A peek into action figures and their fans

Action figures are an imitation of a character in a film or from real life usually made with plastic or other materials usually used as toy items in the household to capture children’s attention. In the market, they are mostly marketed towards boys and adult males who would be more interested in collecting them. They are sometimes called action toys to distinguish them from the ones which have clothes molded on to the toy.

Statistics also support action the fact that action figures are more popular among boys and men because they are mostly inspired by real life male characters in the society. They are adapted from famous action movies, cartoons showing phantom characters like superman, spider man and batman who perform super human actions and save people. These iconic characters on the screen are brought live in the action figures

The term was first introduced by Hasbro in the year 1964 to popularize their first replica of J.I.Roe among boys who wouldn't play with dolls. The idea of collecting action figures got popularized over a decade and towards the 80’s buying these toys in their original form for display and future collectibles. However, the real craze for these toys started off in the 90’s when the iconic batman series hit the screens. Adult collectors surpassed children in the buying and collecting of these batman figures. Many versions of batman was made like notorious batman, arctic Batman etc.,

Today, the market for adult toy collectors is ever expanding with companies like McFarlane Toys, Palisades, and NECA existing in the market to deliver quality toys to people.

Apart from movies, comic series provide a vast database for these companies to create action figures. Some of them who produce action figures from comic books are Toy Biz and DC Direct.

Modeling clay is first used to make the prototype of the action figures. Once the character is decided, sketches are first made and reviewed for their accuracy with the original. Once the sketches are ready, the actual prototype is made out of modeling clay. The posture of the action figures is based on aluminum wires which are set at a particular angle which shall define the posture of the figurine. Many checks are carried out so that even the finest of details do not go unnoticed. After the prototype is made ready, they are molded using thick plastic resin moulds for the body part and some other varieties of thin plastic for hands, legs etc.,