1/6 Hot Toys - MMS - Star Wars: Episode VII - Han & Chewbacca Collectible Figure
Looking great Ton Ton, do you mind my asking which method you used for the process?
Thanks, Prince! I sort of just went for it, remembering what I'd read from matrix69 and mattman below. I just inserted the brush that Chewie comes with between the upper mouth and the fur and found that it separates really easily. Then just worked on reducing the amount of fur in the upper lip area, which is what is causing the problem (there's so much and the plastic sculpt is soft so it's just pushing the mouth down). The whole time I was doing it I was wondering if I was going to screw the whole thing up. They used dark brown threading to keep the fur in so as you cut to remove some sections those dark threads start appearing. Anyhow, it wasn't hard but I definitely had to be careful in terms of balancing all that.
Here's mattman's:
From my previous post:
" What I did was I heated up the mouth area with a hair dryer, then using a small knife tool I dug into the area where the upper lip meets the fur and peeled down the upper lip/mouth plate. Then using the knife I scraped down the fur, sorta tucking it in and flattening it out, cutting away a very small amount of fur to make sure the area was flattened out as much as possible. Finally, I reheated the mouth and pulled the upper mouth plate back up to line it up with the fur (also had to realign the bottom jaw piece). The rest is just futzing to try to make the hair look as accurate as I could."
Agreed ton ton , matrix and others... I thought chewie was unsalvageable but it's a huge improvement
Thanks, Raymond! I figured the same until I saw what matrix and mattman did with theirs.
Everyone who has salvaged their Chewbacca should be commended...I cannot shake my personal rule that if I spend $260 on a figure I shouldn't have to skin it and rebuild it just to tolerate it being in my collection...modify a good figure to make it great? Sure! This seems to be a bit of a different situation entirely though...
Definitely don't have to skin it, but at the end of the day I would much rather have never had to do anything. I got Chewie for a good price under retail which is what allowed me to even consider messing with it.
Can't say I disagree with that. It's an abysmal effort in hot toys part and one that is extra baffling considering they took a step backwards from their first chewbacca
Yeah, I have to agree that it's crazy that this wasn't an improvement straight out of the box. The color of the fur on ANH is too dark and he has a goofy smile thing going on and sort of looks crosseyed, and then TFA is obviously too orange but that upper lip is the most offensive of all those to me, and I suspect many of us.
TFA Chewie eyes are definitely better than ANH Chewie, body is the same, though head doesn't sit as low. ANH did a better job of the more realistic matted fur on the body whereas this one looks a bit too brushed out, though with product that could be matched.
After working out the upper lip issue the face basically becomes the same as ANH, but a bit better because the eyes (though they're not blue) don't look crosseyed and depending how the mouth ends up that could look a bit better too. The color is lighter, so sort of better, but obviously the figure is too orange overall, even for the actual TFA Chewie. Under the detolf lights it looks like the Lorax color to me. I know my brain has gotten used to the ANH Chewie so that's part of it, but it feels like the case where ANH Chewie is better under the lights and this one is better away from the lights.
Does timcent ship in brown shipper?
Just got Chewie from him and it did not have a shipper. I don't think they include the shippers in Hong Kong. I think that's a Sideshow thing, and all the places that Sideshow supplies to (Europe, Australia, US).
This is one of the best sculpts/figures I've ever had (including high-end customs).
