Experiments in Balance – Getting a Feel for Action Figure Posing

[davidd]

I think the secret must be tight-fitting shoes.  I had a few-minutes' effort with Lea... because of the shape of her feet she needs shoes, but those that would be solid enough to balance on, are a bit too big so her ankles are loose in them.

That is correct. Here is a paragraph I posted to one of the action figure forums about my eksperiments:

The learning curve continues to curve on this Journey of Extreme Posing. After utterly failing yesterday with both a smaller TBLeague figure and a Jiaou figure, I tried to analyze the issues. While the body geometry plays a part in how well a particular model of figure will balance, two major factors are the stiffness of the ankle joint and the fit of the foot inside the shoes if the figure is wearing shoes.

The ankle joint must be stiff enough to hold a position with the mass of the figure pressing on it, but it must have a sufficient range of motion to allow for some severe angles.

There can be no "slip" of the foot inside a shoe or boot, and the shoe must be rigid enough to not flex out of shape under the weight of the figure.

Additionally, the joints of the figure must be able to hold a pose. The Jiaou body is more prone to slipping out of position than are the TBLeague bodies. The TBLeague figures generally hold poses longer than the Jiaou without falling over.

The petite S44/45 figure does not balance quite as well as the slightly heftier S41 I initially worked with. The S41 combines the agility of the petite "anime style" body with a slightly higher mass, more in line with a full-size TBLeague body.

As near as I can determine, my frustration with the S44/45 figure yesterday was a result of loose ankle joints in one of the figures, and loose fit of the shoes on the second figure.