Saturday, August 1, 2009

The Problem with Some Action Figures

Twelve inch action figures expand my male population. I can pick up female dolls easily. Male dolls are limited so I invade the green aisle or the action figure world. I love my Kens, my Stevens, my Kurts, my Alans, my Blaines, my Jordan, my Tariq, my Lukas, my Moses, my John Smith, my Li Shang, my Paul, and my boys. BUT without my action figure guys, my male population would be near extinction. Can't have that kind of gender imbalance.

However, there can be problems with male action figures. No, not the guns and military clothes. I replace most of the military fashions with Kenwear - for some reason, that statement inspires banshee howls of anguish from guys who used to own G.I. Joes or Star Wars figures - what, are my guys supposed to go around undressed? Ken has some normal looking stuff. Or passably so ....

Guns? Well, my guys won't need them so I set most of them aside. If it's a little gun, and it looks cute, I might let them keep it for the look factor. The tough guy look, but guns aren't relative to most scenes I have the guys in. Reminds me, I need to gather all the useless guns and give them away or sell them. Once I find them, of course.

Oh, but the problem with some action figures? Molded clothes that replace body parts. For example, I have Ryan Whitaker from Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy seems to be a video game. (Even less interesting than guns IMO. So the FF trappings are going, going ....) Anyway, he's cute - eyes a little gimlet, but he has nice features - so I am determined to redress him as a civilian. In Kenwear, yes.

Only he has this horrible body armor encased around his torso. I'm not sure if his arms are separate from the armor or if his calves are calves and NOT just boots attached to thighs. So I might have to find a new body for him. That's MY problem with action figures. Some of them do NOT undress the way they should. They should have flesh-colored limbs.

Here are two photos of Ryan:






He's worthy of a new body.

2 comments:

Niel said...

Worthy of a new body? Will you perform a head swap? I haven't done it with male dolls or action figures because I don't know how.

D7ana said...

He has a whole body beneath the outfit trappings. I'll need to cut off one boot and cut into the other to free his foot, but a complete new body won't be needed in his case. He has glove hands that I might replace someday, but they'll do for now. (Shades of Dr. Frankenstein, lightening bolt strikes)

I might do a head swap on another figure and post that here. Good idea - see how comments feed into posts ;-D