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If you are studying to be an artist or if you have an interest with the human figure, the SH Figuarts Body line of highly articulated human models are a must have. Perhaps you may have come across or seen the wooden human figure aid that some artists use that are often used as decorative pieces as well. Those have very limited articulation or posing capability. The SH Figuarts Body models on the other hand have over 30 articulated joints with almost limitless posing capability.

Unlike the wooden models, the SH Figuarts Body figurines are made from plastic. They are uniformly colored and come in either grey, black or flesh colored. There are male (Body Kun) and female (Body Chan) figures and the figures have anime-influenced body proportions.

This is not surprising as these figures are made and sold by Bandai Tamashii Nations, the Japanese company that is well-known for their line of high quality plastic models including many models based on Japanese anime and manga. However, for non-manga artists, it should not be a problem for an experienced artist to adjust the proportions accordingly in their drawing to get more realistic body proportions.

The figures are only about 6 to 7 inches tall which at first seemed rather small. However, after playing around with the model and creating dozens of poses, we find the small size is not an issue at all. In fact, the smaller size made it easier to pose and mount the figure on the included stand. It may be problematic to balance the model properly if it was bigger and heavier.

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The joints have just the right amount of stiffness. They limbs move and bend easily enough but has enough friction to stay in place after you are happy with the posing. The deluxe DX version of the model comes with a small selection of accessories including a book, a laptop PC, a gun, a sword and a cell phone. The joints have enough stiffness for the models to hold on to the included accessories and to hold the pose indefinitely while you take your time to sketch or draw. While the tiny fingers do not have articulation, the set does comes with 17 different interchangeable hand poses.

The articulation on these models are amazing. Both the knees and elbows have double joints that allow them to bend really far. It is hard to list down all the joints here. It is much easier for us to include photos of what the models are capable of instead. For its size, the price may seem rather high but these are very high quality artist tools, not toys. There are comparative “collector models” that have similar articulation but those do cost more than the SH Figuarts Body models.
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