Rooted Hair: Future of the Hobby?

[Bucky Underbelly]

There's been some lively debate going over on the ACI Aragorn thread about rooted vs. sculpted hair. So I thought it might be good to expand some of the more general discussion out of that figure's thread. Seems like an important enough topic to warrant its own space.

(Apologies if there's already a thread, I did some searching but didn't find anything.)

So here's what I was thinking ... let's say, for the sake of argument, that rooted hair (done well) is the way of the future for 1/6 figures. Of course this may or may not end up being the case -- the future, as we know, can be a slippery fish -- but I thought it was an interesting jumping off point for discussion purposes.


So if rooted hair is the future, that leaves me with two questions:

1) Is there anything left beyond that? In other words, is rooted hair the last major innovation we'll see in this hobby? What's left? What else can they do?

... and ...

2) As figures continue to look more and more real, might we start to see a kind Uncanny Valley effect like you see in CGI?

What do you folks think?

Any other questions come to mind?

 

[The Mike]

Actual human hair that has been donated and rooted. You'll have to shampoo it and dry it but the figure will look great.

 

[karamazov80]

It's still a niche stylistic preference for male dolls, and probably always will be. Goes back to the 12" GI Joes. With girl dolls of course the history goes back even further, and high end companies like Hot Toys apparently think it is the best option. Other "innovations" will probably be more in the way of fads and gimmicks, like the light up eyes we see, voice boxes like Robocop, periodic anatomic correctness, googly eyes, and maybe spring loaded missiles like we had as kids. I can imagine companies getting more realistic texture on the skin, as an evolution of the rubber/PVC bodies HT uses. But I think in general, most improvements will be marginal changes in things we are already seeing Better paint apps, better details such as small patches and pins, shoelaces, details on accessories, more refined bodies that more accurately convey human poses and give you more articulation, fancier packaging, etc.

 

[hoodonit00]

It's a scale thing. A human hair is about .003-.005 diameter. How do you take that and shrink it to 1/6th scale? Molded hair gives the appearance of hair as it would be seen at 1/6th scale.

What I would like to see though is a seamless muscle body where the muscles have give to them and would compress into each other for a more natural look.

 

[karamazov80]

I imagine thinner strands of hair could be produced, but I doubt it would behave the same way as "real" hair.

 

[pixletwin]

No thanks. With a few exceptions, rooted hair looks awful.

 

[Lee in MI]

First, at the risk of sounding out of the know, what is an "Uncanny Valley effect"?

I think we will see things get smaller, more detailed and more accurate as technology allows for scaled reproductions at smaller and smaller increments and at more affordable pricing. We can already see the customizers here having an impact on the hobby ie, Tony Mei with his capes. Him selecting and sourcing a far better fabric than what had previously been seen in production, I believe, is directly responsible for the new Batman cape by SSCs. The Kato factor is also affecting the market. I think he achieved a scale we hadn't seen in the market to add a level of realism to the suits. Not only are the major manufacturers coming to him for his help but I think his work helped spawn the likes of more suited figures being tackled by Hot Toys and other smaller manufacturers. I remember when the first Mark III came out, Hot Toys made the Jericho suit, not bad but wasn't great, but there were not many suits out there in mass production. The Saturday Toys suits being the grail suits to have but were fairly hard to come by. Now, you can check almost any 1:6 parts site and find a decent suit for a really good price.

With 3d printing/sculpting, maybe traditional sculpting has seen its last days. With digital scanning advancing, maybe sculpts for likenesses will go away altogether.

As far as rooted hair, I think it still has a ways to go to look good. We've seen it done but it takes quite a bit of futzing to make it look really good. Case in point, the Black Widows all seem to have varying degrees of success with the rooted hair but when futzed right, can look really good. The question is can the large manufacturers make a figure that will look good with rooted hair right out of the box? Most guys like futzing their figures but I would venture to bet a larger percentage prefer to pull them right out the box ready to go.

 

[jra81984]

I just do not see it working in many instances. Styling would be all over the place. I have seen it work on some characters with long hair. On short haired characters? it would look absolutely horrid.

I have seen rooted hair work exceptionally well for the Joker. I have seen it attempted on figures like Thor and it looked terrible. I think its too inconsistent to work across the board.

 

[lerath666]

It's a scale thing. A human hair is about .003-.005 diameter. How do you take that and shrink it to 1/6th scale? Molded hair gives the appearance of hair as it would be seen at 1/6th scale.

What I would like to see though is a seamless muscle body where the muscles have give to them and would compress into each other for a more natural look.

Agree

No thanks. With a few exceptions, rooted hair looks awful.

