Seamless Figure Posing Question re Possible Damage - TBLeague Tutankhamun

An online friend recently received a TBLeague Seamless "King Tut" figure as a gift, and he would like to display the figure in a glass case along with other Egyptian-themed items. After looking through the instructions that came with the figure, he noticed the cautionary warning about leaving the figure in one position "for an extended period."

The pose he has in mind is a crossed arms pose while seated on a throne, necessitating sharply bent elbows, hips, and knees.

Here is a repost of his initial query:

Okay, so I only have one "seamless" and am really in no hurry to acquire any more but mine came with instructions NOT to leave the body in any "dynamic" pose for more than two days!
Question for all owners of such.
Do you bother to change the poses of your figures that frequently or not?
The brochure with mine seems to suggest the silicone will split or some such catastrophe.
Does this happen?
If the thing is going to be that temperamental, I am leaning more and more towards changing out the body on my figure for a conventionally articulated one. The articulations would be fully covered by the clothing anyway and it could be left on display indefinitely without damage.

Members here at OSF have more experience with this sort of thing than do members of the site at which he posed his question. I am reposting his query with permission, and will forward any helpful responses.

Thanx!

I’ve had figures in extended poses for years, though perhaps not in hardcore extreme poses. That being said, see my previous posts about lighting conditions and humidity/temperature standards, and I haven’t had any issues thus far.

I own a couple of seamless figures. Leaving them in a position for a longer time is not the problem. You should be cautious when you move the limbs, e. g. when you dress the figures. You can maintain the skin, e. g. with latex powder or baby powder, especially, when naked parts of the body are exposed to the air for a longer time outside a showcase. Even with all the precautions, sometimes little fissures in the skin are inevitable. There is a special glue for these fissures, but I don't know if it works.

Most plastics will degrade if exposed to heat, humidity, and/or light. So ideally, you want to keep your figures in a cool, dark, dry environment. But this makes it hard to display them.

It's a good question, but there are probably too many undefined variables to take into account, as pointed out by Mark. I have the throne, the M33 body, and many of the Tut pieces (although my Tut is reconstituted using an M32 body), so I did a quick test. The throne is too deep for the body, so unless your friend wants him sitting on the edge of it, it is likely the upper body will be at a wider than 90 degrees from the upper legs. And the angle at the knees will also be wider than 90 degrees. This is not iconic for Ancient Egyptian artistic canon (then again TBLeague did not make something absolutely accurate to Egyptian canon), but it is more realistic for this kind of furniture. This would not be an issue. If the arms are allowed to rest on the arm rests, that would not be an issue either. Holding the scepters with arms crossed in front of his chest (a la Osiris) might be an issue. Apart from the technical difficulty of achieving this pose, the oversized scepters pose a challenge when it comes to finding space for them on either side of the face. And the elbows would have to be at pretty sharp angles. I would not feel too comfortable leaving the figure indefinitely in this pose myself. The vagaries of heat and humidity, etc, would likely change how bad this would be for the figure and how fast, but I would recommend playing it safe. These iconic poses work for artistic depictions, but if they were ever assumed in real life, it would have been for a momentary standing (or sitting) in attention, in a very specific context and on a very different type of furniture (one without a back rest and arm rests). Since this furniture invites a more relaxed posture (and pharaoh surely could get away with getting a little more comfortable), I would recommend something like this, obviously with the Tut figure:



That would likely be an ok pose for the figure to spend a lot of time in.

Usually you'd want to avoid 90 bends for extended periods, but I've had many of my tbleagues bent for extended durations, I think it's more an issue for the slightly harder silicone like those used by hot toys or other companies (blitzway). Those tend to crack or tear a lot easier. I'm sure depending on climate it happens to tbleagues as well but they have been more resilient.

I once had Nancy sitting in a way that caused a crease in her belly. When I repositioned her weeks later I was disturbed by the crease not wanting to go away for a while, but in the end it did go away. However, that was only a few weeks. I can imagine that the crease might have caused more trouble had she been in that position for months/years instead of weeks.

Then again, if he intends to basically treat it like a statue, then that crease won't bother anyone, even if it cracks (which it probably wouldn't until he attempts to stretch the skin into a different pose. And if he then chooses a different pose years down the line and finds the skin cracking, he might be able to glue it. Or just replace the body.

Long story short: If he doesn't intend to switch the pose every other month or so then I'd go for it.

I have only a few Tbleague female figures and they've been posed for years in the same position without issue. However I've taken precautions to limit movement, open light source aka sunlight, humidity, and heat (which is a task since we have the furnace on six months of the year). So far they've held up pretty well with no rips or tears with one in a seated position on a dias next to a big green slug and two others with bend arms. Of course I've heard of other tales of figures riping and tearing after such long periods so *shrug*

Thank you for all the helpful responses based on first-hand experience so far. I have passed everything everyone has said along.

