Vintage Phicen - TbLeague

That looks like another interesting project, DarthJ. : ) 

I do hope you will continue with this thread at some point -- I'm sure a lot of us find the topic of these older phicen/tbleague bodies to be of interest, especially since the longevity of these silicone bodies is something that comes up quite frequently as a concern for many collectors.

Indeed it is. I got a S10D body in... 2016 or 2017, I guess... and to this day it has no tear whatsoever... and I let it in some extreme poses for a month, than changed it to another pose, barely leaving it in neutral pose. At that time I didn't know about this problem.
Now the same didn't happen with my M33 and S23 bodies that I got in 2018, as well as some figures - Skarah and Fighter Woman. The figures were basically in neutral position but got some nasty tearing in the armpit and crotch areas. The M33 got a tear on one of his knees and the S23 teared on the elbow.

FreakinLobster wrote:Now the same didn't happen with my M33 and S23 bodies that I got in 2018, as well as some figures - Skarah and Fighter Woman. The figures were basically in neutral position but got some nasty tearing in the armpit and crotch areas. The M33 got a tear on one of his knees and the S23 teared on the elbow.

That sounds pretty bad. I haven't had the same experience with these bodies myself, so maybe it's the luck of a draw and some sort of individual or batch flaw?

I also believe it's a batch flaw, just bad luck of mine. I just remembered my Painkiller Jane and Death Dealer, as well as a M34 body, also got in extreme poses for quite some time and never tore. Still I'm scared to pose my most recent purchase, Arhian. It's a crime to let these figures in neutral stance... they demand ACTION!

FreakinLobster wrote:I also believe it's a batch flaw, just bad luck of mine. I just remembered my Painkiller Jane and Death Dealer, as well as a M34 body, also got in extreme poses for quite some time and never tore. Still I'm scared to pose my most recent purchase, Arhian. It's a crime to let these figures in neutral stance... they demand ACTION!

Well said! I hope they'll be fine.

From what I have seen we will have at least 2 types of figure to watch : the older ones feel much harder, more plastic while the new ones are softer and more like real skin, so obviously they changed the silicone "formula" which could result in a different reaction to aging. Though I think it will be the newer ones which are more fragile.
As for the skeletons it's the opposite : the metal skeletons are way stronger and smoother than the plastic ones though it seems there are some figures with problems (broken joints) lately.
Anyway, they are all doomed to become Shelf Queens and Kings. From experience, the figures get dirty (literally) just from being exposed out of the box. Bare human hands are poison to their skin. The skin edges at the wrists and ankles quickly show wear & tear from handling.

DarthJ wrote:From experience, the figures get dirty (literally) just from being exposed out of the box. Bare human hands are poison to their skin. The skin edges at the wrists and ankles quickly show wear & tear from handling.

A gentle wash, pat dry, and protective powder application do wonders. Said skin edges are a relatively weak spot, but gentle handling helps, and minor wear and tear seems very slow to progress, if at all. As someone who has skinned one of these on purpose (for science), it was remarkably difficult to do it, even with a sharp X-acto knife. The body was an M31.

Very true, GF. Even just a simple 'bust reduction' -- I have done several -- takes some effort!

The 3D "Colonial Mansion" project is finished. If you want to find out how DarthJ does his WIP, here, 21 pages and 10 years of NSFW reading.

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2817948

The figures will mostly be presented in no particular order, showing those I can catch, take pictures and identify. Maybe someone knows if and how it is possible to sort the posts alphabetically or chronologically as we go along.

Let's start with PLLB2012-10

Stated as "tan", her head is tan, her body skin however is pink flesh, showing a significant difference.
Her feet and hands are even somewhat paler than her body.

She is fitted with leg lenghteners, a practice they seem to have abandoned now.

Her hair is a redbrown ponytail. Looks natural.

Her expression is rather severe.

Very interesting -- thanks for sharing! : ) 

The headsculpt doesn't look too bad, considering it was a while ago. But that garish pink lipstick is just... yikes! lol. 

I still don't understand what they were thinking with that really angular shoulder design. I guess still working things out. 

The ankle extenders are odd, but I wonder if they did that so they'd be compatible with certain footwear that was popular at the time? 

Something I did notice is that the hand shape/mold seems to be the same style that Jiaou uses now [with the bit of the wrist attached], but which tbleague no longer does. Guess I know where Jiaou got it from...

