NEW PRODUCT: GACTOYS: 1/6 European beauty star head carving [A, B, C, D, 4 models] [GC034]

That's odd... squarer jaws on those pics.
I hope the previous ebay pic you posted is the one we'll be receiving.

Yes, it's odd how different it looks again, isn't it?

I've had no reason to distrust the ebay seller concerned before, but GianToy are equally (if not more) trustworthy. Although I've noticed that 'elongated' quality to the ebay seller's pics before with other sculpts. GianToy have it listed as in stock at a reasonable price, so I'll probably order one from them soon.

When I'll receive it though is anyone's guess - the UK postal system seems to have gone haywire in the last few months with overseas items taking as much as two months to reach me now where previously it would take two or three weeks at the most. I know what I blame for that, but I won't drag us into the cesspit of UK politics.

Both images show a nice sculpt, but yeah, oddly different. Curious to see more in-hand pics for sure.

I’m guessing the elongated effect of the eBay seller has to do with foreshortening. The photo was taken too close to the subject.

AerynDiana wrote:I’m guessing the elongated effect of the eBay seller has to do with foreshortening. The photo was taken too close to the subject.

Indeed.

It'd be nice to see some in-hand pics of the other hairstyles as those badly-'shopped promo pics are clearly useless, but as it stands I'm probably going to go for Option B.

B is my preference, as well. But then I tend to only like factory/synthetic hair when it’s straight — the curly and wavy synthetic hair on 1/6 headsculpts always seems too poofy and out-of-scale to me.

Anyone receive this headsculpt yet? I realize there are many reasons for delays to occur at present, but I'm very curious about this one.

I was on the verge of ordering one from GianToy, but then Chinese holiday and pandemic time hit.

I may feel compelled to jump in on this soon despite any qualms whatever the situation - I've noticed that quite a few eBay sellers are doubling their prices on 'accessory' items all of a sudden.

Eek, yeah. Seems the 'scarcity' is driving up the prices on a lot of things. I've noticed that almost none of the usual Chinese sellers are showing up in my ebay searches atm. I know it's still technically the New Year holiday, but still.

ETA: Also, I was recently informed by one of the sellers I'd bought a loose Nancy in Hell head from, that the parcel had been 'lost in transit'. They are sending a replacement, but it's rather concerning since I've actually very rarely ever had anything get outright lost when ordering from such sellers. Sometimes taking a loong time, but not usually lost.

Yeah I've only had stuff 'get lost' twice in about five years, but at the moment it's a heightened risk. The other thing putting me off making purchases at the moment is that customs will be all over anything that's coming in from China right now, so not only could it get delayed or 'lost', it's much more likely than usual that we'd get gouged with customs fees too.

I'm pretty sure by now that GianToy have a UK warehouse (or at least a distributor), so once the holiday is over I'll have to ask them whether they've got this sculpt in the UK already or not.

GeeWillikers wrote:Yeah I've only had stuff 'get lost' twice in about five years, but at the moment it's a heightened risk. The other thing putting me off making purchases at the moment is that customs will be all over anything that's coming in from China right now, so not only could it get delayed or 'lost', it's much more likely than usual that we'd get gouged with customs fees too.

I'm pretty sure by now that GianToy have a UK warehouse (or at least a distributor), so once the holiday is over I'll have to ask them whether they've got this sculpt in the UK already or not.

If you find out, please let me know....

I will, but they might not even own up to having a UK outlet - they don't refer to it on their site at all. The only way I've come to that conclusion is because some of the stuff I've ordered from them has taken less than a week to reach me, and had a UK return address rather than a Chinese one.

Ah ok, gotcha. ; )

I've emailed GianToy about the above so I'll spill the beans once I get a reply.

Oddly though, even though it says it's 'in-stock' the B option now has a 'email me once it's available' tag, while the other options don't ...

Everyone must realllly like that version....

It probably has a lot to do with that being the one they chose to promote properly with the in-hand pic.



And the fact that it's clearly the best of the bunch.

yeah that too ;'D

Well I've heard back from GianToy and 'Amelia' was on the face of it fairly candid - they don't have any stock in the UK or a UK warehouse as such apparently, what they do claim to have is a 'special fast shipping' arrangement with Royal Mail and the UK return address I've seen is actually a kind of RM processing centre that bypasses the slow route. I don't know how that could actually practically work to be honest, but I won't push them on it further.

As for the situation with the Corona virus and/or the New Year celebrations, they hope to be cleared to be back in the store and shipping orders by Feb 10th.  They didn't actually respond to my particular question about this sculpt, frustratingly, but I'll put an order in anyway if they're back up and running after the 10th. Past experience would suggest even if option B is out of stock, they usually re-stock pretty quickly.

