Undersized head sculpts: The Rise Of The Tiny Noggin

I just got a Flagset Ghost Patrol sculpt that I was really looking forward to matching with a TBL male body.

It's a really nicely-crafted sculpt. Unfortunately, in 1/6 terms, it is the size of a child's head and it looks ridiculous on every 1/6 body I've struggled to place it on. Granted I don't own any Flagset bodies to compare the scale with, and so I'm now forced to consider buying the dedicated body for this sculpt at extra undesirable expense. Are Flagset known for their undersized sculpts (this is the first one of theirs I've ever bought to my knowledge)?

I have noticed, however, that this seems to be an unsettling recent trend.

We know that YMTOYS sculpts often tend toward being undersized and this often creates frustration for those who  plan ahead to match them with particular bodytypes. Fortunately we now know this is a possibilty and I for one take it into account before buying, even though YM have never acknowledged the fact. With a female sculpt, allowances can be made as smaller bodies are available. That's fine.

Recently, however, I bought a male DAMTOYS sculpt that was also off-scale. DAMTOYS have until now been extremely reliable. Their craftsmanship is exemplary and in that regard my new purchase is no exception. But it's much too small. It is appreciably smaller than the half-dozen or so other DAMTOYS sculpts I own (including a female one).

Has anyone else noticed this? Are Flagset and DAMTOYS 1/6 bodies becoming smaller to match these smaller sculpts? Have I just been unlucky twice in a row? Am I only dreaming? Will you still love me tomorrow? Do you know the way to San Jose?

That's quite surprising about the DamToys male sculpt, GeeW. But then I don't actually purchase all that many male headsculpts, so unfortunately I cannot really say if that is some kind of trend or just a strange fluke.

Regarding the female heads and bodies.... that is a tricky one. Mainly because I do think female tbleague bodies had traditionally been rather oversized for a while in both height and stature. I think the 'regular' female bodies were measured at one point and were nearly the equivalent of 6 feet tall. Of course there are women that height and taller, but it's certainly not a depiction of an 'average' woman. And compared to, say, Hot Toys' female bodies, those 'glamazon' tbleague bodies were indeed just super tall. It is likely that the later tbleague male bodies (other than the poor m33!!) skewed somewhat taller to go better with their female bodies, but even so, the only tbleague male body that I would consider 'ridiculously' tall is the M36, which is intentionally that way.

Since joining the hobby, I have mostly used Hot Toys' body sizes as a sort of 'standard' to compare things to. Not because I think their bodies are the best quality or anything (they are not), but because they tend to be fairly consistant (not always, but more than other companies), and they do, for better or for worse, set the standard. Also, most of my custom figures are made to be integrated into my Hot Toys collection, so it was only practical to use them as a base comparison.

When I started making customs, the first thing I noticed was that it seemed really difficult to get a shorter and more petite female body that looked like the right height next to my male figures. That's where the PopToys Xing and the tbleague s25b came in super handy. So my personal needs and taste lean towards the shorter bodies, because they were like a holy grail to me when I ifinally found them. I certainly don't mind smaller heads existing as options (for female figures at least), but of course it wouldn't be great if that's all there was, either.

So, I can't really comment on if it's a trend in a negative sense, since for me the smaller heads were very much welcome. I can see why it would be frustrating though, especially for male figures! That's just strange...

Are you going to San Francisco? Who put the Bomp (in the Bomp Bomp Bomp)? How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?

And most importantly, how can we tell if a particular head sculpt will match a particular body type? My "introduction" to the 1/6 seamless figure world was disappointing. I purchased a TBLeague body (S07 or 09, I think it was) and a Kumik head. The Kumik head turned out to be beyond microcephalic. It was so small that when paired to that body, it wouldn't have even made a believable circus sideshow character. And then there's the whole colour-matching issue.

I then decided that I would only purchase complete figures. Well, that gets expensive real fast, and even then, well... as an example, I find that the heads included with the S34/35 bodies look a bit undersized, at least to my eye; but they work well on the even more petite S26/27. It has since been a matter of trial and error to match heads to bodies, both in size and in color.

As you say, in my experience, too, the YMToys heads run small, but knowing that, I have had good luck matching them to the ultra-slim "anime style" S36/37 bodies.

I recently purchased my first seamless male body, an M32. Fortunately, both of the heads I had in mind for it actually fit and matched in color. One was a Triad Toys head, and the other a generic off-brand head I found on eBay. I will probably add one more seamless male body to the collection to match the second head, and then stop. The frustration and the expense of playing the head-matching game is too rich for my hobby budget.

The size of heads has been an ongoing source of frustrations for many, MANY years in this hobby, unfortunately. Yes, I have found that every single Flagset head I've seen in-hand, has unfortunately been underscaled for their smaller bodies. I've given up, frankly, buying them loose for that very reason. I don't particularly care for their bodies, so I just don't get the heads at all anymore. (I currently have heads from Pop, Flirty Girl, Super Duck, YMT, Very Cool -- many of which still do not have bodies to go with them. Many of them I'm not too worried about -- but I'm personally not all that excited to have to use the mid-size or the smaller sized TBL bodies (my go-to for most projects), as I don't find those bodies particularly useful; but sadly, it seems, those are often the only bodies that work for -- as has been pointed out -- for some heads.
I haven't bought any DAM heads in a while, but I have purchased a couple (not sure of the brand) that didn't work well for the World Box bodies (my preferred for jointed bodies) as the neck opening on the head often isn't wide enough to accommodate the thick necks that the WB bodies have. Since most of my male characters are generally fully clothed (yes, I know, ladies -- I'm a pervy old man for making my mini-girls always dress half-naked), I don't generally like to use TBL for the male figures.

The one time I bought a loose Flagset head I had the exact opposite experience, the head turned out to be huge and didn't look well on any of my loose bodies; had to buy the specific body for that head in order to make a decent kitbash. That was the Mark Wahlberg Battle of Abbas Ghar figure. I've steered clear of Flagset heads ever since.