Hot Toys - MMS185 - The Avengers: Iron Man MK VII Official Specs & Pics

[Bacara]

Done the test. It's vinyl then...

Still new to this hobby why is vinyl bad

 

[CrAZyVEgAsBoY]

Still new to this hobby why is vinyl bad

Because with vinyl it very possible the red paint used will eventually fade and must then be repainted. If its plastic it has a better chance of not fading as quickly, if ever because the paint usually stays on the plastic much better and usually wont lose its color. Some past Im figures that were vinyl had this problem, I believe it was the Mark IV.

 

[dedguy]

I think with the past figures it's not the pain but the actual material that's fading. The material is cast in red and the vinyl doesn't hold the color as well. The styrene is fading as well, just at a different rate.

 

[Username]

It's been supposed here also that if you leave the item MIB, this actually could accelerate the fading.
There are lacquers in the paint that need to evaporate, and the faded ones have possibly been sitting in the box for a while, and the lacquers being unable to go anywhere, they damage the paintwork itself.
It's just a theory.

 

[Hologram AI]

I think with the past figures it's not the pain but the actual material that's fading. The material is cast in red and the vinyl doesn't hold the color as well. The styrene is fading as well, just at a different rate.

The problem is they layer it with 2 extra coatings on top. The Vinyl is naturally red but they cover that with a layer of silver and red. On top of that, there is a layer of gloss. I'm not sure anyone knows for sure what exactly causes the paint to fade but it's that top layer that fades, causing the distortion of the red. Which is why if you follow xenom0rphs tutorial on fixing it, you can simply strip the top two layers of paint and then add a spray of gloss over the natural color red that the vinyl is so that it doesn't fade at all.

I'm hoping they have taken that problem into consideration when painting the panties on this figure. Would be quite disappointing to see it fade since the problem has been there since the Mark 4.

 

[dedguy]

Must be then that they have to use a different paint on the vinyl than they do on the styrene.

 

[captainjamesbrooke]

Still messing with heads!

 

[Ghost of QG]

Give that one a donut and there's the 2013 SDCC exclusive .

 

[bonestockbrz]

Donut???? Wrong movie, he needs schwarma!

 

[**16k**]

It's been supposed here also that if you leave the item MIB, this actually could accelerate the fading.
There are lacquers in the paint that need to evaporate, and the faded ones have possibly been sitting in the box for a while, and the lacquers being unable to go anywhere, they damage the paintwork itself.
It's just a theory.

I took my Mark III out of the box the day it arrived. It's never been exposed to direct sunlight and still, it faded... Not much, but faded all the same. My Mark II remained MIB for more than a year ( actually, I took it out when the talks about fading started). It's still in pristine condition. I think the box has nothing to do with this. I think that's the red color that's to be blamed?

 

[Username]

Good news folks. I popped into work earlier and did a bit of tinkering.
I think i have found an easy fix for both the mouth and the lights in the eyes(I haven't done anything about the SIZE of the eyes yet, just the problem with the uneven lighting).

Okay. For the mouth, i took a little tin of gold paint(Not a perfect match, but close enough i think), and painted the black line gold. It was the only colour of gold i had, and although everyone here will know what i have done, no-one else looking at it would know.

The original look:

With the line painted:

And with the faceplate on:

And another angle:

And at a more realistic viewing distance:

Now, on to the lighting.
Here's the problem with the lighting: With the normal eye plate on the face mask outer, and the distance from interior light to eye plate, the light doesn't reach all the way across.
See this image here(Notice how the light stops about a third from the outer edge):

My fox for this was just as easy as the paint before.
I popped the clear lens out from the faceplate.
I then took a small square of 60 grit sandpaper(The coarsest grade i have), and sanded the interior side.
It roughed up the lens.
See here, the difference:

With this done, the light is FAR more even on the eyes.
With the lens out, it would also be possible to paint a new line on the lens and reduce the area that light would flow through, so making the eyes look smaller. I don't have a problem with that though.
Here are pics of the light(Just iPhone5 images. In hand, the eyes look a LOT better, and so does the mouth):

 

[BuGz]

That's looking a lot better. More like the movie! !

Bri

 

[guy66657]

Good news folks. I popped into work earlier and did a bit of tinkering.
I think i have found an easy fix for both the mouth and the lights in the eyes(I haven't done anything about the SIZE of the eyes yet, just the problem with the uneven lighting).

Okay. For the mouth, i took a little tin of gold paint(Not a perfect match, but close enough i think), and painted the black line gold. It was the only colour of gold i had, and although everyone here will know what i have done, no-one else looking at it would know.