I’ve gotten packages from them fairly quickly, that have had a New York return address on them — she may be telling you the truth about the shipping partnerships.

Thanks for the info, GeeW! I’m looking forward to being able to order from them again, myself.

Regarding the other subject, the whole ‘quick shipping to the UK’ thing has certainly been happening for a while, so yeah ... it’s not necessarily a sign they suddenly got a warehouse here. I have no idea why they’d hide the fact, if it were indeed the case....

Stryker2011 wrote:I’ve gotten packages from them fairly quickly, that have had a New York return address on them — she may be telling you the truth about the shipping partnerships.

Ah, interesting...

In a number of ways they certainly seem to be one of the most reliable sellers around, that's for sure.

skywalkersaga wrote:... it’s not necessarily a sign they suddenly got a warehouse here. I have no idea why they’d hide the fact, if it were indeed the case....

No, fair enough, 'Amelia' seems pretty up-front when asked.

Yeah, I’ve never had a problem with Giantoy that wasn’t corrected after I contacted Amelia. Packages have gotten lost in transit a couple times, and I’ve been both partially refunded for the trouble, and sent the item ordered.

For those wondering about ordering from GianToy, they have posted that they are now shipping again, but with a notice that stock may be limited until factories start resuming operation again, which they estimate as sometime later this month: 

https://giantoy.com/blogs/news/we-are-back-shipping-now-heres-what-you-need-to-know

It's good that GianToy are back up and running, but I'm still inclined to wait a while longer to order anything from them until the situation improves. Not so much a case of pandemic panic on my part because as they say the virus is very unlikely to survive the overseas journey on an inanimate object, but it'll still take forever to receive stuff at the moment because of it, fast shipping agreement or not.

I don't get paid until the end of the month anyway so it'll be nice to give my bank account a little rest until March.

Yeah, I had the same concern about shipping times being super delayed regardless. I was not so patient though, lol -- I just ordered something from them, but chose a somewhat 'non-essential' item that I needed for a project but not an immediate one, so that if it does end up taking ages, then it's not a huge issue. ETA: I did this on purpose because I'm curious to see how long shipping takes from them at the moment. They are the only seller over there right now that I'm willing to take that risk with.

Yeah, they're the only seller I'd be willing to risk it with right now as well. As soon as March comes around I'll be ordering this Gal Gadot sculpt (and probably a base body too) unless something dramatic happens.


EDIT: Ehhh, broke down and ordered the GG sculpt in the spirit of solidarity with our Chinese chums.


That, and PayPal Credit broke my steely resolve



UPDATE:

Well overnight it's gone from 'pending' to 'shipped', so we'll wait and see.

So I have this now, and in under a week too!    

First impressions: In-hand, it looks most like the first seller's pic from eBay than any of the other photos posted so far (the seemingly-elongated 'yahoo-hoo' pic), but it isn't an exact match for any of them to my eyes - 'pinker' than the 'elongated' pic, less 'square' than GianToy's pic, and better-scaled than Gac's own promos (which I'm now certain are poorly-scaled and badly-photoshopped amalgams of two different photo sources for face and hairstyles).

I like it though - on the plus side, unlike every other Gal Gadot sculpt I know of it actually looks correctly-scaled to a TBL body (I tried it on an S19B I've got earmarked for a Vampirella kitbash), and it's a fairly-accurate likeness that looks less 'doll-like' than some of GAC's other sculpts. It also looks OK on a S23B muscle body, but personally I think Gal's real-life physique is best matched by a taller, slimmer S19, which is not perfect but close.

Slight niggles: the inner neck-socket fits TBL pegs, but is a little loose inside the sculpt itself. While this adds poseability to the head it also of course means it isn't very securely placed and works loose quickly. It can also create an unsightly gap between sculpt and neck. You can fix this easily enough with cotton wool wadding or thin foam inside the sculpt if you wish though. Niggle 2: the hair is cut a little roughly at the back giving a slightly uneven, choppy effect. This may just be peculiar to my purchase (I chose option B).

While I've only colourmatched sculpt with body under artificial light so far (still Winter in the UK and dusk descends early), the skintone is subtly but noticably pinker and 'warmer' on an older S19, but you can handwave this as makeup or blushing (as I will), and obviously the matching will appear different again under different lighting/photographic conditions. In the pics below for example , it looks more 'orangey' than pink.  The plus point (for me at least) is that the matching between this sculpt and a TBL Suntan body is perfectly acceptable. I'll see how it looks on a pale body later but I suspect it will appear too 'flushed'.

A couple of quick snaps:





More pics to follow if requested.