JND Studios: The Dark Knight - Bale Batman 1:3

The in universe suit is made of a fictional material, comparing it to carbon fiber doesn’t add up. We could just as easily say the prop makers meant to make the screen used cowl look like JND’s too but they goofed and JND was able to make it how it was meant to look. Or we could say the belt was supposed to be cast in solid gold so Queen’s belt is accurate to what it should have looked like.

Respectfully, this feels like an appeal to authority, “if the statue company charging the most did it then it must be correct or for a good reason.”

I’ve never said a stock QS001 or anything else is better than this. I’ve said details on this are wrong to a point that’s inexcusable at this price point. It seems like there’s a decent market for high dollar stylized recreations of characters. I’m not a part of that market and Im not going to challenge anyone who is.

If you want the best recreation of this character right out of the box this or the QS are the way to go. Neither is perfect and they have pretty equal inaccuracies IMO. For me the inaccuracies outweigh their strengths and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to say that.

I'm not a statue collector, in fact I don't own any at all, but if I had to choose one of the QS, P1 or JND efforts, it'd certainly be the latter. Detailing is better across the board and the cowled head sculpt is by far the best.

That said, the Bruce Wayne head really doesn't look like Bale as BW whatsoever imo. It's extremely realistic in the sense that it does look like a small person and that's undoubtedly outstanding for a production piece, but what's the point in that if the likeness isn't there?

So yeah, JND for me but I'd probably never use the BW head.

cocomonk22 said:

Queen Studios left JND Studios right

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This is a good comparison, JND looks larger which may be accurate, the chest is still too shiny. I don't care what carbon looks like in real life, I care about what it looks like in this character on screen or in reference pics

One thing I like about JND is that the head is bigger which looks more like a real person is in there

generalszabo said:

One thing I like about JND is that the head is bigger which looks more like a real person is in there

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This was my biggest gripe with the QS when I owned it. It didn't look like a real person's head was under the mask. His mouth was very big, which was odd as it wasn't in proportion with the rest of the headsculpt.

Whilst the JND certainly has inaccuracies (none that are major to me anyway), the one thing they certainly got right over the others is the body proportions.

Best review of the single version yet. The detail is insane.

xpl0sive said:

Best review of the single version yet. The detail is insane.

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It's oficial, there's nothing better than this

I couldn’t put my finger on what’s throwing off the Bale likeness to my eye so started playing around and came up with this.

xpl0sive said:

This was my biggest gripe with the QS when I owned it. It didn't look like a real person's head was under the mask. His mouth was very big, which was odd as it wasn't in proportion with the rest of the headsculpt.

Whilst the JND certainly has inaccuracies (none that are major to me anyway), the one thing they certainly got right over the others is the body proportions.

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Agreed. As batman he looks good. I won't comment on the headsculpt

generalszabo said:

Agreed. As batman he looks good. I won't comment on the headsculpt

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Which headsculpt?

OT_Customs_ said:

I couldn’t put my finger on what’s throwing off the Bale likeness to my eye so started playing around and came up with this.View attachment 610745

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A little too square. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. They definitely made his face a little too angular.

I think they did the best job on his facial features (although nose is a bit narrow) and paint, but QS got the face shape right.

xpl0sive said:

Which headsculpt?

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JND's maskless, bruce one

generalszabo said:

JND's maskless, bruce one

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Oh right. Yeah not everyone likes it I think. Personally I think the the best Bruce Wayne sculpt out of the 3 1/3 statues. In fact, I prefer it over Hot Toys' efforts too.

I’d say a lot of people are underwhelmed by this Bruce sculpt or outright criticizing it. I keep seeing people saying it looks like Jim Carey or Sam Rockwell.

It’s not as detailed or lifelike but I’ve never heard such criticism of the HT 1/4 Bruce sculpt. I’d be curious to see how it looks with modern paint applications on the rerelease. I don’t think any of the statues have captured the intensity of the character like this.

JND far and away has the best Bruce sculpt, although there's room for improvement, I think he looks a little too gaunt.

GaryPool said:

JND far and away has the best Bruce sculpt, although there's room for improvement, I think he looks a little too gaunt.

