Big Chief Studios James Bond Series

[Rambler]

Read the past few posts. The answer is no. And the longer Greggo and BC remain silent only makes it worse. Some sort of clarification or update would be nice.

 

[Underworld54]

Maybe the replacement heads arrived with less than satisfactory paint work. They still should address it though. They have no issue communicating about raising their prices or about their latest preorders.

 

[Rambler]

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if that was the case, I’d understand. just tell us. Communication is key. It solves a ton of problems.


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[Wor-Gar]

I can't imagine that after Greggo came here himself to emphasize that all issues will be taken care of that BCS would leave us hanging. Give them a little time. Perhaps there was an issue with the replacement heads. Perhaps just the logistics of organizing this when they weren't planning for it takes a little time.

 

[Rambler]

That’s fine. But when you say that the heads are due in on the 8th in an email and it’s now the 16th, a quick update goes a long way.


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[jimminy]

Is Sideshow’s stock shipping with the rubbed noses?

Got mine today, and yes, absolutely. Had some loose plastic over the head but it didn't help at all. That nose is SHINY.

 

[ymba]

I am beginning to wonder if the paint app might
Just be too soft for the headsculpts if even the new
Wrapped heads are getting paint rubs.

What a nightmare

 

[Raymond F.]

I think the issue is actually the plastic of the heads are too soft that the paint will not adhere to it

 

[jimminy]

Well. So. Got my Bond today, from Sideshow. It actually arrived two days ago, but it was a birthday present, so I opened it today, on my birthday. Yay!

I am a big fan of Big Chief. I have been a vocal supporter of their Doctor Who line. But I have very mixed feelings about this figure.

I will say right off the bat that I LOVE the head sculpt, and the paintwork that they were going for works for me. The paintwork they were going for is not always what customers get, though. I had to flag a few issues with Sideshow immediately. I haven't futzed so this will just be an 'issues' post.

First, to the nose rub. This figure came with a small plastic baggie around its head. That didn't help one bit.

And, yes, the black mark on the face. The nose was already rubbed off so I thought, 'Screw it' and I scratched lightly at the black mark with a fingernail and the black mark came right off, no harm done. But the hair ... is this rub? Is this a stylistic choice? There is a lot of pink showing through the hair. My Capaldi Doctor had this, but about 300% stronger.

I love goofy accessories. LOVE them. Captain Picard's early grey tea? SOLD. So I was excited about the Mint Julep. My glass is either missing paint on the rim or has a mark where it was cut off a modelling tree. I guess maybe I can try and pass it off as missing condensation? I sent a pic to Sideshow anyway, seeing as I was contacting them anyway.

The suit ... you can't quite see it but the black lining is showing a fair way up his lapel here, and the fabric is so stiff it can't be adjusted. On an otherwise great figure this might be a niggle.

If he was in his black tux, things like this would not be a problem, and in fact many suit niggles could be glossed over by the eye on a solid black tux. Just sayin'. Maybe it would have been better to start with the easy suit and move on to the complicated one. Like BCS themselves have said, suits are tough, because we 'know' instinctively what they are supposed to look like. We see them all the time.

And, finally, because this figure just seemed committed to bumming me out, I tried to futz and pose by using Big Chief's own photos as a guide. So I tried to put the hand in the trouser pocket. The paint rubbed completely off the knuckles after one gentle try.

So, very mixed feelings. On the one (paint rubbed) hand, I can see the potential for greatness. That sculpt! The intended paintwork. On the other, some aspects here feel like they would suit a ThreeZero figure ... and those are 200-odd AUD rather than 350. I'm not really bothered when a $200 figure has a few realism issues.

I showed someone else and they thought it looked great, so I do wonder if the nose rub (the first thing I saw when unboxing) has turned me into a Debbie Downer. Sometimes I do get a figure, feel a bit underwhelmed, and come back a day or two later and say 'Wow this is really great!' As a birthday present this had a bit more to live up to

But there are issues. All I wanted was a beautifully smug Connery so I could take some fun photos and have him stand smugly on my shelf. My bar was not that high. I am not an obsessive Bond fan and, though I see every new Bond movie in the cinema, I am nowhere near as invested in Bond as I am in something like Doctor Who, which is what turned me on to Big Chief.

Big Chief can do amazing figures! Their purple coat Matt Smith and their Hartnell are things of beauty. GREAT figures. Love their TARDIS dioramas. Capaldi seemed a bit of a misfire for a lot of small reasons, but their 9 was again great. I wonder if they are just getting a raw deal from factories, because everything I dislike here happened in the day-to-day execution of a great plan. This was a rare case of liking a figure more in pics than in hand. I love the intentions absolutely - the attention to detail, the choice of accessories. I am not sure we are getting what Big Chief have tried to make.

