NECA Gives More Updates On TMNT Products

On 7/8/2020 at 7:25 AM, Batman1701 said:

I'll post pics of my results in the near future, but yeah . . . they do have a good movie Casey head sculpt, and if you got the skills and don't want to wait for a possible variant release, you can definitely build him yourself!

So, as promised, I finally got around to photographing my Casey Jones "Elias Koteas" head mod. Again, this is the actual headsculpt provided by NECA, underneath his glued-on mask. All I did was fill in the peg holes, give him a new hair piece,and paint. And, I might add, I think I did an AMAZING job, he turned out WAY better than I expected! (My crappy photography notwithstanding.*LOL*) In person, he ALMOST looks like a Hasbro photo-real face paintjob!

19 hours ago, Lord_Scareglow said:

I recently saw on I believe Randy's twitter, that Elias had a change of heart after seeing all of the fan chatter about his figure, and he appears to be now on board with providing his likeness to the figure, this makes me hope maybe a single boxed Casey Jones with alt unmasked head! I hope so

Yeah I saw that too, I think thats what JayC was refering to on the news, but as far as I know the guys from neca still want to do this but havent yet reache an agreement, hopefully they do and we get another casey down the line with both headsculpts

9 minutes ago, abnuggler said:

Im hopefull the guys at neca will be able to talk things trough with Elias and be able to get the likeness rights so we can get an unmasked casey headsculpt (either as a pack in for a future figure set,or a reissue of Casey down the line, after all they have reissued the turtles 4 times now with minor changes)

I recently saw on I believe Randy's twitter, that Elias had a change of heart after seeing all of the fan chatter about his figure, and he appears to be now on board with providing his likeness to the figure, this makes me hope maybe a single boxed Casey Jones with alt unmasked head! I hope so

Im hopefull the guys at neca will be able to talk things trough with Elias and be able to get the likeness rights so we can get an unmasked casey headsculpt (either as a pack in for a future figure set,or a reissue of Casey down the line, after all they have reissued the turtles 4 times now with minor changes)

please NECA just let me get my hands on a Casey Jones, Tokka & Rahzar, Super Shredder and make an April, and I'll walk away a happy man, asking for nothing else

but don't make me sell my soul and go to mordor to get them, after the great star alignment of the year 2060

I was getting really excited about this line when they announced the Super Shredder and Tokka/Rahza 2 pack but I'm starting to get frustrated. This line is not even huge want of mine I just wanted some figures from a franchise I loved as a kid but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth the aggravation.

So in the middle of a pandemic where for the health and safety of everyone we are being encouraged (and in some regions instructed)to stay at home and avoid unnecessary trips out the decision is made that these products will not be available online and the only way to find them is for the customer to make a physical trip to the stores to look for them. Add to that the fact that these things are so poorly stocked and so poorly distributed that it is likely to take multiple (ie daily) trips to multiple stores to actively hunt specificallyfor these things and even then the odds are extremely stacked against you finding them. Really???

Pandemic or not the closest Walmart store to me in Los Angeles is over an hour away one direction In traffic so no way would I be spending 2 to 3hours round trip each time hunting for these things particularly when there is such an extremely low low low probability of me actually finding them and an extremely likely probability that each attempt would be a wasted 2 hour effort. So the second you say physical Walmart stores only I know that I am out on this TMNT movie line.

And in addition to that Im probably out on the Animated line toobecause despite the fact that pre-pandemic I was often checking multiple Target stores daily I not once came across Bebop and Rocksteady. But now in the middle of the pandemic thats not happening any more and now Ive literally only been in a physical Target store twice since this whole thing began in March. Thus finding these in stores onlyhas gone from very unlikely to nearly impossible.

So despite the fact that this was the line I was most excited about coming out of NYTF it appears as a result of this decision I am out. Im not sure where this decision to make it not have any online availability came from (is this a NECA call or a Walmart call?) but either way it would be a terrible call under ANY circumstances even at the best of times. It is acall that is worsened by the fact that these things are so poorly distributed across Walmarts. But worst of alladd to that the fact that this call is coming in the middle ofahealth crisis where the mission statement is to avoid unnecessary trips into public venues and there hasbeen ahuge amount of social and economic suffering and sacrifice committed and enforced in aneffort to prevent people from over exposing themselves in public placesand still in the middle of all of that the call is made of physical Walmart stores only??? Under these circumstances itis not only terrible call it is arguably extremely irresponsible, and really illustrates a strong disconnect and a strong lack of consideration and concern between a company and its customers.

Can't buy my movie TMNT online, eh? Hmmm. Makes my collecting laziness erupt in a flare up.

7 hours ago, Mr_Scary92 said:

@GoldBlade6

Blame it on playmates for imposing restrictions to Neca on the sale of all the TMNT stuff.

You mean blame Playmates for protecting the master toy license they've held for nearly 30 years? Those B-----DS!

Seriously, you can't put this on Playmates. Neca was given their own niche to work in and withinthat land they are king. They can do what they want, when they want, how they want. If they screwed the pooch, that's on their own heads.

That being said, to Neca's credit, they're owning their mistakes and working to correct them. Unlike, say, Mattel who tended to very publicly lay blame on everyone BUT themselves while blatantly continuing their mistakes.

So, I actually got ahold of a Casey/Raph two pack this weekend, and because I'm a toy customizer myself, and wasn't too terribly concerned about the risks, I did a little futzing around and pried the hockey mask off of Casey. Some interesting notes:

1) I would not recommend doing this for anyone that does not have SERIOUS sculpting and repair skills. The mask is VERY thin and brittle plastic, it cracked in multiple places. I do have such repair skills, so I was able to reassemble it, but just fair warning, it is NOT easy to remove.

2) NECA isn't BSing: just like their Keaton Batman figures, they sculpted a full head under the mask, and they did put a pretty damn decent young Elias Koteas head on there! Now, he does have grooves in his face (the mask has pegs to connect to his head), but they're on his cheeks and forehead, nowhere intrusive like on his nose or mouth or something, so again, if you're a good customizer, they are easily filled in, and with a full paint job, you end up with an excellent unmasked face!

3) The straps for the mask, however, are sculpted into the hair piece, so if you want that unmasked head, you're going to have to remove the full hair piece as well, and then find a new hair piece to put on the Elias Koteas head. I used the hair from an old ToyBiz Strider Aragorn figure. It doesn't have the same volume as the figure's original hair, but it does look kinda wet and stringy, like Casey did during his fight with Tatsu near the end of the movie, so with a little sculpting and some paint,it works just as well.

4) Then it was just a simple matter of reassembling the mask on the original hair piece, with a new face underneath (I used a random WWE figure head, grooves cut in as needed), and voila! I got two heads for my new Casey, one masked and one unmasked!

I'll post pics of my results in the near future, but yeah . . . they do have a good movie Casey head sculpt, and if you got the skills and don't want to wait for a possible variant release, you can definitely build him yourself!