The colour of the heads is less "solid",  somewhat as the first standard 1/12th heads today.

As for the legs, it's possible that they took a short Asian for model and then noticed that Caucasians are in general somewhat taller.

PL201102-12 is a Caucasian too (though her head could pass for an Indian) with short black hair.
Same problem, her head is darker toned than her "pale" body. Though you don't see much of a difference between the previous "tan" and this "pale".
Leg lengtheners here too. I did already mention that those bodies are really hard, similar to Barbies. I really don't feel inclined to try to bend any limbs.

It could be that the number indicates year "2011" body type "02" and version "12".

Thanks for resuming this with these posts. They both look pretty good, and the head sculpts quite good -- all the more so considering that this almost a decade ago.

I also noticed the upper arms appear rather short.... it might just be the position they are in, but it does remind me of some of tbleague's more recent bodies where they seem to have gone back to the shorter upper arm thing.

The ankle extenders as you call them were the popular ankle joints back then when Takara's Cy Cool Girls and similar were the "It" female figures. Most footwear was either hollow or had a ball joint that snapped into the ankle cup. Problem is the ankle cups broke easily, and except for the Cy 2.0 ( which had removable ankle extenders), you had to do a lot of reconstruction, parts swapping, etc. to fix it. I think the switch to the ball joints as part of the legs was a smarter way to go, though I do have a soft spot for my Cys.

That’s what I suspected, Nekk-ra — thanks for confirming .

Today we get PLLB2013-15 and PLLB2013-16. They are both packaged in white boxes with cut-outs.
Still a plastic skeleton though the skin is a new softer skin.

The head of 15 is a much better sculpt, an Asian blonde.  Nr 16's head is missing unfortunately, if someone finds it...
Still a tone difference between head (pale yellowish) and body (pale pinkish) though less obvious.

I like the less exaggerated features on these older bodies -- although I forget whether the shoulders can be posed in a more relaxed, sloping way, or not.

Yes, the less-ridiculous busts are nice....

I used to have a few of these, but after one or two broke their stupid plastic joints and my attempts at wire-based surgery failed, I swore off them. Didn't revisit seamless until TBLeague (then Phicen) started their steel skeletons.

Talking about "less exaggerated" : I have a few examples of what I think is a lesser known series.

But that's for the weekend.

I had the one that’s now headless. It’s another Asian, but with black hair. I honestly have no idea what happened to it. I had the same issues as the Guv with these early plastic bodies — they had a horrible habit of snapping if you so much as sneezed on them.

As promised, a series of 3 more natural less-endowed figures.

They share the same box with the right number being tagged.

PLSFB12-05 is pale. Asian with red hair.
PLSFB12-06 is tan. Caucasian with blonde hair.
PLSFB12-07 is brown. Caucasian with  black hair.

The Chinese already had trouble with Caucasian faces not looking like caricatures, let alone that they would try an African one.

What I have also noticed is that their hairdo, in particular the afro, gets badly crushed after years in the box.

I do love the more natural proportions of some parts of these old bodies. The head sculpts are dated by present standards, but still look pretty nice. The blonde reminds me of Mircea Monroe. One thing that does stand out with the older plastic-skeleton bodies is the way the "skin" would make creases at the armpits. Thanks for posting.

What stands out to me is how broad their shoulder are and how long it took for phicen/tbleague to realize and fix it.
This chocolate skin is so cool, it puzzles me why won't TBLeague release them again, specially after that male body... m36 I think?
If these bodies weren't so damn expensive to me, I would try to paint them.
Thanks, DarthJ, for the pics and infos.
(... And the swimsuit from the first of these three is dope. I'm gonna try to find it loose)

The packaging was more generous with nice swimsuits and 4 instead of 2 extra hands. Though no extra feet.
Coincidence or not, 3D human figures also had problems with bulging, square shoulders.

Next we have a series of 2012 PLMB and PLLB. All of these have detachable feet. Another thing I have noticed is that in base position not all figures stand straight, pulling somewhat to the right usually.

PLLB2012-02 (my favorite)



PLLB2012-07



PLLB2012-11



PLMB2012-01



PLMB2012-03

They seem to have held up very nicely, and are nice figures in and of themselves. The albeit minimal clothing provided with these (and some of the male) bodies is both useful and pretty well done.

One more

PLLB2012-13