(Maybe Silly) Do You Have a "Deal-breaker" for Choosing Figures?

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brian said:
Soldiers of the last 2 World wars were in the most part smokers.Just because to some people it,s not acceptable now is strange to me.Youre leaving out a piece of authentic fact of history
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Think back the nineteen sixties , you can relate to that Brian 90 percent of the population smoked , even my great granny Gallagher smoked a clay pipe . I would think in the 19th century all soldiers smoked , one of the little pleasures they had .
 
I can completely relate. I find any depiction of tobacco a let-down. I know it's historically accurate for WW1 or 2 soldiers but the piece simply loses all appeal to me (I'm not that interested in military to begin with). The 'bikini armour' and other hyper-sexualised subjects don't work for me either. I'm not a prude, it's not for moral reasons, I just don't fancy it. On the other hand, I remember quite a negative reaction here on an ancient piece where a victim literally was shafted but I'd have no problem with that. On the whole though, I wouldn't categorize. Look at each figure with open mind and if it attracts you, go for it.
 
winfield said:
Mine would have to be sculptors with no appreciation for the subjects they depict. No soldier "at rest" wears his tin hat, no matter when in history he lives. Weapons have weight; no one can grip a firearm with a thumb and finger. Weapons with firelocks cannot be presented with wiggly blobs in place of said item. That sort of thing. Boobs and blades just don't interest me as subjects.
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I disagree a lot of soldiers have slept in their helmets, myself included, it depends how tired you are. A couple of examples pulled at random,
Steve

sleeping-idf-soldiers.jpg


Weary+American+Marines+of+7th+Regiment+catch+some+sleep+in+an+Amtrak+following+intense+fighting+in+the+area+around+Cape+Batangan+during+the+Vietnam+War..jpg
 
For me, it's a level of detail and accuracy commensurate with the price. As the price a figure maker expects me to pay goes up, so does my expectation that he has done his homework regarding the details of the figure. You've all heard me comment when someone brings out Prussian officer from the Seven Years War, and has slapped a mustache on him, generally because the maker thought it looked good. When I see that someone has missed a minor detail, it makes me look all the closer to see what else he has missed, before I hand over my hard-earned money for the piece.

I have a similar view when it comes to buying scale model kits, though in that area, I'm not nearly as bad as the average HyperScaler when it comes to counting rivets. I still buy and build a lot of older kits, like Monogram 1/48th scale aircraft for example, because I like them and they look like their subjects. But I can appreciate that the rivet Nazis choose not to buy them, too. Suum quique.

Prost!
Brad
 
The problem with taking a hot, sweaty, horrible helmet off is....at some point you've got to put it back on again - and that's even worse. Even worse still is hot sweaty body armour, in case anybody wondered. You end up just keeping it on.

I agree with many. A turn off has always been weightless kit and weapons.
Poorly produced figures will always remain that. You cannot paint them into a good one.
 
I also agree with many. The bottom line is that sculpt has to be believable. There are some subjects I won’t touch though. Among them are SS poster boys, women in boob plate and not much else, overly violent images, and gratuitous blood and gore. If anyone wants to work on those sort of subjects then I’m not going to complain, you do what you want. Myself, I just don’t have any interest in those subjects....
 
How could I forget to add bikini and boobplate armour. Just perfect for redirecting those blows towards the centre of the chest.

Tastefully done, artistic, and classical style nudity and pin ups I don't have an issue with. But there is a massive imbalance within the subject between male and female.
 
Moonraker said:
I also agree with many. The bottom line is that sculpt has to be believable. There are some subjects I won’t touch though. Among them are SS poster boys, women in boob plate and not much else, overly violent images, and gratuitous blood and gore. If anyone wants to work on those sort of subjects then I’m not going to complain, you do what you want. Myself, I just don’t have any interest in those subjects....
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Too much gore which seems to be the norm for knights in armour just a tad here and there and you get the picture and looks better.
If its for someones collection I would probably keep it clean and add a bit of wear and tear and rely on the pose to set the scene , looks much better in the display cabinet .
 
Blind Pew said:
The problem with taking a hot, sweaty, horrible helmet off is....at some point you've got to put it back on again - and that's even worse. Even worse still is hot sweaty body armour, in case anybody wondered. You end up just keeping it on.

I agree with many. A turn off has always been weightless kit and weapons.
Poorly produced figures will always remain that. You cannot paint them into a good one.
Click to expand...

Never had to wear a combat hard hat but spent my working life in the building trade mainly doing site work and being brought up
in the trade in the seventies it took a long time for me and my contemporaries to adopt to wearing hard hats and only really fell into line
when they made it compulsory and even then it was taken off at every opportunity especially in our stifling hot Scottish summers :rolleyes:

Re the weightless kits and poor weapon sculpts that seem to be the new norm... I don't like , something I learned a long time ago when I built the odd AFV was to put a big lump of lead inside aka sea fishing bomb; to give the kit some substance.
 
I don’t buy many but when a female figure has a head on it that looks like Rambo. If it’s a female figure I don’t want a mans head on it.
 
Yeah, the issue of a pinup-y style of figure is present with one of my favorite subjects, Maschinen Krieger. There are some very good female figures produced for use with the various kits, women depicted in realistic proportions and clothing, like you'd expect for female soldiers in a combat environment. But there are a lot of figures produced in bikinis or with some nudity. While the figures are sculpted well, and cast well, they just don't fit the subject, for me, and so, I won't buy them. I don't have a problem with the female figure or nudity in general; I've got some anime figure kits, for example, that feature those qualities. But if it makes no sense in the context, then I don't buy the figure.

Now, in my favored size of 54mm and subject of Frederick the Great's army, here is a well-endowed Marketenderin and a Prussian dragoon from Rylit, with a bit of wry humor. Because of the apple, I call them Adam and Eva:



This figure is pushing it, but still within the bounds which I'll purchase.

Prost!
Brad
 

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