Large Heads on New Mego

[cooperdraw]

Buy what you like!

For sure! I hope people don't think I'm dragging Mego. I love Mego and I care about it and want them to do well. I'm really so grateful that they're back. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here in this forum discussing it. My hope would be that someone who is in a position to do something about the proportion of these figures would do something about it. I want to buy them all. Ultraman looks great. The Creature, awesome. The Mego Monsters and the first couple waves of Star Trek, all amazing. It seems to be just the figures that are going for a likeness/portrait. Like I said, it may be a stylistic choice and that's cool, just not for me. Anyway, I definitely didn't mean to upset anybody and if I did I apologize. Looking forward to all the new releases. I hope everyone is staying safe and taking care of themselves. Be well.

[jacoblb]

Isn't the scaling "Issue" really a condition of 1:9 scale figures anyway? What I mean by this is, how the 1:9 bodies tend to have puffy chests when there's more layers of clothing and what not. Like there's a disconnect from head, neck, and shoulders. Or, for that matter, the way often times, Mego figures stand with legs spread wide apart.

I'm not bashing Mego scaled figures, but IMHO nearly every figure can look weird or lack a certain aspect of realism whereas 12" figures seem to have a way better handle in terms of proportions of head size, arms length, and tailoring.

I can't tell you how many times I'd see a Mego scale figure in a picture and detect scaling or paint flaws, but when you happen to hold the figure up close a lot of those things are no longer revealed in the way they show up from a computer screen. So many times have I had a ReMego figure removed from packaging and I'm just in awe of painting techniques or whatever.

[hedrap]

From what I've gathered over the years, it's the fault of the factory plant and usually Quality Control will catch it. If you look at the production timeline, things were on-spec until about the time covid flared up.

[ODBJBG]

I just hate that it often ends up hurting some of the best figures. I don't think a lot of this is people being a hater, but that some of these figures are nearly "perfect" but then get a balloon head that make it looks a bit like a caricature.

The thing is, it's not just on Mego. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, FTC has this problem and it ruins some of their best figures (like the Stooges) but they have other figures it doesn't crop up on. BBP were notoriously plagued by this issue. And now the new Mego corp has had it strike a few times. It's obviously a tough nut to crack.

I'm sure Covid is to blame for some of it, but one has to wonder just in general how this continues to be such a problem for this format. This was happening long before Covid in other companies.

But at least Mego is aware and is hopefully trying to correct it.

[ribefex]

Large heads are often due to skipping a step in the making process of vinyl. A step that should have reduced the final production head by a certain %
I am sure that professional sculptors do their job millimetrically well, assuming that all manufacturing steps will be respected.

[zeedox]

Ultraman is perfect leads me to believe folks in Ultraman land really care.

[CrimsonGhost]

^We offered the license holders to use the 70’s Popy Ultraman head, but they wanted some revisions, and I ended up doing them so I upscaled the head while I was at it. The folks in Ultraman land didn’t say anything about the head size. I just thought it was too small.

So I’m thinking maybe I can talk about the process of producing heads in hollow vinyl and where things can go wrong along the way and why each company has issues with head sizes.

Every vinyl head you’ve ever seen has shrunk 5% after it was pulled from the mold. This is factored into production.

There are two ways to do a sculpt so the head ends up the size you want.
One way is to simply sculpt the head 5% bigger. In this case, the factory doesn’t have to make adjustments to produce head that end up being the desired size. Of course, if the sculpt is larger than 105%, it still only shrinks 5%, so a sculpt that is 125% of the desired final result will end up being 20% too big.

The other way is to sculpt the head 100%. The factory then has to scale the head up 5% to allow for shrinkage. The factory can also scale a head down so that sculpt at 125% can be reduced 20% before molds are made.

Sometimes, a lack of communication or a mistake or what have you happens and a sculpt scaled at 105% gets keyed up 5% to allow for shrinkage and ends up still at 105%.

So there’s a number of places where things could go wrong:
Head sculpted larger than 105% and not corrected at the factory or was scaled down, but not properly.
Head sculpted at 105% and the factory keyed it up as if it was sculpted 100%.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory keyed it up too much.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory didn’t key it up and it ends up at 95% of desired size.

I know there’s supposed to be an approval process, but often there’s no time for changes, or images sent from the factory to be approved are missing context, etc. and without someone at the factories to see things in person, thanks to things like a worldwide pandemic for example, things like this happen and often companies are stuck with whatever happens.

[rykerw1701]

^We offered the license holders to use the 70’s Popy Ultraman head, but they wanted some revisions, and I ended up doing them so I upscaled the head while I was at it. The folks in Ultraman land didn’t say anything about the head size. I just thought it was too small.

