So. I passed aggressively (LOL) on this figure upon first release -- the price just bugged me, and I had no faith in SSC's quality and paint apps.
I recently had an opportunity to acquire one from another collector and took it -- the figure I would never buy wound up in my collection.
I haven't even bothered pulling the alternate head-sculpt out of the box to look at it. As for the rest of the figure:
I find the helmet is better than X-Wing Luke's ... colours are more accurate, and even though the weathering feels typically heavy-handed and uniform/low-resolution by SSC, it's still better and less stippled looking than on the X-Wing release, IMO.
The likeness with visor down is just fine, and displayed this way, any lack of depth in paint relative to HT becomes a non-issue.
Tailoring is most impressive. I can't see how HT would improve on it, particularly the flight jacket.
I don't love the SSC body, but it doesn't bug me enough (nor does the slight extra height) to swap it. At least not yet.
I really like it, more so than the X-Wing release and it looks great on the shelf. It takes some futzing to get things to sit right and work with the proportions and movement of whatever SSC has under there (Prometheus?) but it poses up well.
The pricing and apparently small production run still mystifies me. Had SSC made more at a moderately lower price I'm sure it would've sold through in greater numbers.
