Re: Sentinel (company): Iron Man figures - 6 inch scale
I have some friends who treat Sentinel products with a zeal bordering on religious fervour, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Picked up their Armorize Iron Man for ¥6000, which I'd consider a good price.
Spindly, lanky Tony Stark - and people complain about Barbie having unrealistic proportions...
Face sculpt and paint are definitely on-point for a 6" figure, though. This made a good first impression, as did the massive tray of surprisingly weighty armour parts.
Paint flaws/wear on some of the diecast parts straight out of the packaging didn't, though. Would love to know who thought making half of an ankle ball joint out of painted metal was a good idea.
The process of armouring up the figure made me warm up to it, I have to admit. For one thing, the shin armour completely covered that ankle joint with visible paint wear and it really does have a lot of attitude and dynamism when you start posing it.
Again, the face sculpt is probably the best non-movie rendition of the character ever created. The paintwork, texture and finish all look crisp and clean, the articulated eyes work well too. Pictures don't really do justice to how good the mix of surface finishes on the armour look in the flesh, for one thing all the white circles are in fact a kind of iridescent paint that changes colour subtly depending on the light. The contrast of the flat burgundy against the rich satin gold captures the look of Granov's comic artwork perfectly and makes for a welcome departure from the movie Iron Man formula of high-gloss hot rod red.
The figure can Iron Man quite adequately, the armour being an external suit does little to nothing to hinder spindly Tony's SHF-esque articulation. The torso is particularly impressive, unlocking in two places into a segmented assembly reminiscent of Hot Toys' figures. It's also extremely heavy for a figure this size owing to generous quantities of metal making up at least half of the external suit and some of the Tony figure's inner frame too.
It can kind of achieve the three-point pose. This is when the biggest problems with this figure became apparent to me. The hips drop down on a central axle, SHF-style. Unfortunately, unlike an SHF the 'codpiece' is a floating section very loosely anchored to the joint that connects the lower torso to the hip joints, and the torso itself splits into segments and articulates quite easily - meaning you have nothing solid to hold onto when trying to push the hips back up into their pelvic recess. The other big problem with this is that from certain angles there's some really unsightly gaps in the waist when it's articulated that let you see right through the figure and out to the other side.
It's a good example of how over-engineering for its own sake of what should be a straightforward series of joints almost ruins what is otherwise a quite spectacular figure. The neck joint suffers from this too - it's a series of hinges and swivels with a keyed connection for the head, which admittedly is an impressive bit of engineering but ultimately offers less articulation than a straightforward barbell double ball joint - Tony can look left, right, up and down but can't tilt his head at all.
It's out of scale with Bandai's SHF offerings - comes up quite large vs most other Japanese figures. It has to be said that even though it's a much more straightforward figure engineering-wise the SHF Mk VI is much more pleasant to throw into and out of poses. Sometimes it really does pay to keep things simple, stupid.
That said, it does scale quite well with Mezco's One:12 Batman. Probably what made me decide against flipping the figure immediately, I'm hoping it'll look good standing alongside the Dark Knight and their forthcoming Dredd in the cabinet.
A lot of reviews I've seen of this figure have repeatedly raised the issue of the shoulder pads being restrictive, but honestly I haven't had any problems with them. For more dynamic poses I've adopted the simple solution of removing them, posing the arm and sliding them as far back onto the track as they'll go. I'm honestly amazed no-one took issue with the floating, hollow groin section or neck joint. In conclusion it's a real mixed bag of a figure, there's some things about it that I think are astoundingly well-executed and a couple of things that are so badly-designed I can feel my piss boiling whenever I look at them.
If I'd paid the full ¥11,000 asking price for this when it was initially released I'm pretty sure I'd have been immensely disappointed, considering that's about halfway to a Hot Toys figure. As it stands I'd be extremely reticent to pay the absurd asking price for some of their other products like the Metamorforce Dancouga or the Re:edit Iron Man figures.
That looks so ridiculous! What does he do when he tips over? 