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Sure if you ignore all the proportions being wrong. At the end of the day, if you can't post a pic of it without people lambasting it for looking like someone else thats a bad sign, highly detailed or not.

Edit: just noticed your picture is flipped left to right, not exactly a like comparison. Here are some better ones that aren't flipped. The position of the nose on the face and the pointy chin stand out the most to me along with the mouth seeming to be too small. The hairline is pretty significantly different too with the temple point pointing forward a lot more. The Hot Toys 1:4 has a lot less detail and realism obviously and maybe that lets my brain fill things in in a way that it reads better to me, but either way and whether it's technically more accurate or not, it reads Bale as Bruce 100% to me and the JND doesnt.

It is flipped, just did a quick search to find a similar angle and expression so it's not a spot on comparison, but regardless you can see proportions are fairly close. From pictures like I said he still looks too gaunt. He's not far off, but not exactly close. Going to wait for further judgment until he's in hand.

I don't think Kojun is the best sculptor around, he's really good, but I don't think he captures the subtleties enough, he likes really prominent features. The best portrait from JND is their WW84, near enough spot on Gal Gadot.

Where are you seeing people lambast it? I've seen nothing but praise on their pages.

GaryPool said:

It is flipped, just did a quick search to find a similar angle and expression so it's not a spot on comparison, but regardless you can see proportions are fairly close. From pictures like I said he still looks too gaunt. He's not far off, but not exactly close. Going to wait for further judgment until he's in hand.

I don't think Kojun is the best sculptor around, he's really good, but I don't think he captures the subtleties enough, he likes really prominent features. The best portrait from JND is their WW84, near enough spot on Gal Gadot.

Where are you seeing people lambast it? I've seen nothing but praise on their pages.

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I made some instagram posts around when it was announced just sharing it and I posted my edit I made this week and in both instances different people have said he looks like either Jim Carrey or Sam Rockwell, the second one standing out more to me because I honestly had to google Sam Rockwell both times to figure out who he was. I think I’ve seen it elsewhere on others posts and on Reddit as well as earlier in this thread.


Kojun sculpted the Bruce likeness for the QS001 too right? Even though this new cowl isn’t perfect it’s an improvement over the HT 1/4 for sure. The Bruce sculpt on the other hand I feel takes a big step forward on realism but backwards on overall likeness. The QS001 has the better nose to chin area easily IMO and idk why but it’s like that whole area looks squished together on the JND.

I think slightly bigger eyes and slightly less pronounced cheek bones and the 1/4 sculpt would be perfect proportion wise. I really hope hot toys doesn’t eff up the mold for this and we can see the same sculpt with modern paint apps. Judging by their kind of disappointing DX19 Bruce I’m keeping my expectations low.

I like them both, though I do prefer the JND Bruce sculpt the most but not by much. I think the JND has a more concerned look like he's watching some of the Joker footage on the TV or one of his monitors while the HT looks more determined

OT_Customs_ said:

I’d say a lot of people are underwhelmed by this Bruce sculpt or outright criticizing it. I keep seeing people saying it looks like Jim Carey or Sam Rockwell.

It’s not as detailed or lifelike but I’ve never heard such criticism of the HT 1/4 Bruce sculpt. I’d be curious to see how it looks with modern paint applications on the rerelease. I don’t think any of the statues have captured the intensity of the character like this.View attachment 610892View attachment 610893

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Who's underwhelmed by it? Hot Toys collectors and people who didn't even order the statue, or have no intention of buying it? Sure it's not perfect, but I'm yet to see a single person who ordered this statue who is underwhelmed by that portrait. It's getting nothing but praise in the statue Facebook groups I'm in. Anyone who was happy enough with the prototype would be happy with this, as it's actually better than the prototype. Anyone who thinks this looks like Jim Carey needs glasses.

xpl0sive said:

Who's underwhelmed by it? Hot Toys collectors and people who didn't even order the statue, or have no intention of buying it? Sure it's not perfect, but I'm yet to see a single person who ordered this statue who is underwhelmed by that portrait. It's getting nothing but praise in the statue Facebook groups I'm in. Anyone who was happy enough with the prototype would be happy with this, as it's actually better than the prototype. Anyone who thinks this looks like Jim Carey needs glasses.

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Imagine people not ordering something because they were underwhelmed by it.