Agree

First, at the risk of sounding out of the know, what is an "Uncanny Valley effect"?

I think we will see things get smaller, more detailed and more accurate as technology allows for scaled reproductions at smaller and smaller increments and at more affordable pricing. We can already see the customizers here having an impact on the hobby ie, Tony Mei with his capes. Him selecting and sourcing a far better fabric than what had previously been seen in production, I believe, is directly responsible for the new Batman cape by SSCs. The Kato factor is also affecting the market. I think he achieved a scale we hadn't seen in the market to add a level of realism to the suits. Not only are the major manufacturers coming to him for his help but I think his work helped spawn the likes of more suited figures being tackled by Hot Toys and other smaller manufacturers. I remember when the first Mark III came out, Hot Toys made the Jericho suit, not bad but wasn't great, but there were not many suits out there in mass production. The Saturday Toys suits being the grail suits to have but were fairly hard to come by. Now, you can check almost any 1:6 parts site and find a decent suit for a really good price.

With 3d printing/sculpting, maybe traditional sculpting has seen its last days. With digital scanning advancing, maybe sculpts for likenesses will go away altogether.

As far as rooted hair, I think it still has a ways to go to look good. We've seen it done but it takes quite a bit of futzing to make it look really good. Case in point, the Black Widows all seem to have varying degrees of success with the rooted hair but when futzed right, can look really good. The question is can the large manufacturers make a figure that will look good with rooted hair right out of the box? Most guys like futzing their figures but I would venture to bet a larger percentage prefer to pull them right out the box ready to go.

Uncanny valley Uncanny valley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TL;DR uncanny Valley:
The more realistic an artificial human look,s the less comfortable we, as real humans are with it. This can take the form of not seeing it, so we are repulsed by the likeness, to just feeling there is something off about it we do not like.



for me personaly, Sculpted all the way. Transplanting a baroness wig to a hot toys/ kumik clone for a custom i'm working on currently, as an example.

 

[hoodonit00]

No thanks. With a few exceptions, rooted hair looks awful.

Agree 100%. Elvis does a great job but I can't see a company being able to mass produce the effects he gets without jacking the prices way up. Not trying to be disrespectful towards ACI but I can't see all the accolades that the rooted hair on Aragorn is receiving. About the only way I could see using it would be to slick it back like Aragorns was at the coronation at the end of ROTK. Even then I don't know what the hairline would look like.

 

[jra81984]

Rooting always looks better when it is completed by hand. Look at the Rahmier84 thread. The Willy Wonka head haring he did is perfection. In a situation like that, sculpted hair would have looked horrible.

 

[hoodonit00]

Rooting always looks better when it is completed by hand. Look at the Rahmier84 thread. The Willy Wonka head haring he did is perfection. In a situation like that, sculpted hair would have looked horrible.

You have a link?

 

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

No thanks. With a few exceptions, rooted hair looks awful.

Agreed.

 

[Eli26]

I imagine thinner strands of hair could be produced, but I doubt it would behave the same way as "real" hair.

Pix could donate his...

 

[nexus]

Not sure if it's the future, but as the techniques improve and the materials get better I think it takes figures to the next level. Vancie's Anakin was the first figure I was ever completely blown away by. The use of "real" hair was one of the things that put it over the top IMO. I really hope HT makes an Anakin so I can get it customized. This is no longer cheap Barbie hair which I think adds to the stigma. Though not perfect, the materials being used are closer in scale and more natural in texture. I am definitely looking forward to ACI's Aragorn. Perhaps it will get to the point where it can at least be be offered as an option on some figures. With some 1:6 figs now running $250+ (good grief) companies should be throwing more bells and whistles.

 

[AIR]

It's only a matter of time until HT starts including interchangeable sculpted and rooted hair with some figures

 

[kloug]

I don't think the problem is the rooting, I believe it's what happens afterwards that still has to be mastered. I can even imagine "fabric hair" not being rooted but glued in patches (that would probably help sticking thinner hair).
IMHO the problem is the hairdressing afterwards, that may require fixing gel or whatever.

But I generally prefer a bad rooted hair than a plastic lump that tries to pass for hair, unless it's a haircut that can work as plastic.

 

[surfin4]

Its all about detail and accuracy if they can find a technique that works and adds rather then deducts .....whos going to complain, but something like the new braveheart sculpt with all the braiding and plats would be a nightmare to keep as is.

 

[fosing]

rooted hair the future? barbie's been rooting that shat a looong time ago.

 

[potato]

I think Barbie dolls are starting to move away from sculpted hair and moving towards the rooted hair direction, which is a good thing.