Hasbro, Marvel, 3D Printing, and Me

Meet Super Awesome Me!

At this year’s pre-NYCC party, Hasbro had a lot of cool new things on display, but arguably the coolest new product– especially for folks in the more narcissistic corners of the geek universe– was Super Awesome Me, the new customized and fully personalized action figure with YOUR OWN FREAKING FACE ON IT from Hasbro, Marvel and 3D Plus Me, a 3D printing company.  As luck would have it, I’m just one such narcissistic geek, so when I found out Hasbro was letting attendees check out this whole process firsthand, I jumped right in line.

The whole process is really simple– you sit in a chair which scans your facial features, then you select from a variety of hairstyles, hair and eye colors, and a Marvel super hero body (our choices were Iron-Man or Captain America, but more options should be included as this new line expands).  3D Plus Me takes the pictures and information back to their 3D printers, then they mail you the completed figure in about six weeks.  The whole scanning process took, like, less than ten minutes… line non withstanding.

I just got the result, and to my pleasant surprise, the figure looks pretty cool!  My likeness definitely rings true in this 3D sculpt, and the paint work matches my hair and eye color, and even facial hair much more accurately than I would have predicted.  The head is made out of a resin-like material, which has a sort of grainy, chalky texture that doesn’t really mesh with the plastic Titan Heroes body, but the overall effect is still very cool and remarkably spot-on, even for someone as typically non-photogenic as me.

The Cap body is just the standard Titan Heroes base, with five simple cut joints for articulation and a shield accessory that plugs onto either forearm.  Since the body is standard, I’d assume the neck joint for the custom scan head is as well… so if I’m ever feeling truly bold, I may try to transplant my own head onto a different figure.  I always did love Star Lord, and he’s got a Titan Hero figure, too… just saying.

In the meantime, I couldn’t be happier with this selfie action figure.  I can see these being a huge hit with kids (although I guess sitting in the chair and getting scanned would basically rule this out as a surprise gift).  But I’ll say this much– Captain Me will have a permanent spot on my shelf for quite some time!

Hasbro’s Super Awesome Me is available now, with scanning stations in select Wal-Mart and Toys R Us stores.  Expect more stores to feature this very cool new way to action figure in the near future.  Check 3DPlus.me for the latest updates!