MOLDED HAIR VS. REAL HAIR

[sonolimy]

on the new PF Leatherface, he has synthetic hair, which i find to be incredibly cheasy and dumbs down the effect of the statue. i think molded hair is more classy and would hold the test of time and make the statue more valuable in the long run. sideshow has done that with the 12" figs and most of the statues since then. i personally think thats why the electra statue didnt do that well is because of the real hair aspect, if she had molded hair and it was flowing in a direction it would have looked better and sold more. i know i would have bought one. PLEASE STOP WITH THE REAL HAIR, MOLDED IS BETTER.

[BillyBudd]

I agree. Sideshow should stick with molded hair...but not because molded hair is always better. Real hair has the potential to look far better than molded hair, but real hair is also much more difficult to work with. Here is an example of real hair done well (http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=31042). REALLY WELL.

[Josette]

I personally prefer rooted hair if the person the figure is depicting has long hair (shoulder length or longer). Molded long hair doesn't really look good usually, IMO.

If the person has shorter hair, then the molded hair works well.

[Mookeylama]

i agree w/ Josette. synthetic hair can look much better on even a 12" fig and definitely a 1/4 PF if done right. just look at the 12" CY Girl figures. looks much better than the molded hair on other figs. the lack of "real" hair on some SS pieces is the main reason i haven't purchased certain items. Buffy PF, Lurtz PF, ect. i agree that working w/ real hair would be more time consuming (attaching and styling it) and thus less cost effective, so they might increase the price points.

hey Billy, incredible work! do u do those pieces for museums? do u take commissions?

[sonolimy]

to retract a little bit, the hair on 1:1 scale busts, real hair is totally acceptable due to the fact it is more managable, but smaller items the hair is unmanageable and cannot look good and cant be fixed if something happened to it.

[Eva Estelle]

Originally Posted by BillyBudd

I agree. Sideshow should stick with molded hair...but not because molded hair is always better. Real hair has the potential to look far better than molded hair, but real hair is also much more difficult to work with. Here is an example of real hair done well (http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=31042). REALLY WELL.

Wow! I’m impressed. That’s a nice bust!

I guess I pretty much second most here, I prefer real hair, IF! Only IF! It’s done right…Hands down, properly fitted real hair will always win out over molded, only problem is not to many productions with real hair “ware” it well, due to the artist's lack of skill in incorporating it into their productions. They end up looking “dolly” or “toyish” and that can really detract from a piece and turn people off from the idea of real hair. But this is just my humble opinion!

[tomandshell]

The 1:1 Yoda bust is the only example I can remember of "real" hair done acceptably.


EDIT: Now there are two examples, after checking out that Lost Boys link...

[Batty]

Here's an example of real hair not done well:

[pixletwin]

or this:

[Eva Estelle]

Pixletwin,
That's in a class of its own. That's called ' real-molded hair ' It's real hair but has been put through some sort of molding process to shape and preserve it!