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Product Review: Five Goslings mini review

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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
Founding Father
Actor Ryan Gosling has been in a large number of films and, although he has not portrayed a major blockbuster superhero (unless I'm having a senior moment as I write this), has received at least six sixth-scale treatments. Between two boxed sets and three loose head sculpts, I have picked up five of the six. The one that got away is Redman Toys' driver, which I never sought out after some disappointing reviews and photos, featuring what looked like some very roughly sculpted hair strands.

Roughly in chronological order, the five Ryan Goslings here are:
1. DID LAPD SWAT Assaulter Driver (boxed set)
2. K-Hobby (head sculpt only)
3. BBK Drive (boxed set)
4. Elite Clone K (also marketed as Officer K) (head sculpt only)
5. Blackbox Replicant Killer (boxed set, although I only picked up the head)

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So, whether you want to showcase the actor's character from Drive or from Blade Runner 2049 or kitbash the character from The Nice Guys or The Place Beyond the Pines, you ought to have plenty of options to work with.

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Ironically, as you can probably tell from the images (and see the zoomed-in photos below), while each head sculpt is fairly decent, none is a truly exact or outstanding likeness of the actor. While the frontal looks are dubiously successful in various ways, the profile looks tend to be quite good in each case.

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The Elite head sculpt appears to be almost identical to the BBK one, except that the Elite version has a much thinner face and neck. The Replicant Killer head sculpt by Blackbox suffers in part from the atypical darker hair color and the different, relatively unfamiliar more wearied look of the actor, and has been received some dismissive comments. While I agree that something is off (again, especially in the frontal look), I am impressed by the extremely fine texturing of the skin and hair on this (most?) recent head sculpt.

What do you think?

#head #film #blackbox #bbk #elite #did #khobby #productreview


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ReverendSpooky

ReverendSpooky
Really interesting, and very appreciated review. I've been thinking of picking up a Gosling head, as I feel like he'd be a good fit for a character I have in mind. I've been staring at your pics for the last 5 minutes trying to decide which way to jump on this. I think I've now narrowed down to the K-Hobby or BBK. Thanks for posting!


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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
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ReverendSpooky wrote:Really interesting, and very appreciated review.  I've been thinking of picking up a Gosling head, as I feel like he'd be a good fit for a character I have in mind.  I've been staring at your pics for the last 5 minutes trying to decide which way to jump on this.  I think I've now narrowed down to the K-Hobby or BBK.  Thanks for posting!

Thank you, ReverendSpooky. Well, if you are more or less evenly divided on them, you might decide on the basis of how much (or little) modification you would have to make for your custom figure. K-Hobby is without neck (like the Blackbox head too), BBK comes with a molded neck permanently attached (like the DID and Elite heads, too).


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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
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ReverendSpooky -- just in case, here is the sixth head, which I hadn't gotten (from Redman Toys). Again, some of it conveys the actor's look and yet it's not quite right; moreover, the level of detail seems to be lower.

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dadrab

dadrab
Excellent observations and mighty well done, sir.

Thank you.

ReverendSpooky

ReverendSpooky
GubernatorFan wrote:ReverendSpooky -- just in case, here is the sixth head, which I hadn't gotten (from Redman Toys). Again, some of it conveys the actor's look and yet it's not quite right; moreover, the level of detail seems to be lower.

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Oh man, appreciate the heads up! That bit of hair on the forehead is a deal breaker, since I want to redo the hair. Might ended up looking for the other 2 both. You can never have too many, right?

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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
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ReverendSpooky wrote:Oh man, appreciate the heads up!  That bit of hair on the forehead is a deal breaker, since I want to redo the hair.  Might ended up looking for the other 2 both.  You can never have too many, right?

You are very welcome. And no, I will never tell you that you can have too many head sculpts. That said, I skipped that one. And the hair (and its rather simplistic sculpt) was the reason why.


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Stryker2011

Stryker2011
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That’s quite the comparison pics. I agree, the BBK sculpt looks most like him. While not a big fan of his, it’s cool to see all the differences side by side.


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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
Founding Father
I am glad you could pick one, Stryker. It is hard for me to do. Most of them seem off in one way or another (hard to put a finger on it), and yet most of them seem to be very good in profile.


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ReverendSpooky

ReverendSpooky
GubernatorFan wrote:I am glad you could pick one, Stryker. It is hard for me to do. Most of them seem off in one way or another (hard to put a finger on it), and yet most of them seem to be very good in profile.

It's funny, off is usually good for me. I'm usually looking for something that has the qualities of the actor that I like, but since I'm usually going for an original character, if it doesn't look exactly like them, I'm actually a bit better off. In this case, both of those sculpts kinda do the job perfectly.

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blackpool

blackpool
I do have three of them, the DID swat has a very good likeness, may be the best so far, and the skin texture and sculpt level is really good. I saved that one to do his character from "only god forgives" and from "gangster squad" as it has a neck.

The sculpt by KHobby is my favourite because it sits perfectly on muscular bodies, hot toys or ZC clones, and the likeness is still very solid. The skin texture is less detailed, the hair as well, but ideal for a "drive" figure if you plan to have him built on a muscular (which I did for mine, bbk clothing is a bit loose on a narrow shoulder body but fits very nicely on a muscular)

From the bbk "drive" set I have the headsculpt as well, likeness is not as good but still solid to my eyes, the hair is much darker than on the two others he could barely be used as agent K. The weak point of that version for me is it is slightly undersized, and looks very "toyish" if dressed with many layers of clothing.

Thanks for the comparison pics, it was of great help to finally decide which agent K to order!

GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
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blackpool wrote:Thanks for the comparison pics, it was of great help to finally decide which agent K to order!

You're welcome. It is a conundrum... will the real Gosling please stand up? Or will there be a seventh, perfect head sculpt one day? If only the frontal view could be perfected to the point of the side view (where they are all really good). Well, technically Blackbox did agent K and that one has the darkest hair among the head sculpts. Also, I hope you realize that with a little bit of care (and an X-acto knife and blow drier) you could convert a head with a neck into a head without one, since that seems to be something you consider a limitation. I do it on principle with most of my loose head sculpts.


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Rogerbee

Rogerbee
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He has one of those faces where he can look completely different in any given pic. I see him in all of the heads, but the least in the Black Box one, in your pic at least, that looks the worst. To me, I think the Elite one is definitely the closest.

I actually see Shia LeBeouf in the Black Box.

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MarkEl


Excellent mini review GF as always! Really like how you take the time to do matched photo comparisons in controlled lighting. I knew who you meant in the title as opposed to give five geese hatchlings. ;-)

I’m surprised, but I’m gravitating to the K Hobby one with BKK as my runner up.  .  I’ve seen it online before but passed over the sculpt as it seemed plain.  It looks much better here in context and the proportions seem more accurate (to me).  Gosling’s natural colour is usually listed as dark or dirty blond, but who knows as it’s radically different in films, so you could justify all the hair colours here.  This one is the best match to that, although true to the tradition of 1/6 manufacturers, they went light brown more than dark blond.  I’ve never figured out the industry aversion to a male blond headsculpts.  Close enough though.

GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
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Rogerbee wrote:I see him in all of the heads, but the least in the Black Box one, in your pic at least, that looks the worst. To me, I think the Elite one is definitely the closest. I actually see Shia LeBeouf in the Black Box.

Interesting. Elite seems to be the same as BBK, except slimmer/narrower. Black Box is most atypical, as it tries to convey an atypical look for the actor, and unusually dark hair. But now that you mention it, yes, it does look a little bit like Shia LeBeef (as my friends calle him) frontally! Smile

MarkEl wrote:This one is the best match to that, although true to the tradition of 1/6 manufacturers, they went light brown more than dark blond.  I’ve never figured out the industry aversion to a male blond headsculpts.  Close enough though.

Thanks for the kind comments. As for the blonde hair problem, as Michael Crawford can tell you, it is very hard to achieve with molded hair. Something about the color and what he calls a translucent quality of the look. We tend to think simplistically of blonde hair as yellow, but it is usually a form of light brown or beige (unless artificially dyed). I wonder if some experiments in Pantone matching with actual samples from a handfull of representative actors (or even "regular" people) might not advance this area of the art.


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Stryker2011

Stryker2011
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The key to blonde hair (something I had before I got old), is layering of color. When I was a little kid, my hair was SO blonde, it was close to white with barely a hint of yellow. As I got older, it became more of a “dish-water” blonde (brownish with yellow highlights). Now it’s darker brown with lots of grey. They need to start out with a darker brown color, then go lighter and lighter with each subsequent layer, adding a bit of yellow highlights. The layering of color is what brings out the proper effect, but that takes time, and these companies are pretty much slapping on one, maybe two, layers of paint, when you really need about 8 - 10.
Before I switched to English as a major, I had gone to Art School for Illustration (I wanted to make comic books)— Color class was a HUGE benefit; it forced us to really analyze pictures closely to see all the colors present. I once did an illustration of Sports Illustrated model Kathy Ireland, and the same colors appeared on both her skin and in her hair — aside from browns, there were purples, blues, reds, and greens — all to make tan skin and brunette hair. That’s the element that’s missing in the sculpted hair arena is all the varying colors that go into making it look realistic.


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GubernatorFan

GubernatorFan
Founding Father
Stryker2011 wrote:The key to blonde hair (something I had before I got old), is layering of color. When I was a little kid, my hair was SO blonde, it was close to white with barely a hint of yellow. As I got older, it became more of a “dish-water” blonde (brownish with yellow highlights). Now it’s darker brown with lots of grey. They need to start out with a darker brown color, then go lighter and lighter with each subsequent layer, adding a bit of yellow highlights. The layering of color is what brings out the proper effect, but that takes time, and these companies are pretty much slapping on one, maybe two, layers of paint, when you really need about 8 - 10.

Interesting, and convincing. The change in hair color over time is certainly very common -- supposedly I had dark blond hair as an infant, which has changed to very dark brown, with occasional red on the edges (from the sun?), now slowly shifting in the direction of George Clooney's signature salt and pepper look.
One of the heads I was just repainting was Hot Toys' Ivan Drago. They had made a very poor choice, giving him bronze hair (see Michael Crawford's review, http://www.mwctoys.com/REVIEW_100307a.htm ), and I repainted it a flat darkish brown, then added blond highlights, some of them faint (on the sides), others more opaque and emphatic (on the top), to convey the actual appearance on film. I don't know how successful I was, but I do think it is an improvement on what I started with. You'll see in my M35 review and let me know. So we think of Dolph Lundgren as blond, but is he? He does seem to have very consistent dark roots in most images, and certainly as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. It may also confuse the issue, that some of the hair is so short or phased that we probably see some skin through it.

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MarkEl


@Stryker and GF, really valid points about colour layering and perception. It does seems to be a time and production cost factor. You can pull off brown or black ina couple layers, but blond would end up look potentially like a GI Joe head. It’s something I look out for in my head sculpt searches as a rarity. A well done blond is as uncommon as a head sculpt with a natural smile. Paul Hogan is the only one I can think of that attempts both.

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