Packaging - ***1/2
Their packaging is the usual collector friendly style, but with two, count them TWO, plastic covers over the interior tray, you'd think they could skip the six twisties. This package is starting to slip into the old Medicom disease, where it's easily twice as deep as it needs to be for Will and his handful of accessories.

The graphics are great of course, and the exterior sleeve has that cool foil appearance. They have a lot of real estate for text, and they don't fully take advantage of it, but it's a minor issue.

Sculpting - ***1/2
Orlando Bloom has been a tough face to capture. We've seen multiple sculptors try with various characters, most notably Legolas and Will Turner. And even with all these different sculptors taking their own stab at his likeness, no one has gotten it quite right. Until now.

This is easily the best Will Turner sculpt we've gotten, even with the couple minor nits that I'll be picking. From most angles, it's a dead on likeness, although to be completely fair, the nose is a smidge off fron a straight on view. Still, anyone that sees this on your shelf will recognize him instantly. The head is the right size for the clothed body too, something that other companies seem to have such a hard time getting right.

The other terrific aspect to the sculpt is the realism. The skin is not doll smooth, but rather has a slight texture to it that gives it a very lifelike appearance. The sculpted facial hair is as good as I've ever seen on a sixth scale figure, and this is particularly difficult because it's not thick and full. The thin moustache and small, closely cropped goatee would have been impossible to do if Hot Toys were using lesser sculptors.

The boots are solid plastic, and I love the sculpts here as well. They look terrific, and although there's no ankle articulation, they still work extremely well for even deeper stances.

The hands are really my only nit. The standard hands are both done in a soft gesture pose. That's not a huge issue, but because there isn't really a sword/knife gripping hand included as an accessory, they don't work particularly well in holding his weapons. You can get them to work with the sword, but it's a little obtuse. They don't work with the knife, and you really have to resort to the gun grip hand to hold that weapon.

Will's boots seem to make him a hair taller than the regular Jack, but he's a bit taller than Depp in real life as well, so it's about right.

Paint - ****
As much as I love the sculpt, the paint is even better. Clean, neat and consistent all around, it does what great paint should do - make a great sculpt even better.

The skin tone is consistent and clean, and it doesn't interfere or clash with the texturing. The hair line uses the slight cross hatch style to give it a rough edge, but it's so finely done that you only notice it in macro photos.

The painting of the facial hair couldn't be better, with no gloppiness or thickness to it at all. It brings out the finely sculpted hair without covering it or clogging it, and the slight feathering of the color out toward the skin tone adds to the realism. For a production paint job, this is really impressive.

Finally, there's the eyes. I want to make a special point to discuss catch lights, since it's been such a hot topic around the Sideshow boards. Sideshow adds the catch lights (those little bright spots of light reflecting off your eyes) with white paint, putting on essentially white dots. I don't have a serious issue with this, but some folks truly do.

I bring it up because although you'll clearly see catch lights in his eyes (look at the photo at the top of the page), these are NOT painted on, but actual catch lights caused by the light reflecting off his glossy eye paint. Again, some really impressive factory paint.

Articulation - ***1/2
He sports the usually highly articulated and easy to pose Hot Toys sixth scale body. The boots are sculpted plastic, and replace the feet, so there is no ankle articulation. However, the boots turn on the calves, allowing them to be properly posed in most stances.

He doesn't have the double ball jointed neck that we usually see with Hot Toys figures, but does have the ball joint at the top of the neck. This joint still allows for quite a bit of personality in just about any stance, short of doing a Superman flying pose.

Otherwise, his articulation is very much in line with the rest of the POTC series, and you should have absolutely no trouble finding a terrific way to display him. The joints are tight and well constructed, and the body has that ability to naturally hang which is so critical to getting realistic poses and keeping them.

Accessories - ***
If there's one category were Will falls short, it's accessories. At this price point and from this company, there have gotten to be some pretty high expectations.

