Thread 11595237

Do you truly value a figure's articulation above sculpt? Have you taken...The Toybiz Pill?

Or do you feel consideration must be balanced between sculpt and articulation, and if a figure is sculpted "weird" you won't buy it despite better articulation?

Are there even 3-4 stanch true articulation stans here who prefer articulation, at the cost of the figure's look? And what are you favorite examples of figures that can do anything?

>>11595237 (OP)
>Do you truly value a figure's articulation above sculpt?
NO. A figure needs articulation, but figures that are too visually chopped-up are awful. I think articulation needs to be more tastefully-done where toy-makers can get away with it while keeping the overall figure as visually clean as possible. Adding more articulation "just because" is stupid to me.

Just look at Zarana. Her shoulder pads conceal her shoulder joints. Her long gloves blend in her elbow joints. Her boot tops conceal her knee joints. Her top hides the torso joint. The only stand-out joints they couldn't conceal or blend in are the hip joints. She's probably the visually-cleanest figure in the entire Classified line when you look at the toy-sculpt details. Yet she still has as much articulation as any other in the line. This is what it looks like when they make the effort.

I'm retroactively more fond of old 5poa Toy Biz figures than early Spider-Man Classics/Marvel Legends figures, mainly because of the ball joints. They just visually seperate the sculpt too much and haven't held up well to time. As big as I collected them I don't look back on them and feel compulsion to buy any now, as I much prefer the newer Hasbro figures and many of them stand out too much against them. The series does have some outliers though, for instance I never felt the need to replace this Classics Kraven with any of the offerings that Hasbro put out. The only thing it doesn't have that it could have used is an ab joint, but everything else holds up and he looks just as good beside Hasbro Legends as he did with Toy Biz.

>>11595262
Too bad about that headsculpt though.

>>11595281
I'm still hoping for a retro-card version with a different face.

>>11595273
>I'm retroactively more fond of old 5poa Toy Biz figures
I've always been shocked those never had a renaissance of collectors. You can still buy totes full at bargain prices. Probably because Marvel never went away like Star Wars did, but there's so much out there they'll never be particularly "rare".

The old Toy Biz 5poa stuff is very colorful, and some of them fit in aesthetically with the old Super Powers. A lot of sculpts are pure ass though. But a majority are charming.

>>11595237 (OP)
I've always been sculpt>articulation. A little articulation can go a long way and too many poorly implemented cuts can make a figure look robotic imo. It's why I went with DCD/DCC over Mattel, and Marvel Select over Legends(at least before their sculpts noticeably improved in recent years) back in the day. I tend not to go too crazy with poses anyway, even with my imports, since I'm not a fan of stands and they're kind of a must for keeping them in more dynamic poses long-term. It's also part of why I've been collecting more statues lately.

>>11595300
Very few 90s toys seem to retain value the way 70s-80s toys have, the speculative market was too big, anything from an established IP is usually pretty easy to get, only the ones that adults didn’t collect much like exo-squad for example seem to have blown up.

>>11595372
>why I've been collecting more statues lately.
It seems like the less articulation it has, the more it costs.

>>11595376
I think 90s toys were just made in larger quantities, besides some, like Mighty Max can still fetch a pretty penny for some sets.

>>11595237 (OP)
The Toybiz pills have expired. Those old ball rotary thighs have aged so poorly. Anyway, VAH Mewtwo is an example. It's shorter than the D-arts but all its parts contribute to a toy that poses and stands better

>>11595544
The more I see the ball hips used in motion, the less I hate them, and I didn't collect during Toybiz era. They look bad in an A pose, but are more hidden in dynamic posing. They don't work for females though but Toybiz couldn't make even 1 decent female figure anyway

>>11595490
80s toys were made in massive quantities too. It's just that a lot of people put away stuff they thought would be long-term collectible but ended up not being. A lot of people put away X-Men, Playmates Star Trek, and all sorts of other shit while thinking it would be worth somthing big one day. Not to forget to mention POTF2 Star Wars. That gives us a "generous surplus" of 90s toys today, to put it nicely.

>>11596021
Yeah more collectors who started mint on carding things during the 90s is likely true, especially by the late 90s.

>>11595291
Add in scarletts butt and ill buy her again.

Spider-Criminal

>>11595237 (OP)
it's all about balance

i can enjoy vintage toys with basic 5poa just fine if they hit hard on the charm area
but modern figures? i hardly bite outside sofubi stuff

>>11595237 (OP)
>>11595273
As yet another one of the anons caught up in toybiz nostalgia I want to highlight the modern Jakks Sonic figures and the old Jazwares Fortnite collection. Both of these lines came the closest to recapturing the appeal of 2000's toybiz releases practically to the letter. As far as I'm concerned articulation shouldnt be the ultimate goal of a toy, articulated figures should be a seperate product geared towards slightly older kids and collectors mostly. 5 poa should stick around for the younger kids.

>>11595398
Funny how they stuck a curtain frame on her back and it became an iconic character.
Personally, I was happy with her in the 5-6inch figure set that came out in the late 90s by Bandai.

>>11596785
Even that one's a bit expensive these days, and there's maybe five on the market at any given time. But I do have the Bandai one as well. It's the nicest figure from their "classic FF" era in terms of toy sculpt

>>11596898
You can get the 4-figure box with Edea for $150 MISB, which isn't bad for a 4-figure set that's over a quarter-century old now with Edea having only been produced twice (once in this form and once in the form of a $1000 Solar Studios statue).

>>11596903
Buying quarter century old plastic is a dangerous game

I can appreciate when articulation is used efficiently for certain characters, michael myers doesn't need double jointed knees, but for the most part, dynamic action oriented properties sold at 25$+, there's no substitute for being able to get natural flowing poses. I don't care how amazing a wolverine's sculpt is, if he doesn't have butterflies and he can't do a flowing slashing pose he's pretty much worthless to me compared to one that can.
I have some appreciation for more classic figurine style limited articulation figures but that's an all or nothing thing, I don't want a marvel legend with downgraded articulation to make the sculpt a little better.

>>11597659
If the figure doesn't need double jointed knees or elbows there's no reason to buy it since most of its poses are just going to be basically an A pose.