Spider-Man when to most it seemed like the change-over was coming a year too early.

@panthercult well if they do an animated J Jonah Jameson, it would probably be on a new body. Jameson on the TV show was fairly tall and in decent shape. plus he was wearing a blue 3-piece suit. You would need a figure that's almost the same design as the more recent hammerhead or tombstone, just proportionately smaller

Posted by: @stoopid_sandwich

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@panthercult well if they do an animated J Jonah Jameson, it would probably be on a new body. Jameson on the TV show was fairly tall and in decent shape. plus he was wearing a blue 3-piece suit. You would need a figure that's almost the same design as the more recent hammerhead or tombstone, just proportionately smaller

Nah...it will be a Hammerhead figure with a new head sculpt. That's it...I'm actually fine with it.