The original look:

With the line painted:

And with the faceplate on:

And another angle:

And at a more realistic viewing distance:

Now, on to the lighting.
Here's the problem with the lighting: With the normal eye plate on the face mask outer, and the distance from interior light to eye plate, the light doesn't reach all the way across.
See this image here(Notice how the light stops about a third from the outer edge):

My fox for this was just as easy as the paint before.
I popped the clear lens out from the faceplate.
I then took a small square of 60 grit sandpaper(The coarsest grade i have), and sanded the interior side.
It roughed up the lens.
See here, the difference:

With this done, the light is FAR more even on the eyes.
With the lens out, it would also be possible to paint a new line on the lens and reduce the area that light would flow through, so making the eyes look smaller. I don't have a problem with that though.
Here are pics of the light(Just iPhone5 images. In hand, the eyes look a LOT better, and so does the mouth):

that looks awesome, can we see it on the figure?

 

[Hologram AI]

Do we NEED to quote the 3000x2400 size pictures?

Awesome work Username. I'm curious though, why does sanding the plastic on the eye lid cause the light to hit farther up the sockets? Wouldn't scratching it up like that cause the light to be dimmer?

 

[CrAZyVEgAsBoY]

Do we NEED to quote the 3000x2400 size pictures?

Awesome work Username. I'm curious though, why does sanding the plastic on the eye lid cause the light to hit farther up the sockets? Wouldn't scratching it up like that cause the light to be dimmer?

My guess is because the light cant really escape as much it stays in the eyes more giving it that more true IM look. Looks awesome man, I think I might have to do this.

 

[Rorywan]

Good news folks. I popped into work earlier and did a bit of tinkering.
I think i have found an easy fix for both the mouth and the lights in the eyes(I haven't done anything about the SIZE of the eyes yet, just the problem with the uneven lighting).



Now, on to the lighting.
Here's the problem with the lighting: With the normal eye plate on the face mask outer, and the distance from interior light to eye plate, the light doesn't reach all the way across.
See this image here(Notice how the light stops about a third from the outer edge):

My fox for this was just as easy as the paint before.
I popped the clear lens out from the faceplate.
I then took a small square of 60 grit sandpaper(The coarsest grade i have), and sanded the interior side.
It roughed up the lens.
See here, the difference:

With this done, the light is FAR more even on the eyes.
With the lens out, it would also be possible to paint a new line on the lens and reduce the area that light would flow through, so making the eyes look smaller. I don't have a problem with that though.

Mate! This is exactly what I said and suggested to you 6 pages back!!

So, great idea you had there!!
The eyes do look better diffused. The mouth painted yellow doesn't work though IMO.

 

[DoubleTap]

Great work Username!

Sanding it causes better light diffusion because of the rougher texture. He basically adjusted the opacity not the distance from the lens to the light source.

 

[Username]

that looks awesome, can we see it on the figure?

No.

Lol. I don't HAVE the MKVII yet. I bought a bunch of parts on Ebay last week so i wouldn't have to *****K up my originals when my MKVII's get here.
Incidentally, the master mould for the chest panel is done. More on that in a later post.

Do we NEED to quote the 3000x2400 size pictures?

Awesome work Username. I'm curious though, why does sanding the plastic on the eye lid cause the light to hit farther up the sockets? Wouldn't scratching it up like that cause the light to be dimmer?

Thanks a lot. I have no control over people quoting my posts with every image... I tend to remove the images before quoting, to save page loading time.
The sanding trick is an old modelmakers trick. Sanding the surface means that any light is dissipated over a larger surface, and any spotlight will be less of a spot when viewed from the other side.
Imagine looking through a pane of glass from the outside of your house at a room lamp inside.
THEN, imagine looking at the same view, but through the frosted privacy glass used on bathroom windows. The light is diffused. This is what is happening with the frosted MKVII eye lens.
Do you get it now?

My guess is because the light cant really escape as much it stays in the eyes more giving it that more true IM look. Looks awesome man, I think I might have to do this.

Thanks.
It's a very old trick. I've used it many times over the years, especially to dissipate the really bright spot produced by LEDs.
It's not like anyone invented the idea recently. It's been around forever.

 

[CrAZyVEgAsBoY]

agreed but you were the only one with the guts and insite to try/do it and for that I thank you sir. That really makes a difference and its such an easy fix.

 

[Rorywan]

.........

doubt it very very much! It's the entire sculpt for gods sake.


You will understand when you have the sculpt in hand. The problem isn't the LED placement. It's the gap between the clear plastic eye piece and the actual enclosed lighting section of the head.
The eyes are so big you can "look into" the gap in the head. Moving the LED direction around as Username suggests, will solve nothing. The only way to solve this "issue" is to move the light section closer to the eyes,
diffuse the inside of the eyes (easy) and/or add another light source. But they would HAVE TO move forward to make ANY difference.
And it will still look poor even with rewiring, unless someone can resculpt the eye section. Not an easy job with an Ironman figure. All the sandpaper in the world won't replicate engineered/moulded plastic.