General TBLeague 1/12 Discussion

Thanks for sharing the images. I think she looks good, bordering on better than expected. Actually, the thing holding me back from ordering one, is that I cannot see that many interesting outfits available for her.

Yes, those were some of the earlier 1/12 figures. : )

That Anna head looks great!
Shame about the struggles with the neck peg. Will have to check out the size of them all...

Diana, is Captain Sparta on the pale body? It looks like she might be from your video review and your recent pics in one of the other threads. If so, I think I know where that Anna head may be going.

Xavion2004 wrote:Diana, is Captain Sparta on the pale body?  It looks like she might be from your video review and your recent pics in one of the other threads.  If so, I think I know where that Anna head may be going.    

I think that's just an illusion due to the colors of the outfit. Her body is suntan.

Thanks, Diana.

Ugh.  This pale/suntan thing is VERY frustrating.  I did order the Wonder Festival version of Captain Sparta.  Might as well.  She was the only one I didn’t have at this point.  My philosophy is to get the figures now while they’re still affordable and have faith that 1/12 will increase in popularity and the third party goods that I would like to have for a couple of them will eventually come out.

I did have this really cool vision of having three Spartas between the two variants with each one sporting an Anna head. One variant (maybe the blue one) would be the actual captain and the other two would be soldiers. I’ll see when the first Sparta gets here. The Anna head came close to being “close enough” to matching Arhian. If Captain Sparta is even a little lighter, I might be able to make it work.

Xavion2004 wrote:I did have this really cool vision of having three Spartas between the two variants with each one sporting an Anna head.   One variant (maybe the blue one) would be the actual captain and the other two would be soldiers.

Oh that's a great idea!! I'll have to keep that in mind (or better not?) when I come across future releases.

Xavion2004 wrote:
I did have this really cool vision of having three Spartas between the two variants with each one sporting an Anna head.   One variant (maybe the blue one) would be the actual captain and the other two would be soldiers.  

Attack of the clones.

Screw it. It’s not a match, but it’s close enough, especially after I get her gear on.

Why, she looks very good to me.

Thanks, GF.  For some reason, if the figure is in direct light (sunlight or artificial light), the skin tones seem pretty close, but move it out of direct light, and difference becomes obvious.

I’m think I’m going to have to get used to the fact that there just aren’t enough third party goods in this style and scale right now to go much further beyond what you get in the box when buying a complete figure.

Xavion2004 wrote:Thanks, GF.  For some reason, if the figure is in direct light (sunlight or artificial light), the skin tones seem pretty close, but move it out of direct light, and difference becomes obvious.

Yes, light (or lack thereof) can play a surprising amount of difference. I've known this for a long time, and it still catches me off guard sometimes.

This is probably a more realistic look at the difference in skin tones, but even this was hard to capture on camera.

Ah yes. She looks good, but that would bug me. Maybe swapping the body for a pale one and using the Spartan body with a suntan head (or the standard head it comes with) makes more sense.

Xavion2004 wrote:.

I’m think I’m going to have to get used to the fact that there just aren’t enough third party goods in this style and scale right now to go much further beyond what you get in the box when buying a complete figure.

Unfortunately, yes, that's currently a limitation with 1/12. Though I'm sure in the not-too-distant future, things will improve....

This might work...”Battle Armor Arkhalla”. I kind of like it!

I agree, she looks good.

Since I’ve been on a TBLeague 1/12 female figure buying spree, I thought it would be fun to rank them, but that’s proving to be more difficult than I thought it would due how similar they are.  Not that they look the same, but there’s definitely a basic formula that they all share.  So I broke it down into tiers.

Tier One

Skarah
Tariah
Arhian (City of Horrors)
Sariah

The figures in Tier One are the figures I would recommend to anyone interested in picking up their first 1/12 TB League figure.  They have attractive faces, nice (and manageable) hair, plenty of accessories  that work well together, and interesting outfits that aren’t going to embarrass you.

Tier Two

Arkhalla
Vampirella
Purgatori

The figures in Tier Two may be the best in the line when it comes to the figure being a good representation of the source material.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Arkhalla is THE best in the line in that respect.  They just may be a bit too much (or a bit too little depending on your perspective) for a casual collector that isn’t familiar with the characters.

Tier Three

Captain Sparta
Red Sonja
Arhian (Pirate)

The figures in Tier Three are still nice figures.  Captain Sparta being placed in this tier probably isn’t fair, but there are too many other options in the line that are very similar, but more striking (basically Tier One).

