My Bandai Figuarts 6 inch AotC Anakin and Padme figures

Since I'm apparently on a bit of a 1/12 kick at the moment, I thought I'd share some pics of what are, thus far, my personal fave 6 inch figures.

These are some of the first 'high end' Star Wars figures that I ever splurged on, and hoo boy, was it a steep learning curve for me. The first time I attempted to 'pre-order' them, I had no idea what I was doing and got swindled by a phony seller, and lost quite a bit of money. It greatly shook my confidence at the time, and for a while after I was afraid to attempt to purchase them, or any 'expensive' figures, again. Several months down the road, however, I came across the Padme for a very good price from an EU seller, and jumped at the chance. Thankfully I managed to find the Anakin soon after as well, albeit with much ishipping and customs fees from the US.





Pics from when I first unboxed them - front and rear views. ;D



When I got these, I had no intention of collecting others in this scale, nor did I plan to delve any further into higher-end figures. I had simply wanted them as they were, at that point, a must-have 'Holy Grail' for any Anakin x Padme fan. (Little did I know that the Hot Toys Anakin would soon be announced, and I'd suddenly be salivating over saving up for that, too. The rest is of course, history... )

I love these for both nostalgic and fangirl-ish reasons, but I also think they are excellent depictions of the characters and just all around nice figures. The Anakin may not be an exact likeness of Hayden, but he is ridiculously adorable. To me he looks a bit like a more stylized version of film-Ani, with perhaps a dash of animated or even some of the comic depictions of Anakin. His 'angry' battle face has Hayden's distinctive heavy/furrowed brow, which does enhance the movie likeness. The sculpt for Padme, however, is an incredible likeness for such a small size, and is without a doubt the best version of her in any scale thus far. I'm sure Hot Toys will eventually 'beat' it, but there is a sweetness to the features on this little figure that I have a feeling might be lost on any eventually 1/6 versions, which will likely feature a sterner 'battle' face only. I may be proven wrong -- I hope I will be! -- but for now I am very grateful that such a delightful version of this character exists. : )

If I have any complaints about these figures at all, it's more of a general nitpick regarding Bandai's style ....in that, I wish the rest of the body and clothing had more detailed paint jobs, rather than just being pastic moulded in certain colours, if that makes sense. The faces do somewhat make up for it, but I think these figures would be even more amazing if their clothing had a little more detail. The Padme is a bit better for that, but, imo, Anakin's boots, belt, and tunics could have been given a lot more depth and realism if they had just been shaded or textured a bit. ETA: Also meant to add that I wish they had included an option to switch out Anakin's right hand/arm with his first golden mechanical one. While it's not necessary for Geonosis-Anakin, it would have satisfied my personal preferences....as I may or may not have an obssession with his various mech arms. ;p

Prior to my house move in the summer of last year (2018), I did a little photoshoot with them, as I knew it would be many months before I could unpack them and set them up again. It is, of course, a more romantically themed set, as that is the primary reason I wanted these figures. I based the poses on some of the adorably cheesy AotC promo pics from back in the day. ;D















*cue 'Across the Stars'...* ;D



And one of the final pics I took before packing them away....




“Space may be cold, Padmé, but it’s warm in my Jedi robes.” – Anakin, probably

For their size, these are really well done. As you say, especially the NP. I’m always pleasantly surprised when figures turn out this good at this level. You seemed to have gotten a pair with decent paint apps.


And I have a feeling this is going to be the look HT offers when they finally get around to Padmé, but I also suspect, despite the obvious stern expression she’ll come with, that the quality of the head sculpt will sway you to get her — heck, it might even sway ME to get her. I can’t imagine you having Anakin but not Padmé in 1/6 scale; maybe, at some point, HT will make her in one of her other outfits, then they will probably give her a more neutral expression. But, who knows when any of this will be — they still have Marvel movies to make the 600th version of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, and other characters we DON’T need any further iterations of, before they spend time getting to characters from other franchises. They’ve given collectors two different versions of Anakin, and instead of making ONE Padmé, they give us some Clone Trooper guy very few people care about... Howard’s logic escapes me at the best of times. Though I do wonder if Natalie is even willing to sign off on her likeness at this point.

Adorable shots of a couple of lovely figures!

I agree the likeness is not perfect but I must admit bandai/figuarts is still very talented in capturing the character's essence, their releases are always the best versions compared to blackseries or revoltech...

