I just opened Duke. He's pretty much awesome and mostly perfect in almost every area (though a lot of his joints feel either too loose or too tight). Great figure. Except. The paint apps and finish on his thigh armor is absolute garbage. Really disappointing too because that's one of the most striking areas of his suit's design. Really disappointing.

It's mainly the black parts that are messed up, so it's not exactly something I can't fix [very crappily] but still. Unhappy. First time I've really seen such crappy work on a figuarts--my Gaim was a lemon but the issues with him were different. This guy's legs were just a mess.

Regardless, this is my first New Generation Rider, and the soda parts are just as awesome in person as I expected them to be. The sculpting and paint on the Genesis Driver and Sonic Arrow are impressive, and as I mentioned, the rest of the figure besides the thighs is great. The Gaim line continues to impress me.

Sadly I had the same problem with my Duke on his thigh as well. I think the reason it happen because it was a hard spot to paint I still love the suit but like you said disappointing.

Pics?
As far as I recall, my Duke is fine, but I'm curious what exactly you're talking about, so I can double check mine.

Yeah mine as well, just checked. No issues with the black paint on his legs whatsoever.

Duke isn't on my immediate list, but Baron is. I'd like to see pics of the issue, too, to see what went wrong.

I just checked mine. There's some light paint splatter and messy linework on the upper, inner thighs. I honestly hadn't noticed prior to just now, but I suspect this may be what he's talking about.

I've tried to fix as much as it as I can by painting over it, but from what remains I think this is the best shot I can get. The inner details are very roughly painted and a bunch of it is uneven or left silver, which makes the whole thing look really messy. You can't see it very well in this picture but the paint on the top of the thigh armor looks quite smudged. The same is true of the bottom of the armor, but I couldn't get any good (or even passable) pics of that. In general it has none of the crisp paint work I've seen in pretty much every other figuarts I've got and even Duke himself beyond this limited area.

The black designs on his left thigh were also all scratched up when I got it, but I filled those out as soon as I got him.

On other news (and nitpicks) my Gaim Pine Arms' lockseed holder doesn't have the silver details painted on. So that's kinda bullcrap. I have great luck with these things.

I'm way late here, but I haven't had much time to get online. I just wanted to say thanks for the Agito pics. Seeing them side by side lets me see the differences. The old one was certainly a svelte lad, wasn't he?

Ami-Ami pre-orders. Live in roughly three hours.

Fire

...Huh. Only one Toku SHF.

And I can't get it. Because I am broke as fuck. And even if I had the money I don't have an AmiAmi account. The salt? It is a retail release metal hero, meaning everybody will probably go after it and drive up the price on the aftermarket.

Life sucks.