Red Sonja just wasn’t executed especially well.  The scars and blood splatters are more distracting than interesting, the copper color of her hair seems off, and while none of these figures are going to win awards for their facial expressions, Sonja’s is especially bland.  This is arguably TBLeague’s most popular license and the one that could pull in (or push away) a lot of new collectors.  She needed to be spectacular, and she’s just okay.  Good, but not great.

Arhian (Pirate) is off to a great start when you take the body out of the box and put the armbands on.  Unfortunately, it goes downhill after that.   The facial expression isn’t particularly attractive, the hair is out of control, and the accessories (starting with her “hat”) don’t work well together or with the figure overall.   It’s not that she’s a “bad” figure.  Like the other two Tier Three figures, she just suffers by comparison to the others.

That’s my short take on the TBLeague 1/12 line, at least as far as the female figures go.  I’d love to hear any other thoughts or opinions!

The other day I got curious with the little lady characters, so I started reading some of their comics. I started with Arhian. I liked her story even if it was pretty short (and the ending was wild lol!), so I decided to get one for myself. I'll go read the other ladies' comics to see if I want them as well.

Tariah looks nice, that Valkyrie lady. She reminds me of She-Ra. Maybe I'll get her some other time. I want Purgatori and Vampirella next. Cute devil and vampire! It will be fun to make them harass the poor macho generic TBLeague guy lol!

Arkhalla also looks interesting. I liked her story. I'm just wondering how well her "pasties" stay on lol!

I wish they'd make more male characters. I love my Anubis! Death Dealer seems fun to get as well. I'm getting that Conan kit to make him fight random people. I wish they'd make "legendary" or "historical" characters as well from different cultures. From Inflame Toys, there are 1/12 scale historical Chinese characters, but they're too expensive, around $200 each and they seem quite comparable to TBLeague, so I don't know what makes them more than double the price.

For example this guy, Zhang Fei. There's a version that doesn't come with the horse, but he's still around $200!



It would be interesting to see a TBLeague Genghis Khan. A Musashi Miyamoto would also be very attractive to me as I love swordsmen. There's a Musashi Miyamoto in 1/12 scale made by Bullethead, but I prefer TBLeague style bodies. Maybe they can also make that huge lumber jack guy from Canada (was that character from Canada?) and he can have a giant axe and a log as accessories lol! Wong Fei Hung would also be awesome, I loved the Once Upon a Time in China Jet Li movies when I was a kid. Oh and that Water Margin guy, Wu Song!

More gods would be fun as well! We've already got Anubis, might as well go for their own interpretations of Buddha, Jesus Christ, and other gods! I want Buddha to be just like those statues, a happy looking fat man. Maybe give him giant beads as a weapon like how monks in video games fight. A bo/staff would suit him as well I think. He should also come with a tree as a display stand where he achieved "enlightenment". Jesus Christ should have a lean but ripped body, like that of a featherweight boxer. For accessories, maybe he can have a spear and a giant cross as a display stand. Satan would also be awesome! He should have the muscular type of body, giant devil wings like Purgatori's, horns, his face will have that classic devil's goatee, his skin will be red, he will have goat legs, and then he'll have a whip and a trident as weapons. His display base will be a throne of suffering souls, all without eyes, each mouth agape. There are probably a lot more cool gods to take inspiration from in Japanese and Indian cultures as well!

It would also be great if TBLeague started making monsters, like ogres/orcs, goblins, zombies, and other things like that so that these little warrior people will have something else to fight. Of course they should scale properly with the human characters. A giant ogre/orc should at least be twice the size of a TBLeague male body, while little goblins should probably just go up to the waist at the most. Zombies should have chunks of their flesh bitten off and they should have a bloody, decomposed paint application.

If they're gonna make monsters, might as well go make Frankenstein (the monster!), Dracula (my favorite vampire, Bela Lugosi version!), Werewolf, the Mummy!

They've done celebrities in the past, might as well make toys out of classic people like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra! If they're feeling adventurous, maybe they can also make toys out of modern day celebrities like Cardi B (lol, WAP! They're gonna have to make extra meaty body type for this one) and Taylor Swift (she's very pretty).

What about world leaders? Presidents would be fun to have although I imagine they'll have boring costumes and accessories. Maybe even if all they wear is a suit and a tie, they can still have fantasy weapons with them, or maybe even make fantasy versions of these leaders. Abraham Lincoln could be a super macho guy with a giant axe while wearing torn clothes and pants as if he just fought off a group of bandits . Obama can have a sword and a shield while wearing something similar to Anubis' costume. Mussolini could have literal iron fists and be some kind of martial artist. Hitler would be awesome to have, give him fantasy medieval style armor with a cape, a sword or an axe and he can team up with Death Dealer to fight Arhian and other heroes! More real life bad guys who committed really bad things would also be interesting as well!