Let's hope Hot toys will give a try at Padme to go with Ani!

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks so much, guys, glad you like them!

And @Stryker -- for sure!! A Hot Toys Padme, regardless of what 'look' they go for, will be an INSTANT pre-order for me, without any hesitation! I love that character with all my heart and I would never pass up a chance to have a 'matching' Padme for my HT Anakin. I would probably end up picking up lots of extra heads, either official or knock-off, for customization purposes as well.  

Regardless of any behind the scenes stuff, I'm pretty confident HT will make a figure of her eventually. Hasbro finally caved in and is putting out a 6 inch Black Series Padme, and I can't imagine HT will not join in. Though I completely agree that their choices of certain releases can be extremely baffling. On a personal level, I have been frustrated and annoyed that the 'new' female characters have gotten the HT treatment but the character who I feel is far more worthy of it hasn't.

That being said, I am now used to waiting, and if there is one good thing that has come out of HT's slowness on the matter, it is the fact that it has forced me to start making my own custom 1/6 Padme's! I haven't formally shared them here, because some of them are taking me forEVER, but hopefully will be able to soon. : )

Hopefully I will also be able take more pics of these Figuarts ones as well, once I get my new SW collection area set up....

These look really really good skywalkersaga, thank you so much for sharing.

I have to agree the Padme likeness is one of the best I have seen yet in this scale.

Paul

Thanks so much, scalawag! I'm glad you like the Padme -- even the photos don't really do her or the Ani figure complete justice. :')

And thanks again for posting your own amazing 6 inch collection -- your pics inspired me to share some here too.

I agree that these look great, and all the more so considering the scale of the figures. Funny, I was actually looking at one of those Anakins yesterday and at first thought he was 1:6 scale.

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree that these look great, and all the more so considering the scale of the figures. Funny, I was actually looking at one of those Anakins yesterday and at first thought he was 1:6 scale.

That IS funny, GF! Though I guess it just speaks to the quality of these for their size. I hope that eventually Hot Toys will make an AotC Anakin, though I'm not sure how likely that is, given that they already put out two versions of him from RotS in the last year or so. I would hope that if they make an AotC Padme, which is most likely what they will do, that they'd also make a matching Anakin, but I also know that particular version of my dear Ani is hardly the most popular one amongst the typical collecting demographic , so... we'll see. This Figuarts one was surprisingly popular for all that, though!

Unfortunately, the Figuarts 6inch RotS Anakin was a huge disappointment for me, especially compared to this one. I'd been really hoping it would match this one in terms of the likeness side of things, but imo the headsculpt and expressions on it were just... horrible. So I gave that one a pass.  It was prior to Hasbro announcing that they were re-releasing their 6 inch RotS Anakin with a better paint job as well, so I just had kind of presumed I was going to end up with no RotS Ani at all in that scale.

I'm really glad I managed to find this early 'pre-order' version that came with both the regular and battle faces, as it is harder to find now. And from what I can tell, the Padme is even more rare.

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree that these look great, and all the more so considering the scale of the figures. Funny, I was actually looking at one of those Anakins yesterday and at first thought he was 1:6 scale.

If you look at Sideshow's earliest Anakin, this isn't far off. So it would be easy to confuse this for 1/6 scale.

Stryker2011 wrote:

If you look at Sideshow's earliest Anakin, this isn't far off. So it would be easy to confuse this for 1/6 scale.

Thankfully sans the drag queen lipstick paintjob on that one!

Nice pics. I'm going to have to set a shooting session for my Figmas, SHFs and Nendoroids. LOL

Thanks , doodlehobby! And yes, please do ... I liked your pics of some of your smaller figures in the review thread, and was curious about them. : )

Hah and I thought Bandai only makes those armored dudes. And now they are finished with the love stuff, the next pics will show some lightsaber and blaster action, right?

Ovy wrote:Hah and I thought Bandai only makes those armored dudes. And now they are finished with the love  stuff, the next pics will show some lightsaber and blaster action, right?

LOL!

And yes, I do plan to take some pics of them in their Geonosis Battle poses, and will add those here eventually. Just haven't been able to unpack them or set them up in my new house yet....

