Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Will the real Bruce please stand up?

The name Bruce seems to be a favorite among many writers. There's "Bruce Almighty (2003)", "My Name is Bruce (2007)", Bruce Wayne who is Batman, Bruce Banner who is the Hulk, Bruce Lee who was Kato and all KUNG FU, Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen the singer and then there's Bruce Willis. It was Bruce Willis' then-unexpected turn in the film "Die Hard" that catapulted him to fame. He performed most of his own stunts in the 1998 film (the film grossed $138,708,852 worldwide) and he has never looked back since.

There have been many 1:6 head sculpts done of Bruce Willis since the year 2000. I should say attempted head sculpts done since not all of them resembled nor looked like Bruce Willis at all which begs the question, "Will the true 1:6 Bruce Willis please stand up?"

Here are just some of them, all unofficial of course, except for "Tears of the Sun" Bruce which was released in connection with the film's release in Hong Kong.



This is a kitbashed Bruce Willis as David Dunn from the 2000 film "Unbreakable" which also starred Samuel L. Jackson. There are more pictures of this 1:6 scale Bruce Willis as David Dunn 12-inch figure in my post HERE.


IMHO one of the BEST 1:6 Bruce Willis head sculpts there is out there.


Here's another kitbashed Bruce Willis as John McClane from "Die-Hard 3" or "Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)" which also starred Samuel L. Jackson. Bruce Willis is left-handed and so is John  McClane which means his shoulder holster will be on his right side.


More pictures are posted HERE - "Yippee-ki-yah!!"


This figure by Action Trend was released in 2003 when the movie "Tears of the Sun" came out. It starred Bruce Willis as Lieutenant AK Waters of the US Navy SEAL team and featured the customized left-thigh drop-down holster coz Bruce is left-handed.


The "go-to" guy whenever anyone needs some rescuing (more pictures HERE)


Then came "Die-Hard 4.0" in 2007 and Bruce Willis returned once again as Police Detective John McClane 19 years after the first film, and does battle with a gang of cyber terrorists, including the sexy Maggie Q :)


This boxed set was produced by Subway and while the quality of the outfit and accessories were quite good, the head sculpt just didn't look like Bruce Willis. The most amazing thing was the underwear that came with padded butt (a first for 1:6 figures!) - more pictures HERE


This is a more recent addition, the Virtual ToyS (VTS) Stone Cold Killers boxed outfit set with 1:6 headsculpt of Bruce Willis as Police Detective John Hartigan of "Sin City (2005)".


The head sculpt is pretty impressive and Bruce Willis' likeness is captured very well, in my humble opinion - FULL REVIEW here


Virtual ToyS (VTS) followed up with their next Bruce Willis inspired figure, City Detective or rather 1:6 Bruce Willis as FBI special agent Tom Greer from "Surrogates (2009)"


This one's pretty good too and you can read about it HERE. Bruce Willis's next film is "Red", an adaption of the comic book mini-series of the same name, in which he will portray Frank Moses. The film is scheduled for worldwide release on October 22, 2010. You can be sure there will be another figure made of him!


There are two other 1:6 scale Bruce Willis look-alike head sculpts which I'd posted earlier: one is this 12-inch military figure of Bruce Willis as a US Army Infantryman (wearing Takara Combat Joe World War II US Army Infantryman attire) in a blog post entry titled "Getting ready for the break out". Throughout his film career, Willis has depicted several military characters in films such as "The Siege (1998)", "Hart's War (2002)", "Tears of the Sun (2003)" and "Grindhouse (2007)". Growing up in a military family, Willis has publicly sold Girl Scout cookies for the United States armed forces.


Last but not least, there's 1:6 Bruce Willis as a Red Cell "Raider". Staffed by members of the Navy's top secret SEAL Team Six, Red Cell used their special skills to carry out successful "terrorist" attacks against American military bases, assets, and personnel worldwide. The original Red Cell group formed in 1984 was hand-picked and led by the former leader of SEAL Team Six Richard 'Dick' Marcinko (Rogue Warrior) - pictures HERE!


Now I'm just waiting for the Brother Production 12-inch version of Bruce Willis as John McClane in 1:6 scale :)

UPDATE December 21, 2010: Arrival of Brother Production Presents Natural Born Hero Series 001 New York Detective "Dirty Johnny" 1:6 scale 12-inch figure (worldwide limited to 150 pieces)

3 comments:

desmond said...

VTS version head sculpts are very good. I like the one you kitbashed for Die Hard 3. The outfit is quite screen accurate :P Good work!!

Little Plastic Man said...

I think the Brother Production will be the best of the lot!

Covenant said...

The Hartigan HS is the best although they always seem to make Bruce's eyes crossed (he's not like that in real life). In the movie Sin City Bruce's character Hartigan is an older dude so the hair should really be gray to be true to the character.