custom 1/6th figures - how good can hair look?

[batguy]

What is achievable for the shaggy 1970s hair on characters like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Anakin, etc?

In recent years there has been so much progress made on realistic 1/6th faces (Hot Toys, etc). Even clothing materials are looking better. But the hair still looks like a plastic helmet and spoils the illusion.

 

[ZeroSum]

IMO as long as it's made out of plastic, it's going to look like a plastic helmet.

 

[joberg]

You'll have to experiment with various fur or even grass that train modelers are using

 

[batguy]

Are there any examples of it being done well? I'm sort of looking for inspiration as well as tech info.

 

[Bloop]

A while back, I saw mention of using rabbit hair for dolls (I think 1/6 scale) as it's mich finer than human or other animal hair, so it looks more accurate to the scale.
As someone who has had rabbits as pets, however, I can't recommend the harvesting of rabbits for their fur. But it's something that's already out there.

 

[jakob2121]

As another pet rabbit owner, just get one as a pet. You'll have all the hair you can stand. On everything.

Dollmakers call it "rooted hair". Hot Toys makes a few 1/6 scale figures with it.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

There are a lot of custom creators and modders who use real hair on 1:6 scale figures. It all comes down to the right hair used and whether you are good enough to style the hair accurately.

It's best used for medium to longer hair styles. Short hair styles still looks best sculpted, as the shorter it gets, the harder it is to style. With sculpted hair it all depends on how well it is sculpted and how well it is painted.

I'm sure you can work out a deal with a pet store or something to get hair from various animals from when they comb them.

 

[batguy]

I'm thinking of cases like this. Most of the figure looks REALLY good. Face, clothes, hands, eyes, proportions . . . but the helmet-hair takes me out of it.

The kind of male haircuts we saw in SW were on the borderline. It's too long for a solid sculpt. But it's not long enough to make everybody give in and use real hair/fur fibers. So they try to make a solid sculpt work and it ends up being the weakest link in the whole figure.

I'm curious if anybody is using real fibers for these medium hair lengths and getting good results.

 

[division 6]

David Fisher (AFM magazine) has used doll hair on some of his model builds.

 

[TuckerMan]

Hot Toys recently made an Anakin with 'real' hair. No Lukes or Hans yet.

Custom figure artists have been using wool hair for the past few years, and it's just now breaking into mass production from companies like Hot Toys, InArt, and JND.

I can't think of any custom Han or Luke figures with real hair, off the top of my head. But I imagine multiple people have done it by now, but I'm not super clued into the custom figure art world.

A couple other examples

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[joberg]

That looks real good