Plo Koon's Forum

Action figure reviews are beneficial to the collecting community, as they help collectors decide whether or not to purchase a figure. The more detailed the review, the more helpful it is to the reader.

Here are some tips to help you with writing action figure reviews!

Action Figure Review Guide

When you return from a toy run, pick a figure/figures to review. Then play with the figure for a couple of days to work out your feelings about the product. It's not a good idea to review a figure immediately after you purchase it. With a little bit of time, you may notice things about the figure you did not notice immediately.

Once you begin writing your review, decide on a format. For your format, decide how to introduce your review, what areas of the product you will cover (most people cover paint, sculpt, articulation, accessories etc.). This is the format I use:

[Figure's name]
[Introduction]
[Sculpt]
[Paint/Deco]
[Accessories]
[Articulation]
[Value]
[Overall]
[Overall Grade]

It is a good idea to end your review by telling the reader whether or not you suggest they purchase the product. BE HONEST! No one is going to attack you for giving a figure a bad grade, however, be ready to receive different opinions on the product. Not everyone will share your opinion, but more are bound to agree with you if you give a good solid reason as to why you like/do not like the product in your review. You may also want to give an overall score for the product. I do my overall scores as letter grades (F-A+), although many people use numerical scores (i.e. score/100).

For each section of your review, give a good amount of detail to help the reader better understand the product in the review. Remember, not every reader is going to be familiar with the product being reviewed, and they may be using your review to help them understand the figure. You should also organize your thoughts clearly. This way, the review will not be confusing. Check your spelling and grammar also, the more precautions you take, the better your review will come out.

Once you've written everything out, you should consider taking photographs of the figure. Visual aides help people who are unfamiliar with the action figure.

To get the best quality pictures, look on your camera, and see if there is a macro mode. This setting is usually symbolized as a flower. Macro mode is good for taking pictures of smaller objects (such as action figures) from about a meter away or closer.

In addition to using macro mode, also, set up a plain background in back of your figure. I fold a regular 8.5 x 11" sheet of white paper in half and use that as the background. If you just set up the review anywhere and without a background, readers may be distracted by background objects.

If you are looking for a quick way to host the pictures and get them on the forums in moments, I suggest you use www.majhost.com. There are no special features and it's a very basic image hosting service, but images upload very quickly and easily, plus images don't tend to be removed or get lost on this site.

Now you're ready to write a review! Go ahead and share your opinons with the collecting community!