How many folks here upgrade their figures with wired capes, custom heads, 3rd party accessories? if so, what have you recently picked up?
I purchase the occasional cape or custom head but it can get very expensive fast. I recently purchased a wired cape for Doctor Strange and a custom head for the Friendly Neighborhood Spidey figure. Looking at toy photography on Instagram can be a curse!
I don't have it yet, but yesterday I learned of a third-party accessory set for Doctor Strange. Probably going to have to pick this up because it looks pretty great. If anyone already has this please do share your thoughts.
Here's a review of the set:
I'm at the point where I'm buying third party cloth capes for every figure I actually really care about. Just this past week, I got a cloth cape for movie Mysterio from GPSLot on eBay.
I don't do third party heads quite as often. For Legends, I've only got two: those being '90s animated inspired heads for Retro Green Goblin and Hobgoblin from RDJCustoms on Etsy. Both look great, but they definitely take the playability down a notch. Still highly recommend both, of course, especially for that Hobgoblin. A head based directly on the cartoon does SO MUCH for him.
I have wired cloth capes for:
Magneto, Moon Knight, Scarlet Witch, Dr. Strange and Thor.
I have a soft goods coat for Jubilee. I'm looking for a good Gambit coat that's a lighter shade of brown like the vintage carded version. (feel free to point me in the direction of one if you know)
I have alternate "Dave Cockrum" heads for Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Colossus. Alternate "John Byrne" head for Wolverine. Alternate "Jim Lee" heads for Beast and Magneto all from casting cave. Alternate animated Beast head and smoking cigar Logan head from Anthony Customs.
All of the above are things I'm very happy to have, I think they improve my displays a lot. Buying for me is winding down. I'm focusing less on giving Hasbro more money for a figure that looks slightly different than the one they sold us last year and focusing more on giving a small time creator money to upgrade what I already have. It's a bit more rewarding and I look at it as buying someone's work of art (And when I explained it to my wife in those terms after she balked at the idea of a $45 6" scale figure head, she backed down a little).
The only things I really buy are metal claws for Wolverine. I do like the newer, thicker claws Hasbro makes, but no matter what I'm going to be gluing the claws in so I generally go metal so they don't bend when I have to put them away for storage.
I'll buy cloth capes for figures that need it. I have 1 for Emma Frost, but I bought some for some star wars figures too. I also buy alot of 3rd part weapons since Hasbro sometimes skimps on those. Usually from Gunrunners but Casting Cave usually has nice stuff, they just don't make as much or keep it in stock as often.
I don't have it yet, but yesterday I learned of a third-party accessory set for Doctor Strange. Probably going to have to pick this up because it looks pretty great. If anyone already has this please do share your thoughts.
Here's a review of the set:
That looks like a cool set, but I was hoping for more recognizable 3rd Party accessories for Marvel Legends. Artifacts like the Evil Eye, the Serpent Crown, that sort of thing. Stuff we don’t seem to be getting from Hasbro but that we’d like.
Mostly capes and cloaks. Some purchased, some I made myself. A couple of heads like comic Agatha Harkness and animated Grand Inquisitor. I just pulled the trigger on an upgrade kit to make Fifth Brother look more like his animated appearance. It's a path to financial strain, that's for sure.
I don't have it yet, but yesterday I learned of a third-party accessory set for Doctor Strange. Probably going to have to pick this up because it looks pretty great. If anyone already has this please do share your thoughts.
Here's a review of the set:
That looks like a cool set, but I was hoping for more recognizable 3rd Party accessories for Marvel Legends. Artifacts like the Evil Eye, the Serpent Crown, that sort of thing. Stuff we don’t seem to be getting from Hasbro but that we’d like.
I finally did buy this set, and months later Takara Tony started making variant colors. I went ahead and ordered two of them--one regular, one blue. Every accessory in the set is taken from the Multiverse of Madness film, so that's why he didn't include some of the other Strange artifacts from the comics you mentioned.
Still need to play with them a LOT more and take photos, but my initial impression is that I'm VERY pleased. So far I've only used it with the Mafex Strange, so I need to use it more with the Legends version as well since Tony includes an Legends-style peg adapter for the hand accessories to work with that line. The most impressive thing about the set is that he doesn't just use one type of plastic--some of the accessories use a very stiff plastic, some use softer, more pliable plastic. Can of Beams uses pretty much the same stiff plastic for everything, and most third-party accessories are just 3D-printed so they're made of that low-quality, brittle plastic resin stuff that I really don't like at all but I do settle for if I have no other choice on really cool accessories. Somehow Tony knows how to work with multiple types of plastic, and the set really shines above every other third-party accessory maker I've seen because of it.