But, I will futz. Hopefully I will get a new head sculpt eventually. Maybe my feelings will change. Would I recommend this fig? Well, if someone was a hardcore Bond fan, then sure, because the Connery sculpt is wonderful and what other sixth scale Bonds can you get nowadays? But I would point out that they will be rolling the dice. Maybe they will get a good one. Maybe not. My advice might actually be: wait til they do a few more figures from the series and their factories get better at executing their intentions. And maybe wait for a tuxedo Bond because you are less likely to notice small imperfections on a black suit anyway.

Feeling ambivalent! Maybe it is time for me to get out of sixth scale collecting, or just focus on Who and Star Trek and any good future comic book Supermen and Batmen, my 'must haves'. My feelings are both shaken and stirred on this one. Love what you are trying to do Big Chief but maybe ... I dunno ... slap that factory manager.

I was talking to my dad about these figs the other day and he was saying they should come with touch up paints. I am sure they can't because shipping paint can be a customs hazard thing, BUT, if they came with a list of used colours, or if even there was a site .... 'Bond hair is about Tamiya Acrylix X-whatever' ... How nice would that be? I mean sure, we shouldn't have to fix issues ourselves, but it would be great to have that info so we COULD, if we wanted. We could use the info years down the track if the cat knocks a figure off and its hair gets scratched, or whatever. I mean, would a dab of clear matt on the nose fix the rub? Could I just use a close enough brown and highlight the hair and cover the pink? Anyway ...

 

[jimminy]

I think the issue is actually the plastic of the heads are too soft that the paint will not adhere to it

Yeah I mean, the paint came right off the hand just from touching the cloth (*snicker* touching cloth) of the pocket edge. Right off! Those knuckles are bald. Raw rubber. They are a different material to the head, but the fact that so much paint is missing from the hair, too, makes me think that maybe paint will just disappear anywhere from this fig if it rubs against even a soft surface. I had paint flake off the metal of the fake zip on a Baby Groot costume the other day. Paint on metal is tough. And we've all had a bit of paint rub on a fig somewhere. But I've never before seen paint rub off like it did on that hand. I'm not veteran here like most of the folks on these boards but this is something like my 45th fig, so I have some idea of what to expect.

Ugh. I love so much about what this figure is trying to be! All I wanted was a smug Connery. I could have been so easily pleased. But if even posing it like in the photos causes irreparable damage ...

 

[gido]

Yes, bit too easy to demage suit parts and paintup of arms just little bit playing with set...I just tried to unbutton vest to fix tie and one of those small vest buttons just fall off and wasn't possible to find it anymore.Of course there are some spare buttons, but anyway- to soft it's fixed on material, if we need to futz figure for normal look.
I still believe ,then BC will give us replacement heads as promised.

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[Tom Day]

Very interesting. It does look like the paint or the plastic (or both) are inherently flawed. The 'replacement heads' may have the same issue as they were manufactured before this problem became known. I would suggest that the replacements were actually meant to come off figures from the same batch which were sent by water while the first batch went by air. All pure speculation, but in the absence of comment from BCS speculation is what you get.

 

[pjam]

I should be receiving my Bond and OJ figures today, will report in later after initial inspection.

So far, I received my GF and am very happy with it. I already repainted all the hand gold rings and his pistol with a gold leaf paint pen and it shines nicely. Held off on the watch for now. The Mint Julep needs replacement as well as Jimmy's. The light up base nameplate is beautiful when lit, really showcases the figure.

BUT, I'm prepared to be bummed with 007 and OJ if they come with defects. Anyway, 1 for 1, for now...

 

[spindrift]

These QC issues are just plain stupid- paint rubbing off that easily? it's the kind of plastic they are applied too- not because it isn't dry!
The clothes up close reveal how poorly done they are.
My excitement for these is dropping very rapidly- if these were 150 figures they would be less upsetting but 275? Just plain rip-off IMO.

 

[spindrift]

Well. So. Got my Bond today, from Sideshow. It actually arrived two days ago, but it was a birthday present, so I opened it today, on my birthday. Yay!

I am a big fan of Big Chief. I have been a vocal supporter of their Doctor Who line. But I have very mixed feelings about this figure.

I will say right off the bat that I LOVE the head sculpt, and the paintwork that they were going for works for me. The paintwork they were going for is not always what customers get, though. I had to flag a few issues with Sideshow immediately. I haven't futzed so this will just be an 'issues' post.

First, to the nose rub. This figure came with a small plastic baggie around its head. That didn't help one bit.

And, yes, the black mark on the face. The nose was already rubbed off so I thought, 'Screw it' and I scratched lightly at the black mark with a fingernail and the black mark came right off, no harm done. But the hair ... is this rub? Is this a stylistic choice? There is a lot of pink showing through the hair. My Capaldi Doctor had this, but about 300% stronger.

