As a dyed-in-the-wool 3 3/4" collector, I've largely avoided releases in Hasbro's larger-scale 6" Black Series line. There are the occasional exceptions, and my continued impatience with Hasbro's failure to release (or even announce) a Child for the 3 3/4" Vintage Collection line has driven me to dabble in the Black Series once again - recently picking up their version of The Child for $20.00AU ($21.34NZ).
Coming in at only 1.1", The Child may just be the most adorable Star Wars figure yet created by Hasbro. Despite his diminutive stature, he still manages to boast an impressive seven points-of-articulation, featuring ball-jointed feet, ball-jointed shoulders, swivel wrists, and a ball-jointed head. He also comes with three accessories: a frog, a bowl of bone broth, and the Razor Crest control lever knob he's so fond of playing with. These tiny accessories come packed in their own clear acrylic display case - an absolute necessity if you hope to avoid losing that near-microscopic lever knob. My one bone (broth) of contention is that the The Child is largely incapable of interacting with these accessories. You'll need to use some kind of adhesive if you want him to have any chance of holding either the hold either the bowl or knob in his hands.
The only other downside of this figure is the lack of additional accessories. Considering that he sells for close to the price of a full scale Vintage Collection figure ($20.00AU versus $24.99AU), Hasbro really could have included a little more plastic. The glaring omission is, of course, his pram. This needn't have been much - just a single sculpted piece of egg-shaped plastic atop a transparent stand - yet it would have added enormous play- and displayability options for little additional cost.
Despite being created for the 6" scale, this version of The Child seems entirely compatible with figures from the 3 3/4" line - as pictured above. In fact, let's consider the math. The 6" figure line is based on an assumed scale of 1:12, meaning that a 6 foot tall character will be sculpted at precisely 6 inches. Wookieepedia lists the Child's height as 16.1", meaning that an accurate 1:12 figure of the character would be around 1.3" tall. Consider instead the 3 3/4" line, with an assumed scale of 1:19.2. An accurate Child in this scale would instead be 0.8" tall. At 1.1" tall, this Child figure is actually somewhere between these two scales. He's slightly too small for a 6" figure, and slightly too big for the 3 3/4" line.
Given this, it seems that Hasbro really missed a trick here. The fudging on the scale of this version of The Child means he could easily have been marketed for both the 3 3/4" and 6" lines. Unfortunately, by labelling him as purely a Black Series figure, Hasbro may have excluded many potential 3 3/4" customers. Indeed, even I had decided to pass on this figure until my wife had a hunch about the scale and encouraged me to pick one up all the same. I now realise, however, that he is an absolutely adorable must-have for collectors of both lines.
