This figure to me was an overall decent figure. I have some complaints and some praise for it. This figure comes in at a price point of around $120. I got mine for $114 from Good Stuff to Go.
Starting off, the figure is Triad's Alpha female body. This is a nice full figured body with curves you aren't going to find on other bodies on the market. It's a good blend of aesthetics and articulation. It has some drawbacks. The neck is very wide and this makes it hard to use any heads other than Triads without any modification... sadly also this even befalls some of their own heads having compatibility issues. The wrists are a drawback to me. The design of the wrist post is flat ended, which means that it doesn't seat properly inside the wrist sockets of the hands. This can easily be fixed with using CG / TTL / etc wrist posts with the Triad hands, granted this is not something you should have to do, but it's not a deal breaker. There were some skintone matching issues with the individually packaged Alpha bodies and hand sets, but the boxed figures don't seem to suffer from this. Triad has said themselves they take greater oversight of the boxed items than the items for customizers, which is good, considering the pricetag of Jade, but you shouldn't just limit your oversight of quality to your high end items IMHO. Anyway, the hands that came with Jade all matched the body very well.
Jade's headsculpt is nice, with good paint application on it. It's a good stock paint job, but I will probably repaint / retouch her to make her more mine. Her hair... well I like the two tone colors, but... the best way to describe her hair is "Post Apocalyptic" lol... It definitely needs some taming, and the cutting on it leaves a bit to be desired, but it's tough with short hair cuts on dolls.
Jade's outfit is nice. It's a nice Steampunk inspired ensemble. I feel it needs something to complete it, I think a nice brown leather corset would look awesome with it. The material is good, and like most all Triad's outfit offerings, it is the strong point of the figure. I like the colors, and little details. Her belts and holsters are well done with nice metal working buckles. The only thing I would have asked for with her shorts would have been more belt loops. The two on the sides are nice, but a couple more would have been better to keep the belt in place better. I like the secondary lower set above the garters for her leggings, they worked nicely for the pistol belt. I like the buckle setup for the garters too. Her psuedo coat / cape / duster is nicely done, but doesn't really do much for me, if it were more of a duster it would have been better.
As for her weapons, Jade has very nicely designed and steampunky looking revolvers. They have a decent paint job, but considering the weapon offerings from other companies currently (including Triad themselves), for the pricetag I'd have expected a bit more to them. I'd have at least expected them to break open possibly being the design is like that of older style revolvers. The revolvers go nicely into the holsters on her belt.
Jade's sword was a bit of a let down. The let down mostly being because of the price point of the figure. Triad's Dakota was around $30 less than Jade, and came with a metal sword. Jade's machete was plastic, and not even a really solid plastic. This was a serious letdown, and I will probably make my own for her out of aluminum. It did come with a nicely done scabbard however.
So, in summation, this figure is decent, I'd give Jade 3 of 5 stars, mostly because of the price point issues. This figure would have been worth it had it been closer to Dakota's pricetag of $90. I know that Triad is a smaller company with smaller runs, however if they want to compare themselves with the big boys, they needs to make their offerings worth the value of big boy prices. I'm content with this product, and I probably will have it grow on me more as I do some custom work to her and make her more "mine". I think though that if I had to do it over again at the $120 pricepoint I would have passed most likely and just tried to get loose parts.
Thanks for following.
2 comments:
Good review. I just got mine and I agree that the price point was too high for what you get with her. I have a couple of Hot Toys items and though they are a pretty penny, at least you feel that you get what you paid for with multiple accessories, working parts and a stand for the figure. My biggest disappointment with Jade was with the face. I know the production stills are always better than the actual product, but her face was one of the key selling points for me. It was a bit of a letdown that her eyes weren't as distinctive as the photos and that she is slightly cross-eyed. As I am not a customizer I will have to live with it, however the hair on mine is nice and I've styled to match the photos pretty closely which helps. I like the outfit and she looks much better with the jacket on. All in all not a bad doll but I have to give her only 3.5 out of 5 stars due to the face and price point.
I totally agree with you on this figure. I was lucky and waited until Triad's Christmas sale and got mine at $87.99. I bought 2 at this price, it was a no brainier. At 115+ I was going to pass. I like Triad's female figures but they need to keep there price point in the $60-$80 range, they just are not up there with the big boys like HT,SS,Enterbay, even their headsculpts seem lacking as of late, paint ops especially...just my 2cents
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