Tricks of the Trade

My fiancé and I have just broken into this fascinating miniature world, but already we’ve learned so much. Coming into in toy photography, we already had an array of knowledge, so we felt we could take this on very sensibly. We love collecting, and we decided to make this into a hobby and a passion of ours. So in this hobby we’ve noticed some things. An example would be that there seems to be a complete community of toy photographers on a website called Flickr.com, a hosting site for artists to exhibit their work to the masses. Another would be a fact about 1:6 figures we’d like to share with you guys.
There are many companies that design amazing detailed recreations of movie characters, pop culture icons, musicians, etc. In our opinion the best out there would have to be Hot Toys, a die-cast company based out of Hong Kong, China. Most of their figures actually come with a separate head that is interchangeable with the figure. Hot Toys actually manufactures blank 1:6 figures called “TrueType”, and many other companies produce outfits for these figures. With these resources available, for a small price more, the interchangeable heads give you two figures.




Many people have used this trick for the first edition of the Hot Toys The Joker. Many collectors either had already purchased this figure, or simply could not afford the DX version, so with the help of the Hot Toys Bank Robber The Joker second head they are able to up the detail in their figure. There is substantial difference in these two heads, because the head cast for the Hot Toys Bank Robber The Joker is much more movie accurate. Another trick very well used comes from all Hot Toys 1:6 Batman figures. Hot Toys 1:6 scale Batman TDK Version and Batman Original Suit come with an interchangeable Bruce Wayne head cast. Perhaps the most widely custom made Hot Toys 1:6 figure would be Bruce Wayne in a suit. This becomes possible with the head cast, Hot Toys TrueType, and any 1:6 scale suit, all available on Ebay. It’s cheap, easy, and a nice touch to your Batman/The Dark Knight set, or any 1:6 scale collection.