Maybe it would be great if TBLeague got into the business of making classic monsters as well, like Godzilla! I want a seamless Godzilla toy! Make them around 10 or 12 inches tall. Even if they're not in proper scale, at least they'll tower over the little TBLeague people! There's a lot of Godzilla versions, from 1954 to 2021!

Making real people could be expensive for them to make, since they need a licence. Classic monsters... need to be developed, so again: very expensive, especially if you can't make multiple variants.

Looking at the recent 1/6 releases they don't seem to be all that hood at capturing foreign cultures, mixing them badly. So I'd prefer them to focus on what they are good at: Fantasy, sci-fi and simple modern day (like Nancy and Painkiller Jane).

Actually... I would like to see Fae. That would be cool. Fae warriors, healers, priests... Just... please... don't overdo the spiky stuff on armor. I hate that. Keep it classic DnD style. High fae, Wood, Dark,...

^^ I agree. From a business point of view it's better to focus on your strenghts than to try to branch out too much

So one last time for the Anna head, here it is on a properly matched T01A (pale) body. The T01A had the larger neck post so I had to heat up the bottom of the head with a hairdryer, and do a lot of twisting and turning a bit to the left and the right to get it properly seated. Now I just have to wait for the right outfit to come along.

She turned out very nice, Xavion.

I think the head looks a little big on that body, but it's beautiful, which makes up for it. Looking good!

Diana wrote:I think the head looks a little big on that body, but it's beautiful, which makes up for it. Looking good!

TravelGuide mentioned that as well when I initially put the Anna head on the Arhian body. It doesn’t help that TBLeague heads tend to be a little small to begin with, but the Anna head must still be slightly out of scale. Hopefully, once I find a decent outfit for her, it will balance everything out a bit.

I’d like to get the other two Anna heads as well some day, but at this point, I think I just need to stop for awhile. There’s too much inconsistency and not enough product in this scale to do the kind of mixing and matching I see people doing in 1/6, so I’m just going to stick with complete figures for now.

Speaking of complete figures, is it just me, or have new product announcements for TBLeague 1/12 really slowed down? When I was still sitting on the sidelines, it seemed like new products were announced a lot more frequently, but maybe that’s because I’m actively collecting now and paying a lot more attention.

The announcements have definitely gone down, but I think it's more accurate to say that they were unusually frequent last year. It was hard to keep up (financially). They don't seem to have a fixed schedule. It's more like they focus their resources on one thing and then another.

Xavion2004 -- you're absolutely right that there's not quite enough readily available accessories and outfits available at this point compared to 1/6 scale, and that this does make kitbashing 1/12 scale tbleague figures much more difficult. (Female shoes and boots are especially harder to come by, it seems.)

That said, I don't know if you've had a look on Etsy, but there is sometimes some custom clothing specifically made for 1/12 tbleagues on there. It's probably more modern/feminine/dressy type stuff than action-y tbleague style clothing, but I thought I'd mention in case.

As for the head size, I'm not as bothered by oversized heads as some, maybe it's my doll background, lol. Either way, it's a gorgeous head and looks great on the pale body. : )

Hey guys, I came here after starting my 1/12 journey with figma Emily (which in my opinion isn't that good for kitbashing since she's quite small). I am interested in getting a T03A since it's the only one with medium breasts but I don't really like realistic headsculpts. I'm open to modifying my current Emily's head but I just want to ask about compatibility with various heads.

I did read somewhere a Frame Arms Girl head could fit with some adjustments (it's drilling a wider hole for the peg) but I just really want to know how well some head fits TBLeague bodies since my budget is kinda limited. Anyway, I actually made an account just to ask this since I'm new to this kind of hobby, so I hope I'm comfortable here

tanuki wrote:Hey guys, I came here after starting my 1/12 journey with figma Emily (which in my opinion isn't that good for kitbashing since she's quite small). I am interested in getting a T03A since it's the only one with medium breasts but I don't really like realistic headsculpts. I'm open to modifying my current Emily's head but I just want to ask about compatibility with various heads.

I did read somewhere a Frame Arms Girl head could fit with some adjustments (it's drilling a wider hole for the peg) but I just really want to know how well some head fits TBLeague bodies since my budget is kinda limited. Anyway, I actually made an account just to ask this since I'm new to this kind of hobby, so I hope I'm comfortable here

Welcome tanuki!

I can not speak from experience as I lean towards the realistic heads, but maybe the Iminitoys heads would work? I only saw one photo of them on a TBL body and the heads were sitting a little high... Maybe that can be rectified?

Sorry I can't give any more reassuring advice.