I take it that nobody has had a figure spontaneously split apart while holding a pose; rather, if damage occurs, it happens when re-posing a figure from a position it has held for months or years.

davidd wrote:I take it that nobody has had a figure spontaneously split apart while holding a pose; rather, if damage occurs, it happens when re-posing a figure from a position it has held for months or years.

Not necessarily. I don't remember all the particulars, but I think someone once reported a female TBLeague/Phicen figure having been left riding a horse for a while, and then discovered that the "flesh" had split at the middle.

davidd wrote:Thank you for all the helpful responses based on first-hand experience so far. I have passed everything everyone has said along.

I take it that nobody has had a figure spontaneously split apart while holding a pose; rather, if damage occurs, it happens when re-posing a figure from a position it has held for months or years.

I personally haven't had this issue. I've had my Jiaou Doll "Slave Leia" in a fairly extreme pose for a few years now and haven't had any issues (and those are even less stable than TBL), and I've adjusted her pose here and there to try to get it as close to "screen accurate" as the limited pose ability will allow.

I had a problem with the tiny 1/12 figure tearing at the shoulders because I had her in a horse riding position for several months. I think it really depends on the angle along with the the other environmental conditions.

It did make me think though that if I'm going to do any 1/6 scale riders, I'll probably use a non-seamless body for those.

I've had a Jiaou split at the knee after sitting in a chair for a few months and a TBL split at the elbow after holding a sword with a bent elbow for a year or so.

So... this just happened. Or, I just noticed it:



Elbow split, TBLeague (Phicen) S45 figure.

Figure purchased new: November 2021

Damage noticed: March 2022

The figure has been sitting undisturbed since January with the elbow bent at no more than a 45 degree angle. The figure was actually in a dark garage, not exposed to any direct sunlight, and not subject to extreme heat or cold. The angle in these images is to illustrate the tear in the material. The angle when the figure was stored was much less sharp, no more than a 45˚ angle at most.

I am disappointed to see this; I am now questioning my decision to invest fairly significantly in seamless-bodied action figures. Maybe it's time to transition back to Pinky-Street, Bratz, and Monster High (although most of my Monster High figures are experiencing extreme loosening of the joints).

I feel sad that this happened to you, David. It may well be a one-off quality issue rather than a persistent one. Moreover, given that this is one of their smaller and slimmer bodies, it may be more susceptible to this to begin with. Humidity may be another issue, apart from temperature. Was the figure in its box or in a ziplock bag with silica packs to help keep things dry?

GubernatorFan wrote:Humidity may be another issue, apart from temperature. Was the figure in its box or in a ziplock bag with silica packs to help keep things dry?

No, actually, the figure was out sitting on a shelf in the garage, in Florida where the humidity tends to be high. Is high humidity more of an issue for these figures than low humidity? I think in terms of old rubber drying out and cracking over time in extremely dry environments. Perhaps the humidity softens the material, making it more susceptible to minor damage which can escalate in to splitting.

A member on another forum noted that the internal armature at the elbow appears sharp-edged, and was wondering if that was a contributing factor. His observation led me to wonder if perhaps there was a manufacturing flaw, or maybe I inadvertently damaged the joint. I've noticed the joints have a propensity to get twisted out of position, and it takes some finesse to work them back to where they should be.

Here's another image of the elbow that better shows what is apparently a sharp edge at the joint:

High humidity (such as Florida) will definitely destroy these things. Sorry, David. If you have any other figures in that garage, get them out and back in the house ASAP (hopefully you have air conditioning). There have been numerous posts over the years from folks that live in high humidity areas (such as SE Asia) who have posted about these types of issues. Too low will probably have the same effect, but more from what you described, which is why I’m always harping on about keeping these things in a moderately even (and controlled) temperature, low-to-zero sunlit room.

Stryker2011 wrote:High humidity (such as Florida) will definitely destroy these things. Sorry, David. If you have any other figures in that garage, get them out and back in the house ASAP (hopefully you have air conditioning).

Fortunately the winter has not been particularly humid; nothing like what I understand mid-summer to be like. And this is a coastal area, so it is not as humid as further inland. I'll be packing up the 1/6 crew here in another few weeks and heading back to southern Utah, where humidity is never a problem. Lack of humidity, however....

Indeed davidd I'm also sorry that this had happen to one figures.

I just noticed this thread.

As for your first question I've had my first Lady Death figure sitting in her throne chair for months on end if not longer with no with no visible damage.

Don’t get a humidifier. I remember posting something about atomizers/ionizers in regard to figures, but I can’t for the life of me remember where. I don’t have either issue myself (too high/low humidity) where I keep my figures, so I only know what I’ve been told and researched a while ago.

David, there's a reason these are packaged with silica packs, and they have protective powder to keep them from being tacky. While you shouldn't leave them out in intense sunlight for hours upon hours and days upon days, you should not expose them to much humidity. If not out and displayed, stick them either back in their boxes, or in resealable plastic baggies (with their accessories and silica packs). That's what I have done and, while my environment is not as ideal as Stryker's, knock on wood no damage that I know of has been sustained -- although my HT Black Widow's body suit did finally start to tear and crack.