Posted: 01.16.2024
REVIEW:
Science Cat Lady Team: Sunflower
BigFireBird Build 1/9 scale articulated figure
BigFireBird. Fitting name for a company who makes big figures.
Sunflower stands tall at approximately 19 centimeters (roughly 7.5 freedom units), making her one of the larger figures in my collection.
I've never bought anything from this company before and overall, I'd say this hunk of plastic and silicone is mostly great! Mostly.
Overview
Plastic + Silicone
Sunflower is intricately composed mainly of plastic, with her hips and thighs being made of silicone wrapped around a metal skeleton. The silicone portion allows Sunflower to maintain the range of motion you'd expect from a high-end figure with the appearance of real flesh, showing no joints or breaks in her sculpt.
Lewd, Coomer Action
With one look at her outfit, faceplates, thighs... this is a toy for the *ahem* true connoisseur of fine art. Keep her on a shelf or put her in your fanciest jar; Sunflower is a figure for adults and sits on that fine line between "cool armor chick" and "smutty, trashy trash".
Box & Packaging
In a word: very nice!
...wait, shit...
I'm a big fan of the metallic finish on the Sunflower's box. The little obi-strip style band wrapped around the box is a nice touch and the included art card is a welcome bonus. Said art card has the same nice metallic finish to it as does the rest of the box.
The back of the box tries (and succeeds) to advertise the main selling point of this figure, giving heavy emphasis to Sunflower's rear. The shiny silver finish on the back is a tad hard to photograph well but you're here for details on the figure itself, not the box, so let's not worry too much about that.
The art card has some very cute artwork and some Hanzi that loosely translate to: "Thanks for buying me, be nice to me", and with her silicone lower body, being nice to this figure will be necessary to prevent damage.
Always appreciative of wrapping around figures. No issues with her paint or finish.
A little cross-eyed, however.
Accessories
Sword?
Is it a guitar? A sword? This hunk of plastic can be whatever your heart desires. Great sculpt here, showcasing a set of speakers and (what appears to be) guitar strings laid into her weapon of choice.
Hands
Sunflower comes with a whopping assortment of 10 hands!
A nice collection featuring: peace signs, loose grips, splayed, tight grips, and fists.
Stand
Included is a very nice stand to display your new wife. The joints are tight and hold Sunflower with ease, even in a mid-air pose. While I would have preferred a peg style stand, the clamp is fairly unobtrusive and hardly visible around her waist.
Faceplates
Four faceplates are included, ranging from slight smile all the way to tongue-out.
Heart-shaped pupils give the faceplates a cute and unique look.
Each faceplate has adjustable eyeballs (love that, thank you BFB), meaning you can easily turn that tongue-out face into your typical ahegao look within a few seconds.
Hairstyles
Now this is something I've never seen before: two different sets of hair pieces!
Choose between the choppy and straight bang look or change it up with a more flowy, thin(?) style. Not entirely sure how to describe the part on the right but in my opinion, both choices are winners!
Articulation
If you've ever handled an import figure before, Sunflower's articulation scheme should seem pretty familiar, if not expected.
Ball jointed neck, ball joint & swivel shoulders, ball jointed elbows & wrists, ball jointed waist, thigh swivels, double-hinged knees, and ball jointed ankles. In addition, her ponytail has a ball joint connecting her luscious mane to the top of her head and her little robo cat ears are hinged to move forwards and backwards.
When it comes to the non-plastic elements, Sunflower has a wide range of motion in her hips (look at that leg action!). I'm unsure how the metal skeleton under her silicone skin is constructed but it has more range than I was expecting. Her tail is a flexible metal wire wrapped in rubber and holds poses very well.
The wrist articulation on this figure is impressive allowing her hands to hit near 90 degree angles. Her torso ball joint has a less impressive range of motion with limited front-to-back capabilities but is good enough when moving side-to-side.
Elbows are a little lacking and can barely squeak past the 90 degree mark. Double-jointed elbows would have been a better choice here. Regardless, her lack of elbow range is not enough to sour me on her as a whole.
But if we're talking about sour points, one huge flaw with Sunflower is her non-matching thighs! Chock it up to poor QC or maybe the fact that I nabbed this figure for half price, but her legs are two different heights! See for yourself in the photos below.
Knee Discrepancy
In this photo, both of her legs are completely flat and resting in a neutral position. You can clearly see how one knee cap does not meet the shin properly.
Unacceptable
Not only are her thighs two different heights, her knee joints sit in the thighs at two different spots with her left leg being significantly higher than the right.
This is when you're like "dude, just grab some pliers and pull the higher knee joint down further!" — and like, yeah, you're right. (I did try this by the way - they ain't budging) Even if they did and I was able to fix the disparity between her two legs, that's... not my job?
I'd expect a figure this expensive to not have an issue like this. I'll have to pose her in a way that hides this flaw when I set her on one of my shelves. Come on BigFireBird. Not great.
Conclusion
But is she worth it?
Let's be real: this is not a figure for everyone and if you made it to this point in my review, you also have exceptional taste in toys.
But would I recommend buying Sunflower?
Yes. If you can get her at a good price. I've seen this figure go for upwards of $150 online and for that price, I can't say she's worth the money. For <$60 however: maybe go for it.
Something to thing to keep in mind is her scale. Sunflower is a big girl and if you're used to figma or S.H.F., you'll find that she towers over them little ones. But, hey - maybe 1/9 scale is your preference, I don't know you.
The paintwork on this figure is almost flawless. Her articulation scheme is exceptional (sans elbows). The Silicone body parts are soft, supple, and done well. You can literally squeeze her cheeks! A certain amount of care and maintenance will be required to ensure the silicone does not deteriorate so please keep that in mind.
I'm hopeful that there will be more figures in this line. Sunflower could use a friend or two (really I just need more 1/9 scale figures to display her with). All in all, she's a good toy and I would not be adverse to buying another BigFireBird figure.
You've reached the (rear) end. Thank you! Read more!