ETA: Not that I feel the need to defend myself at all for the lovey-dovey poses, but bear in mind that my original audience for these pics was my fandom followers on my tumblr blog, hence why I didn't bother posting pics of them in more typical poses. There were already lots of those floating around there, and I knew my fellow Anakin x Padme fans were wanting other types of 'action'.

Plus, I am unabashed fangirl and shipper, so I also did it for my own satisfaction. ;D

They really are a cute couple and perhaps not technically accurate, they did capture their look super well!

Aw, thanks , Peaches — glad you like ‘em!

Nice!

Mykombini on eBay have been my go to for Figuarts Star Wars. Even though I really don't like the prequels, Figuarts did Obi Wan and Darth Maul so well that I had to have them. I never actually took many pics as I had nowhere to share them. Here are a couple of Maul though:





Their Vader was awful though and I got the Black Series in the end.

CHEERS!

That’s a nice-looking Maul, Roger, thanks for sharing! And I appreciate the recommendation of the source.... especially after what happened with these, lol.

I really liked the Figuarts TPM Obi-Wan as well, he was one of their better Prequels Obi-Wan figures. The AotC one was alright as well, but I was not happy with the RotS Obi and Ani... the faces were just too off. The Anakin being downright horrible. D:

Also agree on the Figuarts Vader -- I passed on that one too. I still really want/need a 1/12 Vader, but I wasn’t sure if the Black Series ones were worth it ... maybe I’ll give those another look. I have the Kotobukiya Artfx RotJ ‘Return of Anakin Skywalker’ Vader, but that one is 1/10 obviously, so is kinda on his lonesome.

And no worries, I’m well aware that most folks on this forum aren’t keen on the Prequels. ;p In my case, I was a young teenager when TPM was released, and I loved it earnestly, unabashedly, and wholeheartedly at the time. Went to high school wearing Queen Amidala makeup and everything, lol. Like many others though, in the subsequent years after, I went through a period where I dismissed it and the rest of the PT films. But there are a lot of reasons why I now focus on that era, and I feel confident enough in my re-found appreciation of the Prequels that I can happily enjoy them on my own. I can also empathize, though, as goodness knows there are certain recent SW things that I vehemently loathe myself. But these days I just try to ignore what I don’t like and focus on what I do... it’s too draining otherwise. I feel that SW is expansive enough that there is room for everyone's preferences, no matter what era they enjoy best. : )

So, I greatly appreciate everyone here for being so accommodating even when it might not be something they are personally all that enthused about. Hopefully a little dose of the 'Twilight of the Republic' era might at the very least add some variety.  : )

The ROTS Obi Wan just looked like Noel Edmonds to me. The BS Vader is brilliant, the only one that looks like Dave Prowse in the costume. I put the Mafex cape on mine and tucked the inner robe under the armour like in ROTJ. I added the chain too.



CHEERS!

LOL, yeah, whoever he looked like, it was not RotS Obi-Wan.

And ooooooh, I LOVE what you've done with that Black Series Vader! The cloak on it was always the thing that turned me off of getting him, but that Mafex cloak looks incredible, as does the added chain! RotJ is my fave Vader, so I love it even more. Thank you for sharing. :')

You'll break your nails doing it, but, you gently pry up the shoulder armour and manhandle the inner robe underneath it. Just be careful.

CHEERS!

Great looking Vader and Maul, Roger. I may not have liked the prequels, but I do have a Maul on his way from Sideshow -- he's just too cool of a character not to have (it was just mind-boggling how quickly they bumped him off in Episode I after so little screen-time). But, I think he'll look cool in my Jabba display (even though he was "dead" by then).

Roger, your Maul and customized Vader look great -- good call.

Thanks,

I'd always wanted a Vader, and did like Maul and what Ray Park brought to him. I couldn't afford them in 1/6 and 1/12 was a viable option. These 2 are the best examples of each, better, dare I say it, than any 1/6 ones are.

CHEERS!

I’m with you on that, Roger — I have yet to find my perfect 1/6 Vader, either. Hot Toys are making a 1/4 RotJ Vader, but I’m waiting hopefully for the day they make a 1/6 version of the same.

I do have several Vader’s (and a Maul or two) in 3.75” scale, as that’s been my main collecting scale until only the last year or so when I got into 1/6. I’m keen to have examples of Anakin/Vader in all the ‘main’ scales eventually. But gotta try to focus or it gets overwhelming (and way too expensive), fast.  : p