What's with Hot Toys' overly tanned skin colors?

[Snake Plissken]

At least his sculpt is great. Otherwise he looks like an Egyptian pirate on the river Nile.

 

[Star Puffs]

I think the skin tone is always dark so it'll look better on flash photography. I sculpt, recast then paint 1:6 heads, but when painted in normal Caucasian (pinkish) skin tones and I take a picture with flash, the heads look so pale and dead.

I agree they do it for marketing purposes for this exact reason.

 

[MoMo]

My wife asked why Luke looked so dark. I told her "Two suns". She quickly shook her head and dismissed me.

 

[sabin23]

I always wondered the same thing about Hot Toys figures being so tan.

The first Hot Toys I ever got was the Superman (Reeves) in 2012 - I remember comparing movie stills of Christopher Reeve and even Hot Toys promo pics of the figure and being puzzled why Superman was so dark. I wondered if I had gotten a defective sculpt and for a couple weeks was debating whether to request a replacement/refund for SSC.

For whatever reason, I just accepted this was how it was with figures (with a fair complexion) and kind of forgot about it... until this topic was brought up today.

It's hard to strike a balance with the headsculpts - I noticed a lot of statues are way too pale. And while Hot Toys has very nice details when it comes to pores, freckles, etc, some figures are way too dark. Under certain lighting, it's not as noticeable.

 

[sabin23]

Hot toys plastic heads are made form PVC and other companies aren't. When tinted, it tends to look a bit dull, in contrast to styrene.

To lessen the costs of materials, the paint scheme is simplified to have a base tone over which they hand paint detail, shadows etc. The base color then comes from the tinted PVC that doesn't gives out the best properties or isn't well calibrated and isn't the most color stable polymer.

Color can be characterised in various forms. One is the HSV scale. Hue (color tint, green, blue, etc). Saturation (how intense is the color). Value (how brigth).

Some of the latest heads display a low value, low brightness and they look toned down. It could be corrected adding more opacifiers/brighteners to the plastic. Maybe they are cheaping costs or their factories are running them short... dunno.

Also they are "difficult to look at", in a sense in which they look semi transparent, just slightly. That is also a lack of opacifiers, and problem of the base color of the plastic that must be calibrated better.

I'm also not sure, but I believe their hue is a little towards the yellows in most heads. Actually PVC tends to yellow overtime in exposure to UV (as most plastics do) acquiring a yellowish brown look, however not only light affects it. Also heat and it could degrade easily the final color. So again, bad color calibration. Or maybe they are over compensating the yellowing with blue tinting...

If they were to use actual paint for the base color, instead of tinting the PVC, it'd look better as it adds little variations over the color blending, light scatering, etc. and they'd avoid the color contamination from the plastic itself. This is particularly noticeable in the press shots or expositions where they have presentation models that are hand painted and look well balanced, compared to the industrial model that you can buy

Thank you for your explanation. While most of the minutia went way over may head, I have a general idea of what's going on.

What scares me is that you mentioned PVC heads will turns yellow-ish brown over time. Makes me wonder how all our figures will look like long term - While nothing lasts forever, I'd hate to see our hard earned investments go down the drain.

We're already dealing with deteriorating suits/bodies (Batman Begins, Watchmen, Tyson) which can't even stand the rigors of the short term.

 

[Medusoid]

Sideshow has the same problem with some of their figures as well. I have the Hoth Luke figure, and I think the face is WAYYYYYY too tan. It's a decent enough figure, but the face can be distracting.

 

[parvo]

PVC is finicky in color stability, but is structurally stable. The color problems would be easily solved repainting the figure and there is an abundance of good painters, so it won't become a total loss in the worse case scenario. If the paint is well applied, it may change colors, but won't peel off in decades (there are vynil toys from the 80's holding up just fine). Most people wisely put their statues away from UV exposure, either storing them in their boxes or glass cabinets.

Hot toys was just founded on 2000. We shall see what happens in the years to come, although it'd be fun to see what's their official stance on color stability and predicted life time of their figures: if they've made some testing on color lightfastedness, yellowing, paint peeling, polymer degradation, etc, etc.

PVC won't dissolve in hundred of years with the thickness used in hot toys heads (unless you let it sit in a hot car during summer)
Ref: How Long Does it Take Plastic to Decompose?

On the other hand, some rubbers, as you pointed out, degrade in 5-10 years (vulcanized and latex being the lowest in shelf life: https://www.vulcanite.com.au/wp-content/uploads/technical/TDS-Shelf-Life-of-Rubber-Components.pdf), and that's what you're seeing in the batman suits.

There are platinum/polyaddition silicones rated for 50 years, that may last longer, (the one used for medical grade tubing), but companies don't normally use it because it's expensive. The workaround is that some artisans and crafters can make one custom for you with the good stuff , or you can make your own.

 

[Stevejack2]

Hot toys plastic heads are made form PVC and other companies aren't. When tinted, it tends to look a bit dull, in contrast to styrene.

To lessen the costs of materials, the paint scheme is simplified to have a base tone over which they hand paint detail, shadows etc. The base color then comes from the tinted PVC that doesn't gives out the best properties or isn't well calibrated and isn't the most color stable polymer.

Color can be characterised in various forms. One is the HSV scale. Hue (color tint, green, blue, etc). Saturation (how intense is the color). Value (how brigth).

Some of the latest heads display a low value, low brightness and they look toned down. It could be corrected adding more opacifiers/brighteners to the plastic. Maybe they are cheaping costs or their factories are running them short... dunno.

Also they are "difficult to look at", in a sense in which they look semi transparent, just slightly. That is also a lack of opacifiers, and problem of the base color of the plastic that must be calibrated better.

I'm also not sure, but I believe their hue is a little towards the yellows in most heads. Actually PVC tends to yellow overtime in exposure to UV (as most plastics do) acquiring a yellowish brown look, however not only light affects it. Also heat and it could degrade easily the final color. So again, bad color calibration. Or maybe they are over compensating the yellowing with blue tinting...

If they were to use actual paint for the base color, instead of tinting the PVC, it'd look better as it adds little variations over the color blending, light scatering, etc. and they'd avoid the color contamination from the plastic itself. This is particularly noticeable in the press shots or expositions where they have presentation models that are hand painted and look well balanced, compared to the industrial model that you can buy

Thank you for the detailed answer, if this is the case it makes sense. I would think they would easily solve this with a quick base undercoat of a decent colour, it wouldn't be expensive and would be easy to apply en-masse. It's a shame if the base color of the cast is what's making the heads so dark.

I initially thought it may have been because darker skin tones are more forgiving to mediocre paint jobs... you don't need to worry about the ruddy tones that make a paint app realistic. If everyone looks tanned the paint app is far easier to accomplish and easier to replicate when there are likely many different artists painting these heads.