Pop Culture Collectible Showcase Gallery at e@curve by Shioktoys

We have been following Prime 1 Studio very closely for a while now and there has been quite substantial amount of collectible statues rolling out from them recently. It was also a surprise to know that Shioktoys had opened a  gallery in e@curve on 18 June 2016 with a choke full of amazing looking statues from Prime 1 Studio.  It was without a doubt that Prime 1 Studio has an impressive looking line-up of statues with incredible detailing and craftsmanship.

The  statues on display are mostly from the Transformers,  Batman, Superman, Iron Man and also some older Sideshow Collectible Premium Format pieces.  The showcase gallery is quite impressive with the individual statues standing higher than the usual human eye level giving it an uncanny lifelike experience. Some of our favourites are the Optimus Prime statues, Arkham Knight Bat Mobile and Lockdown statue. The Galvatron was also looking very menacing with loads of detailing on its whole body.

We also manage to take a few photos from the gallery collection and also a specially edited 2 part video look at the gallery  (Be sure to scroll down and watch the special feature movies).

KNOCKING OFF THE TOY GIANTS

The toy industry is undergoing tremendous growth for the past few years and we strongly believe we are now in the golden era of toys collecting. This is mostly due to the advancement in technology for toys production and ease of rapid prototyping a product through the usage of 3D printers. Anyone now can practically design their toys from ground up in a free 3D software like sketchup or blender and export it to a 3D printer.

The flip side of this is that there are numerous companies roiling out knockoff of an already released toys mostly at a sub-par standard and extremely low price. However, we start to notice some companies producing knockoff by reverse engineering popular products with surprisingly good improvement based on known flaws of the original toys highlighted by fans in forums or youtube. These so called knockoff toys producer are also gaining popularity and respect among toys collectors. It is very evident that knockoff products are gaining inroads into toys collectors hands from Gundams, Legos, Star Wars, Transformers, 1/6 scale action figures and way much more than we know it.

Some notable knockoff products from Gundam model kits which has been around for years were TT Hong Li and Daban. We are also seeing Transformers knockoff which are much better in quality compared with Hasbro from products like Wei Jiang, MMC and Maketoys. There are also cases knockoff Transformers products price at much higher than what probably Hasbro would have release due to the immense high demand. This also has a lot to do with Hasbro inability to design and produce a product based on market demand (E.g. Transformer Combiner Devastator took a very long time to finally release to the market by Hasbro). Hasbro is also cutting corners in their plastic materials by giving us not internally hollow parts but also visible ugly hollow parts of almost all arms, legs and body parts.­

The other main issue with big mega companies like Lego is their pricing of their products. The prices of their higher end Lego sets especially UCS line costing hundreds of dollars are often illogical. Well, there is no doubt that we are paying the higher price due to their R&D, technology, licensing and royalties which compounded to the end user price but if we ponder for a while that an UCS set is just a bunch of plastic and shouldn’t  be that costly. That is why Lego bricks are widely reproduced by knockoff brands like Decool, Lepin, Lele, Kazi, Sloban and several others. We are not here to debate whether collectors should buy knockoff but there are times that these collectibles are really not for all even the hardcore fans may feel the squeeze in their nuts!

The 1/6 scale action figure market is also no difference with mostly market dominated by Hot Toys, ThreeZero, Enterbay and Sideshow Collectibles. Who can imagine that a 1/6 scale character plastic toy can fetch USD300? These days many may have to kitbash their own but the demand for super heroes genre is still very strong thanks to the non-stop Marvel and DC releasing their movies with new cool characters every year.

That is just the current situation of knockoff and original Toys. Let us know at the comment box below whether you should firmly support original or you do not have much choice due to budget constraints.

SIDESHOW COLLECTIBLES VOLTRON MAQUETTE

If you still remember or love Voltron, it's very likely that you are in the 40s. OK, maybe let's not delve into the sensitive age thing. Sideshow Collectibles is proud to bring us Voltron Defender of The Universe. We will also be seeing an updated look of Voltron, thanks to the guys at Netflix and Dreamworks TV.

There are still no product details release that we know of. Perhaps the photos below will get you excited enough to start saving some cash now for this great looking statue.

WARCRAFT GENTLE GIANT COLLECTIBLES

Warcraft, the game has been around for decades and we finally get to see the live action movie version now. From Universal Pictures, Legendary Pictures and director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) comes Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on the global PC game phenomenon from Blizzard Entertainment. 

I have to say from the look at these statue prototypes photos, Gentle Giant really manage to pull off an amazing job capturing the details of these characters. Lothar is nice but Durotan and Orgrim are outstanding and impressive looking statues. Gul'Dan is also nothing short of spectacular but we heard extremely low rating from critics. 

Let us just watch and see the movie before we dive into something which may turn out to be a flop. Well, what do you think? Give us your comments.

 Lothar in action

 Let me hammer you down

 I'm no elder please...

 You want a piece of me?

 Try my magic before?

Hand me a toothbrush will ya?

ARH STUDIOS TARZAN PRIMAL RAGE EX

Tarzan craze is just around the corner and this time around we will be seeing Disney's adaptation, The Legend of Tarzan scheduled for release on 1 July 2016. ARH Studios has announced their limited Edition 100 statues up for sale.

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes.

Tarzan is the son of a British lord and lady who were marooned on the Atlantic coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan was only an infant, his mother died of natural causes and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe by whom Tarzan was adopted. From then onwards, Tarzan became a feral child. Tarzan’s tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Kala is his ape mother.

In this magnificent 1/4th scale Polystone statue sculpted by Alex Pereira and Ehren Bienert you have a great depiction of this great legend in a primal battle with a gorilla. The EX edition features an extra exchangeable hand holding a broken spear shaft.