If you were waiting to do Hasbro's "Selfie Series" thing, well, bad news:
It may just mean they're updating their design software and don't want to take orders until the improved version is ready, but it doesn't sound that way right now.
If you were waiting to do Hasbro's "Selfie Series" thing, well, bad news:
It may just mean they're updating their design software and don't want to take orders until the improved version is ready, but it doesn't sound that way right now.
One of the main problems is that the selfie series figures were just too dang expensive. Here's a way to fix it: just sell a head. A head by itself would be cheaper, encouraging more people to buy them, and people could put them on whatever figures they want. A ~$25 customized head is an easier pill to swallow than a $50 figure with a body that might not be wanted.[1]
Problem #1. Selfie-series heads are 3-D printed and aren't made of the same type of type of plastic used by normal figures, so they aren't durable and pliable enough to withstand being removed from and put on neck joints multiple times.
Solution #1: Make the heads in two parts: an inner "cylinder" and a 3-D printed outer shell. The inner cylinder can be made of PVC to connect to a neck peg, and it should be of some standard size. (The inner cylinder probably should be elliptical or some other shape with non-rotational symmetry so that both parts rotate in unison.) The parts could be glued together, but they wouldn't have to be. Actually, it'd probably be better if they weren't (more on that later).
Problem #2: Different figures (even within a product line) have different-sized neck pegs.
Solution #2A: First, STANDARDIZE THE NECK PEGS. This should be so obvious to anybody that it baffles me that in 2023 Hasbro still doesn't have all joints standardized. Hasbro had standardized connections 40 years ago! It's so baffling that the only way I can rationalize is it is that maybe Hasbro intentionally avoids standardized parts to make life hard for customizers?
Solution #2B: Making the head in two parts means that the parts can be independent. The inner cylinder can function as an adapter; different inner cylinders could be produced for different neck pegs.
I hereby put these ideas in the public domain so that Hasbro (or anyone else) can use them freely.
[1]: The 3-D printed head possibly comprises way more than 50% of the cost of a selfie series figures. If so, selling just the head might reduce the price only a small amount, and a $40 disembodied head perhaps would seem like a rip-off to a lot of people. If so, there are probably some better ways to market it (e.g. a $40 disembodied head could come with a $15 coupon toward the purchase of another figure). I think the suggestions above would still be useful to implement even if customized heads weren't sold by themselves.