So I’m thinking maybe I can talk about the process of producing heads in hollow vinyl and where things can go wrong along the way and why each company has issues with head sizes.

Every vinyl head you’ve ever seen has shrunk 5% after it was pulled from the mold. This is factored into production.

There are two ways to do a sculpt so the head ends up the size you want.
One way is to simply sculpt the head 5% bigger. In this case, the factory doesn’t have to make adjustments to produce head that end up being the desired size. Of course, if the sculpt is larger than 105%, it still only shrinks 5%, so a sculpt that is 125% of the desired final result will end up being 20% too big.

The other way is to sculpt the head 100%. The factory then has to scale the head up 5% to allow for shrinkage. The factory can also scale a head down so that sculpt at 125% can be reduced 20% before molds are made.

Sometimes, a lack of communication or a mistake or what have you happens and a sculpt scaled at 105% gets keyed up 5% to allow for shrinkage and ends up still at 105%.

So there’s a number of places where things could go wrong:
Head sculpted larger than 105% and not corrected at the factory or was scaled down, but not properly.
Head sculpted at 105% and the factory keyed it up as if it was sculpted 100%.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory keyed it up too much.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory didn’t key it up and it ends up at 95% of desired size.

I know there’s supposed to be an approval process, but often there’s no time for changes, or images sent from the factory to be approved are missing context, etc. and without someone at the factories to see things in person, thanks to things like a worldwide pandemic for example, things like this happen and often companies are stuck with whatever happens.

Very helpful. Thanks! As a collector you have to realize those making the figures know the heads are too big as well, but they get stuck with something they didn't want, either.

[MIB41]

^We offered the license holders to use the 70’s Popy Ultraman head, but they wanted some revisions, and I ended up doing them so I upscaled the head while I was at it. The folks in Ultraman land didn’t say anything about the head size. I just thought it was too small.

So I’m thinking maybe I can talk about the process of producing heads in hollow vinyl and where things can go wrong along the way and why each company has issues with head sizes.

Every vinyl head you’ve ever seen has shrunk 5% after it was pulled from the mold. This is factored into production.

There are two ways to do a sculpt so the head ends up the size you want.
One way is to simply sculpt the head 5% bigger. In this case, the factory doesn’t have to make adjustments to produce head that end up being the desired size. Of course, if the sculpt is larger than 105%, it still only shrinks 5%, so a sculpt that is 125% of the desired final result will end up being 20% too big.

The other way is to sculpt the head 100%. The factory then has to scale the head up 5% to allow for shrinkage. The factory can also scale a head down so that sculpt at 125% can be reduced 20% before molds are made.

Sometimes, a lack of communication or a mistake or what have you happens and a sculpt scaled at 105% gets keyed up 5% to allow for shrinkage and ends up still at 105%.

So there’s a number of places where things could go wrong:
Head sculpted larger than 105% and not corrected at the factory or was scaled down, but not properly.
Head sculpted at 105% and the factory keyed it up as if it was sculpted 100%.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory keyed it up too much.
Head sculpted at 100% and the factory didn’t key it up and it ends up at 95% of desired size.

I know there’s supposed to be an approval process, but often there’s no time for changes, or images sent from the factory to be approved are missing context, etc. and without someone at the factories to see things in person, thanks to things like a worldwide pandemic for example, things like this happen and often companies are stuck with whatever happens.

Thanks for the in-depth explanation. I think its worth adding the amount of money invested in bringing one of these figures to market does not encourage any company to purposely overlook or otherwise skirt the QC process. The consumer can return the item or choose not to buy it. The company and its retailers (small and large) pay the ultimate price if the factory errors on the production side in a significant way.

I've noticed you can sometimes eliminate the head scale issue if you put them on S bodies. Those bodies are slightly bigger and taller, which helps in the scale perception with the noggins.

[Ivaniski]

These Mego heads are much too beautiful to be spoiled by the large Noggins syndrome. Hope they could resolve the large head issue.

[TRDouble]

Thanks, CrimsonGhost! I had to go and warm up my lunch to sit down and enjoy the read!

And like MIB41 said, if you are into the S Type bodies, they do sometimes help mitigate the larger heads, and even baggy clothes. I plan to move the new Mego Superman to a S Type (even though, with the new boots I put him in, he is growing on me without and additional tweaks).

[TrekStar]

Thanks for the explanation thread, it’s great info to know.

[Ivaniski]

OMG!!! This is Mego...One of the Greateat Action Figure toy lines in history. The sizes of some of these heads are Unacceptable. It's a shame...because the sculptor did a "Great" job. Hope this can get resolved soon.

This is ''Mego"...Not "Thunderbirds".
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