Will has the usual display stand, but as always I urge you to consider skipping it's use. The company went to so much trouble to give you a truly realistic, lifelike, highly posable figure - why ruin the appearance by sticking him on a pole?

Will also has his flintlock pistol, which can fit in his belt, and his basic sword, which fits in his shoulder belt/scabbard. Both sculpts are reasonable, but both are also fairly basic. The scale is good though, and he looks fine brandishing either or both.

He also has his father's knife, with a small leather sheath. The sheath has a loop that allows you to attach it to the belt, or you can just shove the whole thing behind the belt. The knife sculpt is quite good, emulating the rough and coarse appearance it had in the films.

His final extra is a gun gripping right hand, with the first finger properly pose. The hand swap works well enough, and it does grip the gun well, but why only one hand? At this price point, we've come to expect something more.

Outfit - ****
I wasn't quite as willing to strip my Willie as Jeff was, so I'll refer you back to his review for some photos of Turner without the jacket.

While the accessories were a little disappointing, the outfit was not. Here you have multiple layers of clothing - red puffy shirt with full length sleeves, vest, coat - and yet they all fit perfectly, with excellent tailoring and properly scaled thickness and proportion. Multiple types of materials are used, including leather for the vest, light silky material for the shirt, and a heavier wool-like material for the coat. There's brass and metal buttons, detailed stitching, and excellent quality work all around.

The pants aren't super fancy, but they do the job and the look great. There's a sash and a belt, both wrapped around his waist. You can remove them easily enough if you need to put the knife sheath on, or you can fit the knife or pistol behind them. They fit tightly, and do a good job of keeping the other layers of clothing tight around the body.

His final costume piece is his necklace. The string is a little long, allowing it to hang so low on his body as to make it tough to see most of the time, but the various attached items are all well sculpted and painted.

Fun Factor - ***
Nope, you won't be buying one of these for your seven year old to drag through the mud, but one of the things that makes the Hot Toys sixth scale figures outstanding is that they haven't forgotten tha they are ACTION figures first, 'collectibles' second. You can pose him, arrange him, and yes, play with him without the fear of him falling apart at the slightest touch.

Value - **
Comparing Will to some of HT's other offerings in this same price range, and he seems a bit light, particularly on accessories. While the costume is outstanding, I expect some meat in the Accessory categories as well.

Things to Watch Out For - 
I'd take some care swapping the right hand. I noticed that the post on mine is a bit flimsy, and if you simply yank the hand off and shove the other one on repeatedly, you're probably going to be looking for a replacement post.

Overall - ***1/2
I'm tremendously happy with the work Hot Toys has done with the Pirates of the Caribbean line. Put together a shelf with Jack, Cannibal Jack, Sao Feng, Elizabeth and Will, and you'll have an eye catching display that will get comments from everyone that sees it.

If Will has just been a bit stronger in the Accessories category, this could have been a four star figure. It's work like this that has be hotly anticipating the Hot Toys work with the Dark Knight license.

I haven't received my Davy yet, but I should be getting him shortly. I'll cover him as well, and I'm particularly interested in seeing him in person, as he is the first of these figures to go much more towards traditional plastic action figure style.

Score Recap:
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - ***1/2
Paint - ****
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - ***
Outfit - ****
Fun Factor - ***
Value - **
Overall - ***1/2

Where to Buy -
There are a number of excellent sponsors who have it in stock:

- Alter Ego Comics has him for $117.

- Sideshow Collectibles had him for $129, but has sold out.

- or search ebay with MyAuctionLinks.

Related Links -
Either Jeff or I (and sometimes both) have covered most of this line:

- Jeff covered Davy Jones late last week, and he covered Will and the Cannibal Jack a little while back. 

- Jeff also covered the Elizabeth Swann and Sao Feng v2.0, as well as the first Sao Feng and Sparrow.

- I covered the first Jack Sparrow and Sao Feng as well.

Discussion:
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