My Rin has slowly started to lean. That’s the big crap-shoot with collecting anime gals, whether she’ll stay out of the box perfect perky or if she’ll be leaning like a smooth criminal in 48 hours. Figure warp is not limited to the lesser manufacturers. Even PVC figurines from the top companies lean, for example Max Factory’s Ignis or my Rin Tohsaka from Alter. So, why do figures lean anyway, how to prevent warping, how to predict if a figure will lean, and how to fix it if she decides to play limbo?
Why Do They Warp and Lean?
Figures warp because the PVC material that the figure is made out of is not rigid enough to support its mass. So why don’t manufacturers just use harder PVC? The PVC composition used in most figures is a balance of flexibility for injection molding and finishing purposes so that our anime girls look as pretty and detailed as possible while trying to be rigid enough to keep its shape. Some figures just have more stress at their support points than they can handle and some aren’t given enough support in the base (RIUVA, for more information on bases), so they start to lean.
How to Prevent Figure Warp
Other than keeping your fingers crossed, there isn’t much you can do to prevent figure warp. Still, it’s not a bad idea to make sure that your shelves are level, both side-to-side and front-to-back, so that you don’t create an imbalance. The main enemy though is heat. I got my Feena figure on a 100 degree Fahrenheit day and she was jiggly like lime Jello. Keeping temperature below 80 degrees Fahrenheit helps to keep the PVC from growing too soft. For some people that’s just not practical, so you might want to box up the one’s you think will lean during the hottest months, but that’s a crappy way of avoiding the problem.
Spotting a Potential Leaner
A figure with fewer points of support, such as a figure standing on one leg, is more likely to warp (Mikuru at animerunner.net) than one that is kneeling. All the standing on one leg figure has is one ankle supporting all of that weight. On the other hand, the kneeling figure has four points of support making it far less likely to warp because the stress is distributed over four points versus over one point.
More Tips:
Erwin expanded on his comments below in this post on his blog.
The other thing to look out for is does the figure look like it is well balanced? If it weighs more on one side than the other, then it’s creating stress, which makes it more likely to lean, like Rin. She’s carrying that inner tube. It hardly weighs a thing, but it’s enough to create an imbalance. Also, if you look at how her feet are arranged she doesn’t offer very much side to side support to counteract the skewed weight. I’ve had her for over a year now and her leaning was very very gradual. What slowed down the warp was likely the fact that she is screwed onto the base — the metal screws add support.
The truth is, you really can’t tell if a figure will lean or not. For example, everyone pretty much assumed that Iroha would be kissing the ground in a week, since she is on one tippy toe. But, here we are four months later and she’s standing just as she was before. So you might as well get what looks good to you. One foot, two foot, dynamic pose, or standing straight up, most figures don’t lean anyway. Sure some do and some are more likely than others, but I really don’t worry about it or let it spoil my fun. Out of almost fifty figures, only two of mine have warped slightly. While some warped anime figures might be difficult to fix (usually because they are flawed and instantly lean), fixing some figures that gradually lean over time is easy. Luckily, fixing Rin was easy.
How I Fixed Rin Tohsaka
There are several ways I could have fixed leaning Rin. I could have gone the Tsubaki, route and used some Blu Tack to stick Rin to the side of a book case and let gravity pull her figure back into shape. Another method could have been to put her back in the box to let the figure rest back into shape, but that method seems to take a while.
Heat softens PVC, so I decided to set Rin’s legs in a bowl of very warm water for a minute to make the PVC pliable enough to where I could bend her back to an upright position. I then dipped her into a pot of cold water to cool the PVC to set it. How healthy a quick cool-down is for the longevity of PVC, I don’t know, but you can hold her in place and let the air cool her cool down over a couple of minutes if that’s something you’re worried about. An alternative to warm water is a hair dryer, though starting on a low setting is probably the way to go to avoid damage. Either way, wet or dry, it doesn’t need to be too hot (not melting) to reshape them. Hopefully, this is all you need. Here’s Rin all straightened out:
Anyway, in about five minutes from set-up to clean-up I’ve got Rin back to her normal position. I fit her back in the box and she fit into the mold just fine (sorry no picture of that). Maybe I should have over compensated just a smidgen, because even though she’s back to spec, she could stand to be a little straighter.
If anyone has another method, please share.
Alter’s Rin Tohsaka swimsuit version was the first figure I took with my desktop lighting thing, gallery is here.
I hope my Taneshima Popura figure doesn’t start to lean.