Lighting discussion of Tron:Legacy HT and SSC products

I wasn't sure if this was redundant but I wondered if this warranted a separate thread. According to Sideshow lighting seems to be what is holding up their products and my guess is that is why we haven't seen lighted articulated figures from HT yet. Just wondered what people thought. Is the lighting eventually going to prevent us from seeing anything else because they will give up? Is it feasible? And is there a way to do it and make most people happy.

I was looking at some reference photos of characters and I'm not sure how an articulated figure could be pulled off. Personally I'd be happy with them going with an reflective material and scrapping lights just so we would be guaranteed to see future releases. I look at the details of the Kevin Flynn figure's boots and it doesn't look bad.

Anything lighting anything skin tight like Gem or Quorra's tights would almost involve modifying body parts to light from within.
In the end I hope whatever they do looks as good lit as unlit because most won't want to constantly be feeding batteries into these things.

For articulated figures, I wouldnt mind HT using reflective material if it meant we'd get articulated versions of each. I'm mostly hoping for Quorra. I think the reflective material looked good on the Medi Daft Punk figures and I bet HT would make it look even better

Iron man is internally lit and has articulation. His hands chest and head light up. There is no reason I can see why they didn't use a similar technique for these releases.

The eyes on Iron Man figure are notoriously bad but that is mainly the mask eyes light piping, rather than the bulb i think.

for Tron the lights would need to be long strips rather than singular LED's, keeping the brightness high would require a lot more wiring inside the body.

One of my concerns is I'd like it to look good unlit as well as lit because 90 percent of the time the figure won't be on. You'd almost have to plug the figure into the wall. That almost makes it look like lighting for an articulated figure isn't entirely worth it. Maybe the arms and legs would have reflective surfaces where the torso has a lit up feature.
After looking at Kevin Flynn's booted feet and seeing the detail they put into them and how the white stripe contrasts with the black I think they could pull it off without lights. I'm also afraid that the costs involved would make the figures $300 apiece and I doubt there is a market out there for that. I'm sure a chunk if that price of the Avatar Jake Sully is because they couldn't rely on a regular body.

LEDs behind opaque plastic would work perfectly. The frosted plastic would spread the light. There is no reason why it wouldn't work.

I think the problem is not the engineering but the resources allocated for this license in particular... since the movie wasn't exactly a super-smash hit compared to Iron Man, HT might not want to spend the time in R&D to accomplish a couple of figures... at least with IM they can keep milking it, as they've done and keep doing...
With Tron, it pains me to say, but there's a smaller fanbase of hardcore fans that would buy these...

Rorywan said:

LEDs behind opaque plastic would work perfectly. The frosted plastic would spread the light. There is no reason why it wouldn't work.

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That's what they'd probably do--but I would imagine it's difficult to engineer a piece where there's solid parts with strips of transparent parts embedded within. It might be easier on a cloth/rubber costume since you could sew the pieces together, but on a sculpture you'd probably end up having the entire piece transparent and then just paint the black and leave the strips clear.

Kuzeh said:

I think the problem is not the engineering but the resources allocated for this license in particular... since the movie wasn't exactly a super-smash hit compared to Iron Man, HT might not want to spend the time in R&D to accomplish a couple of figures... at least with IM they can keep milking it, as they've done and keep doing...
With Tron, it pains me to say, but there's a smaller fanbase of hardcore fans that would buy these...

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Extremellllly rigt!

Rorywan said:

Iron man is internally lit and has articulation. His hands chest and head light up.
There is no reason I can see why they didn't use a similar technique for these releases.

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Rorywan said:

Iron man is internally lit and has articulation. His hands chest and head light up. There is no reason I can see why they didn't use a similar technique for these releases.

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Agreed 100%

I ragged on HT with their Flynn release BAD, but in the end I love Tron too much and picked up the figure essentially giving them a pass.

The 1st image when most people hear the term "Tron" is neon colored suits & discs. If Hot Toys won't even attempt to address this feature than that's just sad really.

Kuzeh said:

I think the problem is not the engineering but the resources allocated for this license in particular... since the movie wasn't exactly a super-smash hit compared to Iron Man, HT might not want to spend the time in R&D to accomplish a couple of figures... at least with IM they can keep milking it, as they've done and keep doing...
With Tron, it pains me to say, but there's a smaller fanbase of hardcore fans that would buy these...

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Unfortunately, I have to agree. I don't see them getting too innovative. I think if we are lucky we might see two more figures which would draw from either Clu, Quorra, Rinzler or Sam without bike. Even if they planned to do those four I don't think it would have been anymore than that.

I would definitely be totally cool with no lights if it guaranteed getting a couple of others.

It's just not practical and practically impossible to do it in this scale without some serious compromise on articulation and aesthetic.

It works on the Iron Man series because they are made like Gundam model kits and the very nature their construction allows LED to be implemented with very minor compromise on aesthetic and articulation.

There is also the fact that the lights are only focus at certain part of the figure i.e eyes, chest, hands, and those are a lot easier to implement space wise.

With Tron, in order to retain articulation, the only way it will work is with EL wires. But then we will have the problem of powering it because you need at least 9v to power it at a decent brightness and even then, it will last less than an hour.

There is also the issue of heat dissipation so that means it might have to be made with an aluminum body and cost will increase.

Overall, it's just one of those things that are more trouble than it's worth to implement.

And if they do manage to do it, the price they will have to sell it at will be astronomical and everyone here will be whining about it.

I'd be happy with reflective strips or , heck, even neon paint so they would glow in a blacklight...

Day glow paint or the 3M reflective materials are the best and most practical options at this time. Believe me, I’ve been trying everything.

I’m not sure what you are talking about noisetrigger, about heat… El wire and LEDs put out little to no heat. The problem with EL wire is the size of the drivers with the batteries, there is just no room.

EL light sheet is an option, the same stuff used on the movie suits. But again it would be costly to produce and the driver is also large so the figure would have to be tethered to a base of some kind. Or the figure would have to have a hollow torso like Ironman.

https://szrtqel.en.made-in-china.com/product/bMtEGqBcnyVW/China-Super-Light-EL-Sheet.html

Spenser said:

Day glow paint or the 3M reflective materials are the best and most practical options at this time. Believe me, I’ve been trying everything.

I’m not sure what you are talking about noisetrigger, about heat… El wire and LEDs put out little to no heat. The problem with EL wire is the size of the drivers with the batteries, there is just no room.

EL light sheet is an option, the same stuff used on the movie suits. But again it would be costly to produce and the driver is also large so the figure would have to be tethered to a base of some kind. Or the figure would have to have a hollow torso like Ironman.

https://szrtqel.en.made-in-china.com/product/bMtEGqBcnyVW/China-Super-Light-EL-Sheet.html

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You are right, I got mixed up with LED and EL. While EL produces very little heat but those high powered LED I use in lightsaber building heats up immediately without heatsink. Those might be overkill in a 12 inch figure though.

Speaking of lighting, I stumbled across this while looking for tron stuff today:



For $109 that is a steal! Might get one for the g/f

Well I know if I gave that to my wife I would be spitting out el-wire for weeks!

Rorywan said:

Well I know if I gave that to my wife I would be spitting out el-wire for weeks!

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