Two quick notes--Tony told me he couldn't ship batteries for the light-up spellbooks because he thought it was illegal at either his point of exit in Hong Kong or perhaps my point of entry into the United States, but he did anyway--maybe he decided it wasn't a big deal or maybe he just forgot, dunno. Also the accessories are solid and impressively engineered from what I can tell so far, but a few of the ones that attach to hands are a bit heavy for Mafex joints. My Strange's elbows and wrists droop a lot with some of them attached such as the dragon-head spells. There are angles you can achieve though that allow them to work, but so far I'm fairly limited in how I can pose the heavier items. That's one of many things I need a lot more time to play with to get a fully-baked opinion about them.
D Amazing also did a review of Takara Tony's Doctor Strange set, and as usual (I've always assumed he just doesn't review figures he doesn't like which is why his reviews are always positive) he also really liked the set as I do.
I have alternate "Dave Cockrum" heads for Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Colossus. Alternate "John Byrne" head for Wolverine. Alternate "Jim Lee" heads for Beast and Magneto all from casting cave. Alternate animated Beast head and smoking cigar Logan head from Anthony Customs.
I've been waiting for Anthony to do more of those animated Beast heads ever since the retro card version came out. He's said a few times over the years he'll be doing more, but so far no good.
I have a Casting Cave Morph head for the VHS figure. It looks much more on-model to the show and I first saw it featured in one of Robo's Play Day videos and had to have it. I wish I trusted my own painting skills though because the skin tone came out darker than the images on the website, but it's still an improvement over the head the figure came with. If he ever does an evil Morph I may have to get that too. Also wouldn't mind a new beam effect for Iron Man's proton canon, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd even have the room to display it if I found one. The effect part Hasbro included looks too ridiculous to display.
@enigmaticclarity I've been eyeing those effects for months but haven't pulled the trigger. It's a fantastic looking set, just not sure it's where I want to invest my money into upgrades. Glad you're enjoying it!
I'd been eyeing this seller's wares for a few weeks, and was close to buying this right before SDCC. You'd think the reveal would be a signal to just wait, but for some reason it pushed me to buy it...
Really love the details and paint work on this thing! There are a few differences between this and the official release that I can see (the "Time Platform" has a cool design on the official version; this one seems to have more detailing on parts of the body, and I'm guessing the paint won't be beat). I'll still pick up the official release when it comes for the extra bits and bobs, but I definitely don't need two thrones for Kang.
This same seller also has a pretty incredible Fantasticar he's been developing for a month or so now that finally went up for sale yesterday. More expensive than I hoped, but I get it (I think he posted it was 80+ hours of print time, plus assembly, paint, etc etc).
I do wonder if ML will get around to making this in the next year or so as the FF hype train ramps up, though it seems just as likely that whatever shows up on film gets made instead.
I'd been eyeing this seller's wares for a few weeks, and was close to buying this right before SDCC. You'd think the reveal would be a signal to just wait, but for some reason it pushed me to buy it...
Really love the details and paint work on this thing! There are a few differences between this and the official release that I can see (the "Time Platform" has a cool design on the official version; this one seems to have more detailing on parts of the body, and I'm guessing the paint won't be beat). I'll still pick up the official release when it comes for the extra bits and bobs, but I definitely don't need two thrones for Kang.
You know this, but for the thread--Kang's throne is $75 from that Etsy seller, and the Fantasticar is $375.
Given infinite resources and assurances of quality I'd buy almost everything that Etsy seller is selling, but I REALLY hate 3D-printed plastic. The way it stacks up plastic with the passes the print arms do usually leads to really rough textures, and the plastic I've seen from every 3D-printed item to date is usually really stiff, brittle, and breaks easily. That's all consistent with the fact that commercial 3D printers mostly advertise themselves as being for item prototypes as opposed to final products. But certainly not all of them make the fact that 3D printing is most ideal for prototyping plainly obvious, and in my experience when I talk to other collectors almost none of them seem to realize how rough 3D prints are and just assume that given a detailed-enough digital model we could all be printing our own action figures which is just not at all true unless you're willing to settle for figures that are of a worse plastic quality than either Toy Biz or Hasbro have ever given us.
Having said all of that we don't have a ton of options for accessories that Hasbro doesn't create for us with the superior injection-molded plastic they use, so I've bought quite a few 3D prints and will continue to do so when it's an item you just can't get anywhere else, and certainly that Fantasticar is tempting for that exact reason. But as you noted we're about to get an injection-molded Kang's chair pretty soon. With this new one in hand any idea which one you think you'll end up liking more? How is the plastic, and how was the paint job, are you satisfied with the purchase? Do the extra details on the 3D print model make it worth it over the upcoming Hasbro version?
Etsy sellers can be VERY hit and miss. For example I bought a 3D-printed Capcom Iron Man proton cannon about a year before Hasbro released their own version, and the seller painted it HORRIBLY. I've had it in a box for a few years, and the paint is STILL sticky to the touch and leaves goop on your fingers today. 😉 Dunno why that paint is eternally sticky, but I'm guessing only some types of paint work with 3D-printed plastic.
Latest Post: Playmates Classic Original Sketch Turtles Our newest member: Moviarthe Recent Posts Unread Posts
