I'm pretty obsessed with the mini-bust format. In the early 2000s and throughout the 2010s, these were everywhere. Bowen Designs, Gentle Giant, DC Direct, and Diamond Select seemingly had releases every month. Plus several companies came to the game late like Monogram and Eaglemoss and produced some great pieces. But unfortunately, since 2019 almost all production seems to have ceased - with the exception of Diamond Select who was still occasionally releasing Star Wars and Gargoyles busts until just a couple years ago. My favorite character to collect in this format was Catwoman. I believe I have 12 different mini-busts representing a variety of her incarnations over the years (surprisingly there were never Pfeiffer or Golden/Silver Age representations - two glaring omissions). I excitedly bought this Julie Newmar Batman '66 bust when it came out 11 years ago, but was pretty disappointed in the paint quality. The difference between the paint masters and the production version was simple, but impactful. The solicitation photos looked decently like Julie Newmar (not great, but close enough).
But in-hand, the eyes and mouth were painted differently and changed the whole look in my opinion. I photographed her back in 2015 and then tried to customize her a bit, but overall I was deflated and never posted any pictures. A few weeks ago I found the photos on an external harddrive and decided (for completion's sake) to finally upload them. My attempts to fix the paint are at the bottom of this post. I'm inspired to take another swing now. If I do, I will add those later. Let's check out Catwoman below!
I photographed this figure as best I could, and she honestly doesn't look that bad in the zoomed-out shots. But I just wanted to show how uneven and splotchy her eye paint was. There are parts where the linework is almost black, and then the paint thins and it's a pale gray. There are random black flecks of paint. Not a single line is smooth, and her pupils are not even round. The later Earth Kitt and Yvonne Batgirl busts in this line were greatly improved. But this purchase was a big QC disappointment for me at the time.
All the photos past this point have touched-up face paint. I tried not to change anything too drastically. I just smoothed out the uneven lines and filled in gaps. It doesn't make her look any closer to Julie Newmar, but it looks a lot cleaner.
Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!
Here is Julie with the Eartha Kitt bust from 2017. They share the same body sculpt.
And here they are with the Yvonne Craig Batgirl bust from 2016.
Here is Catwoman with her 2019 Eaglemoss Catwoman Bust.
And here she is alongside some cinematic Catwoman busts:
I must have taken this group photo shortly before the McFarlane figure was released in 2022.
She's the only important one missing aside from larger vinyl toys like Funko Pops and Nodders.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment