so i have heard rumblings here and there about the shitty paint apps on the recent mummy, the batman forever release and bad marking on the silver plated barb helmet...what are the thought from everyone around here. is secret base quality going the way of kidrobot? i hope not but i am starting to get worried...hmmmmm

i started to notice this with the mask ranger damage brain
very weak paint app and lots of scratching

i know a certain someone who rubbed the BATMAN brain almost clean by taking the head off maybe 2 times to peep the plush..........hope things DO NOT go th eway of KR QC

errr... why would anyone want to rub batman's brain clean?

pure accident im told - took the head off twice - resulted in a paint rub beyond keep-ability

if you took the head off the batman brain off several times w/o heating it yet... what the fuck do you expect to happen?

the quality is good, but it isn't stupid proof

heating the head wouldn't have helped..it might even make it worse. Heat would loosen the paint as well as soften the brain. Ayup.

hey guess what - I didnt do it a buddy did - and he isnt a dummy

And your heat idea??? yer not too bright a bulb now are ya?

you obviously have never tried it before

I remember reading another account of paint rubbing off a brain when it was removed. But ... thing is ... given that no special super-adhesive paint is used, there's not much you can do about a very thin paint layer cracking or rubbing off of a soft, pliable surface, especially if one's fingers touch the paint during removal. Just basic physics. However, ideally Secret Base would be aware of this problem and find some alternative method of painting or dying the brain's colored parts ... not that I have any idea what better methods might be.

Locomoco, why would anyone erase Batmans' brain? Maybe because they saw "Batman and Robin."

Now, now. I think we can all agree that you're ALL idiots.....

There's a great new sig!

hahahah - agree'd

Sad if Secret Base continues to suffer QC issues but nothing lasts forever.

My SB collection is very weak compaired to others, just recently got into them, So I cant claim any insight but....... this latest space barb was a big dissapointment. The helmet sucks, they should have just used a silver paint like what was used on its hands. The chrome job was a let down, its not flaking as warned but its just a bad application.
From a distance it rocks!
The masked ranger mummy.... yah same here.

The Barbarian is my favorite out of their figs and I 'll ultimately still probably go after all those, But Im definitely gonna slow down on SB.

HEY!!!! HOW ABOUT "Fresh Meat PROOF"? STUPID PROOF HAS NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS!

Actually I can't fault SB for a giant gap in common sense, but I do credit TT for replacing it for me

I was very disapointed (and strangely worried) to hear that the skullmen could no longer be produced in the good old matte finish. Theyr all to be made in shiny vinyl (like all the other SB toys) it made me feel like they were getting cheaper, so its really disconcerning to hear you OG's saying you think the quality may be diminishing. My first experiance removing the bag from one of my bagmen was unnerving. But there were no issues, it was just scary : ) my first brain (the tiffany) I could tell the paint wnated to come off his eye (even after heating it) if I wasn't careful. And ontop of all that I saw a batman brain that had bad paint damage because someone heated it with a blowdrier and removed the brain. So even if you heated that one you'd be screwed. I'd be scared to cuz the clear vinyl seems so pliable to begin with. But I don't own one and only held it for a moment. That's my 2 ¢ anyway... I'd be disapointed to see something I thought so highly of end up being lame : / I hope its just a fluke

I have to say the quality has suffered a little in recent months, but it will never be as bad as KR. don't even compare apples to oranges.

the barbarian helmet is for sure a bummer but I for sure knew this would be a sketchy release because of the plating process.

and it is true you should heat up the head before pulling it off. this should not mess up the paint. I have done it lots of time. pulling it off dry will for sure lead to some skuffs and paint loss.

I have never removed a brain from the head. I feel like that is sure to mess it up heated or not.

has anyone "unbrained" the skellator brain.... It has the most beautiful colors of any sb toy i own... so i don't want to even try to "unbrain" him, but i would love to know if anything is under there

What process was used on the skull barbarian helmet? I have almost all of the metallic blobpus figures and only one of the LK figures has a patch of discoloration. Every other one is pretty much perfect....even with all the little nubs and stuff on the sculpt. The headers/tags call this "vacuum plating."

Was something different used on the barbarian? Seems like it should have been relatively easy to make a metallic round helmet?

To the extent of my knowledge, the vinyl, size, and hardness of skullbrains changed around the secretter boss release, definitely by the Kinnikumin FC release, and in my opinion, for the worse. The older squishy brains have a look, even mint in package, that doesn't vibe with the shiny, hard new ones for me. I also wished that the joints? on the skullpirate and frankenghost were a little more refined; I obviously don't produce vinyl figures so I can't say what is necessary due to construction constraints, but the neck on the frankenghost and the midsection on the skullpirate certainly don't display the more or less seamless construction that makes clear skullbees, and all the clear brain variants look so good.
The battle bee was the only one I had that didn't have matching paint on the exposed chest part of the body, but then the 3rd taikai and the three devilocks all had the same uniform color on an area that had been almost exclusively painted to match the face/hands previously. I don't post much anymore because of the old if-you-dont-have-something-nice-to-say line. I also feel almost all of the 'stronger' designs are saved for Japan release only. It makes me feel like when I used to go see british dnb dj's when they came to miami only to hear them promote tired records that were last summers anthems (but had just been released) as opposed to the sets of all unreleased dubplate tunes (which would be released in six months) they would play in Britain, figuring Americans are wankers who wouldn't know a dubplate from a cheeseplate.
sorry for the disertation

heating sounds downright dangerous are we talkin' hairdryer? microwave? bar-b-q?

derr, double post, see below

almost all of my SB is older releases, and as ramos said, taking off the brains repeatedly, yes, with the help of a hair dryer!, never did them a bit of harm
using heat has always been sort of standard practice as long as i've been around fight figures, 3 years now ><

people have been doing this forever and it never hurt the toy

makes me very sad to hear that times are changing.

Hmm, maybe it's just luck of the draw, but as for recent SB releases: the mummy I have does not have a "shitty" paint job (the yellow at the head is painted on the edges of the bandages, so it is not as tight as paint at reveals that were originally designed to be painted, but it's not bad); the bandana packaging of the tiffany skullbrain was killer; my Batman Skullbrain's paint is holding stable and the inside plushie made of the old batman sheets was muy bueno; and there is the silver ranger mantis, the GNO black frankenghost, the purple & gold bagmen, and so on.

Granted, there have been some misses as well, but I do not think the ship is sinking.

But it sounds like Hiddy needs slow down on releases & make sure things will work. (I have not seen the chrome helmet barbarian, but this sounds like time was not put into prototypes for the helmet).

But if things slow down & fewer figures come out, will there be posts complaining about that?