Need help: head-to-body match

I posted this earlier @OSW, but I thought I'd post the question here as well.  I was recently able to acquire one of the items that had been in my Wanted list for the longest time: a CM Toys bearded PMC head. See photos.




I'm not sure if this is an original or recasted one. The "Buy it Now" price on eBay wasn't too high, so I believe it may be recasted.

As you can see in the pics, the neck attachment is different from what I consider the usual (SS, E&S or DAM), thus I'm kind of at a loss as to which body I could use for this head.

Do I need a special type of neck adapter?

Need help guys. Please post your suggestions and thanks a mil.

I wish I was paying more attention to what I get. There is a type of inside neck connector that has a tube-like void going all the way through it, and I wonder if perhaps this is not one of those.

If everything else fails, roll up a foamie into the opening and jam a standard neck peg into it. This should help until you find the perfect fit (if you still think you need it), and it will give you the freedom to utilize pretty much any body you want.

@GubernatorFan: thanks for the foamy suggestion.  Given my outstanding skills in body mods , this may very well be the way to go.

I did put the head on a SS body I had around and it looks kinda awkward, so I'm wondering if there aren't any bodies around with a longer neck than SS.  Also tried on the E&S neck adapter (the one from their "Sully" figure) but the CM Toys' head has a neck hole that's too shallow for the E&S neck.

I'm hoping someone else can chip in & post some more intel on this.

PitViper, I suspect you've been at this longer than I, but just in case it is useful, check out my recent Head Conversion Tutorial, posts 1 and 16, which touches upon some of this. Foamies (you can cut them at different length as needed, but I will say thick ones work best to keep the neck peg tightly in there) also would allow you to manipulate the height fairly freely. If memory serves me right, World Box has a fairly long neck and tall neck peg, but it is probably not that different from the bodies you already tried (is it the beard that gets in the way)?

It looks like the insert sits really far up or is integral. So is the result a 'no neck' look? Following GF's foam method, I do a similar thing with blue tack (the white version) to make it sit higher and stabilise the head. Cool sculpt!

DFC -- if this were a "standard" inside neck connector at a standard depth, I'd imagine PitViper would have tackled it by now.
MarkEl -- it does seem really deep to me too, hence my suggestion, although the molded beard could be another source of complication. And I agree, it doesn't really matter what non-permanent solution one adopts, as long as it works. Foamies are mess-free, and a decent makeshift solution.

Guberantor Fan, thanks for that awesome tutorial you posted.  It's really helpful, but in this particular case the head's already able to fit onto a figure with a "build-in" neck.  In other words, it doesn't seem to require a specific adapter.  If you recall SS bodies already have that kind of a neck, and they have a circular peg that will keep the head from falling off.  The PMC head does have an inner circular socket, but it is too large for the SS peg.  Moreover, like GF & MarkEl mentioned, the PMC's head does seem to have a much deeper socket than others I've seen.  That fact, plus the SS neck been a bit shorter than others, and it is exactly as MarkEl described - the "no-neck" look.  However, the beard doesn't interfere with placing the head on the SS body, although it does contribute to that  funny/awkward look.  Since my last post, I tried the head on a newer DAM body (PMSCs in Syria). Again the same issue with the neck peg being too small for the PMC socket, but the longer DAM neck makes it look a lot better.

Therefore, I believe I'll be searching for a loose DAM body with neck peg.  Ahhh, the kitbasher's work never ends, and neither does his spending...

Thanks to all for your comments/insights.

PitViper -- my suggestion was intended in case a makeshift solution can help you fix the head successfully on a neck peg that is not quite the right size or does not reach deep enough -- one or both of these issues still seem to be in your way. I am sure you'll get it to work in the end.

DeltaForceChung wrote:I often wondered if ALL 1:6 brands at one point or another deliberately changed their design "fit" as a FU to the other brands to avoid being "universal"?

There's no doubt in my mind...that's exactly the case.

This hobby has never been overly "user friendly," so to speak, unless one exclusively buys boxed sets. Bashers seem to be foiled at many turns and much of that is by design.

DeltaForceChung wrote:I often wondered if ALL 1:6 brands at one point or another deliberately changed their design "fit" as a FU to the other brands to avoid being "universal"?

EXAMPLE(S) . . .

Years ago . . . the CY GIRL boot feet design was the norm.  However, that began to fluctuate with other 1:6 brands coming into the fold where now the PHICEN feet design is more or less the standard.  HT tried their own design with mixed reception from collectors.

The same with head sculpts with and without necks as well as differences and variances in neck posts and now inner neck adapters within the head sculpts with no neck.

It get <CENSORED>ing annoying to customizers and kit bashers.

I dunno, it always felt to me like the male side of the house never standardized on anything, at least partially to try and lock in collectors and make life harder for customizers. I've never had as much luck going cross-brand with male stuff as I've had with female stuff.

I'd also say that there were competing standards for the female figures, too: don't forget that Dragon Models and Hot Toys had female bodies that were completely incompatible with the Takara/BBi CyGirl standard (which was adopted/stolen by nearly everyone else). DML and HT just made far fewer female figures and never achieved the same traction in the market as the CyGirl clones did. Even the initial Phicen bodies used the same CyGirl-style boot-foot socket, until the stainless steel bodies reset the standards.

For better or worse, the female 1/6 market seems small enough that one player tends to dominate, setting a de facto standard by default (vs. the male figure market, which has many more players and, increasingly, specialization among manufacturers). These days, the female standard seems to be Phicen/TBLeague, but the Verycool female bodies are still compatible with that old Takara CyGirl boot foot design, and even Phicen/TBLeague wrist pegs are still compatible with Takara-style hands, assuming you can pop the hands off the wrist pegs. But I'd definitely say that the modern female market has had an explosion of body types/proportions lately, and this makes purchases a bit dodgier. It's worse when the prototype photos show a perfect fit, but the actual product is weird and you start suspecting it's the body type that's the problem rather than the clothing set itself (as I discovered with the CAT Toys "not-Motoko-Kusanagi-for-a-few-reasons" sets from the live-action Ghost in the Shell). Same thing happened just recently with a set from HotPlus, which seems to be custom-tailored to exactly one Phicen/TBLeague seamless body type.