Head Sculpts - Cast resin hair or "natural" hair.

Still navigating all the nuances of choosing the right head for the body.

* So, gotta' make sure the head sculpt works with the body neck connector [Standard] or [Small]

* The head skin color needs to match the body color [Pale] or [Suntan] I only have TBL and not Jiaou, so only two colors to worry about at the moment.

* The head size is a consideration since some 1/6 head sculpts are either too large or too small for the body size. I've seen some Superduck way too big for the body type.

But there is a question tilted more towards preference than technical specification. Who chooses a solid resin cast hair or who chooses the fiber hair. I am NOT saying one is better than the other but I would like to understand why one would choose fiber over resin or visa-versa?

Opinions or thoughts?

NavySubGuy wrote:I am NOT saying one is better than the other but I would like to understand why one would choose fiber over resin or visa-versa?

In two words: aesthetic preference.

On one hand, rooted hair should look more realistic because, well, real humans have hair consisting of individual "fibers", and scaled figure heads with rooted hair try to model that.
On the other hand, since these head are smaller, the fibers should also be proportionally thinner. It's not always possible to make them thin enough, and with hair too thick the illusion of realism can fall apart (which may be less of a problem with 1/6 but more noticeable in 1/12 scale).

Sculpted hair tries to solve this with high level of details and paint application, to various degrees of success. But no matter how successful the result is, it remains static, capturing only one particular hair arrangement and requiring swappable parts to change looks. And sculpted hair can get in the way of articulation. Some complex hairstyles can be more easily modelled with resin than with "real" hair, however.
It seems common to use sculpted hair for stylized looks such as figures of animated (or video game) characters.

I've also seen an opinion that rooted hair makes the head doll-like - and since action figures are not dolls, rooted hair is unacceptable. Since I'm trying to make this post somewhat neutral, I'll refrain from commenting on what I think of this opinion
It brings up an interesting question of distinction between "figures" and "dolls" - but that is a subject for another thread...

NavySubGuy wrote:Still navigating all the nuances of choosing the right head for the body.

* So, gotta' make sure the head sculpt works with the body neck connector [Standard] or [Small]

* The head skin color needs to match the body color [Pale] or [Suntan] I only have TBL and not Jiaou, so only two colors to worry about at the moment.

* The head size is a consideration since some 1/6 head sculpts are either too large or too small for the body size. I've seen some Superduck way too big for the body type.

But there is a question tilted more towards preference than technical specification. Who chooses a solid resin cast hair or who chooses the fiber hair. I am NOT saying one is better than the other but I would like to understand why one would choose fiber over resin or visa-versa?

Opinions or thoughts?

Visionor already made good points about personal preference. I agree.


- You need to decide if your head sculpt comes just as a head, with neck included or even with upper torso parts. And then find the body and connector for it.

- Skin color matching: Yes, if you reveal some skin it should match. If the figure is dressed fully, you might get away with another color nuance (if you paint the hands and neck same color for example). But since you are mentioning seamless bodies, I think you only care about heads without necks since all seamless bodies have a neck already.

- Head size should fit the body yes.

As for realism I'm a fan of real hair instead of sculpted resin hair. Especially for long hair. With short hair it might be ok in some cases. (Personal preference though again)

You may need to get a hold of one of each type and then decide what you personally prefer and what looks best to you in-hand. It sometimes depends on the quality of the sculpt (and sculpted hair) and the quality of the rooted hair.

A lot of 1/6 scale headsculpts that are mass-produced have synthetic rooted hair that doesn't lay 'right' for the scale and requires some level of modification. Unless it's already pre-styled in some elaborate style (like with some of the YM Toys headsculpts). My own personal preference is for real hair, as in.....real, natural fibers which I cut into locks and then glue onto a prepped bald headsculpt surface. I don't mind synthetic hair occasionally when it is done well, but some of the synthetic rooted hair jobs are too voluminous or messy and don't lay flat or hang right, so I just remove it and use natural fibers like tibetan lamb hair or mohair instead.

That's my personal preference, but everyone needs to find their own.

Visisonor said it best.

Stryker2012 wrote:Visisonor said it best.

Yeah, pretty much summed it up right there .