I love goofy accessories. LOVE them. Captain Picard's early grey tea? SOLD. So I was excited about the Mint Julep. My glass is either missing paint on the rim or has a mark where it was cut off a modelling tree. I guess maybe I can try and pass it off as missing condensation? I sent a pic to Sideshow anyway, seeing as I was contacting them anyway.

The suit ... you can't quite see it but the black lining is showing a fair way up his lapel here, and the fabric is so stiff it can't be adjusted. On an otherwise great figure this might be a niggle.

If he was in his black tux, things like this would not be a problem, and in fact many suit niggles could be glossed over by the eye on a solid black tux. Just sayin'. Maybe it would have been better to start with the easy suit and move on to the complicated one. Like BCS themselves have said, suits are tough, because we 'know' instinctively what they are supposed to look like. We see them all the time.

And, finally, because this figure just seemed committed to bumming me out, I tried to futz and pose by using Big Chief's own photos as a guide. So I tried to put the hand in the trouser pocket. The paint rubbed completely off the knuckles after one gentle try.

So, very mixed feelings. On the one (paint rubbed) hand, I can see the potential for greatness. That sculpt! The intended paintwork. On the other, some aspects here feel like they would suit a ThreeZero figure ... and those are 200-odd AUD rather than 350. I'm not really bothered when a $200 figure has a few realism issues.

I showed someone else and they thought it looked great, so I do wonder if the nose rub (the first thing I saw when unboxing) has turned me into a Debbie Downer. Sometimes I do get a figure, feel a bit underwhelmed, and come back a day or two later and say 'Wow this is really great!' As a birthday present this had a bit more to live up to

But there are issues. All I wanted was a beautifully smug Connery so I could take some fun photos and have him stand smugly on my shelf. My bar was not that high. I am not an obsessive Bond fan and, though I see every new Bond movie in the cinema, I am nowhere near as invested in Bond as I am in something like Doctor Who, which is what turned me on to Big Chief.

Big Chief can do amazing figures! Their purple coat Matt Smith and their Hartnell are things of beauty. GREAT figures. Love their TARDIS dioramas. Capaldi seemed a bit of a misfire for a lot of small reasons, but their 9 was again great. I wonder if they are just getting a raw deal from factories, because everything I dislike here happened in the day-to-day execution of a great plan. This was a rare case of liking a figure more in pics than in hand. I love the intentions absolutely - the attention to detail, the choice of accessories. I am not sure we are getting what Big Chief have tried to make.

But, I will futz. Hopefully I will get a new head sculpt eventually. Maybe my feelings will change. Would I recommend this fig? Well, if someone was a hardcore Bond fan, then sure, because the Connery sculpt is wonderful and what other sixth scale Bonds can you get nowadays? But I would point out that they will be rolling the dice. Maybe they will get a good one. Maybe not. My advice might actually be: wait til they do a few more figures from the series and their factories get better at executing their intentions. And maybe wait for a tuxedo Bond because you are less likely to notice small imperfections on a black suit anyway.

Feeling ambivalent! Maybe it is time for me to get out of sixth scale collecting, or just focus on Who and Star Trek and any good future comic book Supermen and Batmen, my 'must haves'. My feelings are both shaken and stirred on this one. Love what you are trying to do Big Chief but maybe ... I dunno ... slap that factory manager.

I was talking to my dad about these figs the other day and he was saying they should come with touch up paints. I am sure they can't because shipping paint can be a customs hazard thing, BUT, if they came with a list of used colours, or if even there was a site .... 'Bond hair is about Tamiya Acrylix X-whatever' ... How nice would that be? I mean sure, we shouldn't have to fix issues ourselves, but it would be great to have that info so we COULD, if we wanted. We could use the info years down the track if the cat knocks a figure off and its hair gets scratched, or whatever. I mean, would a dab of clear matt on the nose fix the rub? Could I just use a close enough brown and highlight the hair and cover the pink? Anyway ...

Sounds like you are trying VERY hard to talk yourself into really liking this when you really aren't(can't blame you one bit!)

 

[superado]

Re: clothing on Connery, despite attempts to be careful to pry open the snaps on the vest, these were poorly glued and came undone with the snaps still together! I used Fabri-Tac to repair these and hopefully they will hold. I haven't attempted to remove any other article of clothing at this point, so, I shall see if there are any other assembly defects.

 

[ymba]

Yep, the vest snap on was “ glued down” and was frozen inside the vest on my Bond

QC is not that good on these figures..

 

[pjam]

Quick look at GF...

View attachment 388011

 

[Wor-Gar]

Quick look at GF...

View attachment 388011

Why is this not showing?

 

[pjam]