Disclaimer: All media and materials listed here do not belong to me. It is for educational purposes for the sake of discussion.
Dave Cortes's sculpting work
It is what it is. Hot toys are literally the hottest posable 12" toys on the market. There's no doubt that on the front of actual likeness, these toys by them beats everyone else down to the details. For new figurines or toy collectors, there are reasons why hot toy products are sought after. But before we go there, let's figure out what makes some toys sought after...
1. Exclusivity: Collectors hold high value on rarity of item(as you've already figured out). This is straight forward. A toy that is released in limited quantities are rare items. A common toy autographed by say, Stan "the man" Lee is a rare item. A toy that has a manufacturing defect is a rare item. A toy that has it's production discontinued is a rare item.
The story of the Kenner boba fett: this toy was produced originally with the rocket launcher. One day they received complaint that the rocket is a hazard, which Kenner then discontinued production of the rocket on it's boba toy. Nowadays, Star Wars fans highly regard the discontinued version of the boba. Even more so if it has been kept pristine in an acrylic casing. Up the value further if the card on the product is unpunched and mint!(picture taken off eBay)
2. Likeness: This is a factor that most would pay the price for. It makes sense right? And not just the face, nowadays, competition is stiff, so it can even boil down to if the figure is wearing a fabric in likeness or not. One should also keep in mind the context of how much the collector is going to pay for a toy. If a collector wants to spend on a Kylo Ren in the range of 20-50 USD, then a Disney die cast elite version is better than a black series, although both are 6+".
Caption: look at the top two figures, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the second figure costs more, yes?(both images are taken off eBay)
3. Scale: this is not necessarily true though, most of the time, this is the case. The two most common types are 6" and 12" or known as 1/6 scale...and then there's funko...but that's another story. Haha. Aaaaanywaaays...bigger is better...usually.
4. A trending character: I have to use a Twitter term here. Okay okay, most collectors get obscure items(refer to point one). This usually applies to what casual buyers would usually get. Still, a hardcore collector does want to get his hands of the latest movie villain toy when it comes around. That's where casual buyers can sometimes turn into scalpers, selling their toys at a marked up price. Urghhh
5. Special edition: This pointer could be under rare, but sometimes, a special edition, doesn't mean it's rare. For example, if one is into Greg capullo's art, one would highly value his "batman" figure. If one is into Dave Cortes' sculpting work then you'd get his work.
I digress. We're here to talk about hot toys right?
Enter hot toys...
Based on it' page here,from Hong Kong, Hot toys started it's journey in the year 2000, at first producing 12" military figures. It then went on to "[expand] its product scope to specialize in 1/6th scale collectible figures from popular movies, video games, comics as well as world renowned celebrities.". Boy, are we all glad they expanded!
In terms of likeness, there are very few who can match it. I personally prefer 6" toys because it's not as hard to photograph as 3.75" toys and the biggest benefit is that 6" toys are usually very articulated. Not forgetting they take up a smaller space. But dayyymmm...hot toys are so tempting. Take a look at the pictures below taken off their site:
Visit http://www.hottoys.com.hk/product.php to check out more of their marvellous stuff.
I don't believe I need more to convince you of the high value of these figures. They are highly sought after, but they're not rare per se. Maybe Loki ver 01 is. Haha....but you already know that don't you?
Hot toys patented their one of a kind, "Parallel Eyeball Rolling System" or PERS for short which allows for the eyeballs of the figures to roll around the eye sockets, allowing for more playability of it's figures. Video shown below:
Amazing isn't it? But wait there's more! They also have the "Interchangeable Faces Technique" for its DX series. For those of you who don't know, the company's deluxe series is an abbreviation for DX. They also have the "Movie Masterpiece Series", short for MMS. Any ways, the IFT is just basically this(refer to picture below)
Yep. Quite easy to figure out huh.
So....
In almost all its figures(all actually), one gets a few pairs of alternate hands, mostly in the following stances: relaxed, clenched, or character specific.
As you can see in the reference picture above, the Hot Toys' Captain America has a couple of different hand poses. The last picture taken of the Hot Toys: Friend has a "character specific" hand pose.
Who else liked "20th century boy"?:)
Besides the hands, you have other toy paraphernalia like weapons and alternate faces.(picture reference below)
Okay, let's talk about articulation.
I love this topic. Hot toys doesn't disappoint. Like seriously, besides the interchangeable parts, you have articulation on the common areas, neck, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hip, knees(no ankles though).
There are restrictions on the neck articulation on the old hot toys' necks as opposed to the new ones as shown in this video below.
Caption: give a huge thanks to the youtuber who posted this.
I do hope you understand more about what the interchangeable heads actually allows you to do...it allows for unprecedented mashing of movie characters, that's what! Don't like Robert Downey Jr. as ironman, change him into an Arnold Schwarzenegger ironman instead of some other robot known as T-800! Plus a whole lot of other posibilities when you do a kitbash(mixing other characters' clothes and paraphernalia).
Conclusion(for lack of a better word)
Therefore, I don't want to blatantly promote, but it is plain for people to see why, like my article title suggests: Hot Toys is literally the hottest toys...have a great day everybody. And if you think I may have left out an important bit of Hot Toys that's great, do comment below:)
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