If you thought Hot Toys was only going to release sixth-scale faithful recreations of the Avengers roster as it exists in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’, you were wrong. The Chinese toymaker just announced a new line of designer figures, which will debut with a collection of six characters from the upcoming Marvel sequel.

The Artist Mix line is a new way for Hot Toys to offer a bit more diversity in its catalog, while also allowing the company to partner up with designers and artists that provide a style radically different from what we're used to seeing from the high-end manufacturer. For this first wave, Hot Toys has teamed with toy designer Touma to craft mini, bobble head versions of Iron Man, Captain America and Ultron.

Aside from the Hulkbuster Iron Man, each of the figures will come in at about 5.5 inches tall. Hulkbuster will be a bit larger at 7.8 inches tall. All of the figures will be available separately, though a special deluxe pack of Hulkbuster and a Battle Damaged Iron Man will be made available as well. This pack is the only way to get the Iron Man variant, but the only differences are in the paint app, not the sculpt, so it's not an entirely new figure.

Teaming up with a vinyl collectible designer makes sense, as the hobby has exploded in recent years across all levels of the market. Casual consumers have the Funko and Kid Robot lines, while more hardcore collectors have a wealth of designers to choose from, like Jason Freeny, Frank Kozik and more.

It's a bit disappointing to see that Touma's designs are just okay. For a line of collectibles (supposedly) based around stylish artist interpretations, there really isn't much about these figures that makes them stand out. The Ultrons look very Ultron-y, and the Iron Man is appropriately armored up. The designs are just too accurate, and there's very little nuance to this figures besides exaggerated proportions. Yes, the sclupts are nice. There are a lot of observable details, and the accuracy of these figures can't be denied. However, it feels like a missed opportunity to not see at least one risk taken with these figures, let alone a few.

No pricing or release date was announced as of yet, but we expect more details in that regard soon from Sideshow Collectibles.

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