Bridge Direct The Hobbit Figures.

Saw these the other day at my local Hastings. Since I have most of the figures I wanted from the Toybiz line I just picked up Tauriel because I really liked her look, figured at a glance she was about the same size as the Toybiz figures. Got her home, and well not exactly, the toybiz figures are just over 7 inches tall and she is about 5 1/2 inches tall. So today I picked up Gandalf to do a better side to side comparison and Thorin Oakenshield.

Stylistically the figures would go great standing near the Toybiz figures, there are pretty close in design and all. Gandalf's face in the new line looks more like a generic shot of Odin in his Wander look or Heston as Moses. I do like how the molded the hat to actually stay on his head, but it comes down covering his face a bit too much even when looking directly at him. This is made worse by the fact his head is pretty stationary, but could be a stiff joint. His cloak is a bit stiffer than the Toybiz version I have but both kind of get in the way of posing him in various ways. Still I like the figure.

So back to Tauriel, over all I like the figure the only real complaint (aside from the lines over all height) is her quiver. It takes a bit to get the peg in her back and because her hair is a bit more stiff it forces her head forward.

I haven't opened Thorin yet, will after I get back from work. My only other complaint from the line over all is lack of foot peg for stands, with figures like this with often bulky accessories or outfits being able to put them on a stand really goes a long way to keep them standing. Gandalf of course being more of a problem then Tauriel.

The 3.75 inch line I didn't like the look of at all when I saw them today. It was nice to see they had figure packs, singles and some other characters but I just didn't get a good feel from them.

I thought the 1/18th figures were far nicer than most movie toy lines (*cough* anything from Mattel *cough*) but I too am looking for the larger figures to fit in with my Toybiz stuff. The dwarves seem to go fine with the Toybiz figures, so I think I'll be ok. I'm interested to see some more pictures of these guys though. Haven't seen the larger figures in stores at all.

I didn't think to compare them to most movie toy lines, I typically don't go for figures in that scale in the first place. Got Thorin opened up, he took a bit to get to stand. His head while having articulation can't move because of his hair and his animal hides. It does like you could probably get the hides off though.

I do agree about him fitting in better with the LOTR figures, he is half a head shorter then Tauriel and a head shorter than Gandalf.

I will get some pictures posted in the morning with side by sides etc if I have time.

- - - Updated - - -

Not the best of shots as I am by no means a photographer. I did turn off the flash as it was making them washed out.

Group shot


New Hobbit Figures by ~wyldman11 on deviantART

Gandalf with Hat on


Gandalf with Hat by ~wyldman11 on deviantART

Gandalf with hat off

Gandalf without Hat by ~wyldman11 on deviantART

side by side of Gandalfs

Gandalf vs Gandalf by ~wyldman11 on deviantART

and tauriel with her quiver in from the side.

Tauriel With quiver by ~wyldman11 on deviantART

Just saw these at TRU ... Most look nice but Bilbo is pretty bad.

Got all five of the six inch figures now. Overall I like the line, but not as much as I do the LOTR line. They just aren't quite as detailed and a few other issues, that I will describe here.

Each figure has a few irksome things about them.

Gandalf has the issue with his hat covering his face. Mine's left foot is loose but when I get him posed he still stands, I figure the weight of the figure keeps the foot in place. His arms are shorter than promo shots lead you to believe, and with his cloak this limits posing of his arms.

Thorin's face seems to lack detail when compared to the rest of the figures faces.

Tauriel has the problem that she is just barely taller than Thorin and thinner the Bilbo making her almost seem just out of scale with the rest of the figures. She also lacks something all the other characters got and that was functional sheaths for their bladed weapons. She has to either hold her bow or her swords and the other is left loose. She does look great btw, just doesn't quite seem to match the rest of the figures.

Bilbo and Legolas I don't really have any strong complaints about, Legolas' head can default to a look down position.

General complaints. The hands are tight but soft if that makes sense. It takes a bit to get weapons into their hands, but I could see having them in their hands for a long period of time could see the weapons sliding out or not holding onto their smaller handled weapons. The lack of feet pegs is annoying as I already mentioned in my previous post, but the figures aren't too hard to stand especially Thorin and Bilbo who have wide feet. Their outfits do cause some problems with the articulation, but that is expected. While something I am more 'less accustomed to' than a complaint the knees are more like shoulder ball-hinge joints. It does help in directing the feet, but at the same time it kind of makes the knees look a bit off compared to most other toylines that use just a hinge joint.

Things I like, aside from Tauriel the figures have functional sheaths for their bladed weapons so they can still be on the character if you want Legolas to hold his bow, or the figures to have nothing in their hands. But this is only for bladed weapons, there is no where to put Legolas' bow. While not as detailed as the LOTR and not to scale with it, they are fine for another display. In theory Thorin and the other dwarves could probably work scale wise. I didn't get any dwarves from the LOTR to compare though.

I could see people doing price comparisons with the LOTR line which was ~8 dollars a figure, The Hobbit figures are 14-17 dollars. But considering price increases across the board the LOTR figures today would cost about that much if not a bit more, considering the size and detail they had.

I probably won't be getting too many more of the figures, most of the characters I would get figures for were released in this wave. Legolas and Tauriel are interesting in that they aren't supposed to appear till the second movie. Thorin has always been one of my favorite dwarves, at the point it was might as well get Bilbo. I would have to see what they do with Beorn another character I liked from the story. The other dwarves would depend on their individual look, but as I recall the kind of bled into 2-3 characters and the individual got drowned out, with a trilogy for the story this could get fixed.

On the 3.75 inch figures they do look better than most movie tie-in lines, but as I rarely like figures in this scale I passes.

Well, I'm still waiting for some of my two-packs to come from Hastings, but I got my Schleich Oracle playset and decided to takes some pictures! I still have to put the Telmarine Castle (from the Narnia line, which I got as a backdrop) together, but I'll do that soon too and take pictures of the Goblin King, Warg Rider and a few others. I can't wait to have a Galadriel to put in front of the Oracle along with the other elves!






So, after getting back from the movie, a few thoughts:

We NEED Radagast the Brown and his rabbit sleigh. I enjoyed him immensely.
So much potential for army building here. More goblins. More orcs. Dwarf armies.
Azog is a must, with his wolf.
Also, Eldrond looks very cool in his armor. I hope we get a figure of that too.

I am very confused about Yanzeg. He didn't seem to appear in the movie at all. So unless he was like Legolas and Tauriel and will appear in movie 2, it's a bit confusing. Add to that, that he was originally called Azog in solicitiations, right? So did they actually redesign Azog and then just gave a different name to this guy? Just wondering. I guess we'll find out eventually.

Since I'm a big fan of 1/18 toylines I was quite interested to see that the Hobbit figures came in two scales. As you said before, wyldman, the larger ones are not -quite- in scale with ToyBiz's line, which is an odd choice. The smaller figures, however, are nicely in scale with the current Marvel and GI Joe lines (but not with Indiana Jones and Star Wars, which still use the "smaller" scale).

Anyway, I picked up Gandalf since I've been an Ian McKellan fan forever. He's well-sculpted, although his hat has problems staying on properly. He also comes with an impressive amount of unique accessories (Hat, staff, sword, working scabbard). His articulation is slightly blocked due to his big sculpted hair and robes, and they didn't pick a softer plastic for his outfit which is a shame. Overall though, he's a great figure to look at. I'll be looking to add more creatures to my collection down the line, as the goblins all look spectacular.

One unfortunate detail I noticed is that some figures are only available in multipacks in the smaller scale.

I said this somewhere, I have found these now at K-mart. But with the movie out I see more talk and purchasing going on.