There are almost no Kirk sculpts (action figures, statues, doesn't matter) that really look like Shatner. Is it because he's just that difficult to capture, or is there a licensing issue where you can't use his exact face? I'm not saying that all of the other characters look exactly like their respective actors, but Kirk seems to stand out as looking almost nothing like Shatner (maybe a vague resemblance).
IMHO, the Mego Kirk is spot-on. Most of the Megos are pretty accurate (except for Uhura I guess). http://vintageactionfigures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/star-trek-1974-mego-kirk-3-band-var.jpg
Amazingly, for a '70s toy, it is one of the closer ones. Still a bit off, though. I would guess, also, that if this is a licensing issue, Mego had the license to use Shatner's likeness. I'm not so sure that some of the more modern examples have had that license. The '70s and '80s toys, I don't expect to look exactly like the actors. Star Wars figures looked almost nothing like their respective actors, yet we considered them to be awesome. Once McFarlane figures came out the bar was raised and I would've expected toys and sculptures that looked more like the actors they represent. And most do. For some reason, Shatner is an exception.
Spock looks nothing like Nimoy and more like the Animated series version of the character. But I agree, they got early series Shatner down. Almost no other figure gets him right.
Well, they are toys, not greek busts. They are supposed to be at least slightly cartoonified or caricatured.
That depends on who is making them. ReAction is "cartoonified" (and also unappealing to me). However, the aforementioned Mego's were exceptional, especially for the time, in capturing the likenesses (and I really do think Spock was based on the Animated Series). Art Asylum prided themselves on their accuracy, but as perfect as the cast of "Enterprise" was, and how well they captured DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy, Shatner's likeness always fell short. He's tough to get in comics and many novel covers, too. Only a few artists really capture him, and those are almost always replications of promotional photos.
Sure, that's how they create a lot of figures of modern characters, but I've some pretty good sculpting by eye, NOT using 3d scans, of a lot of people and characters. I just don't understand why Shatner is so difficult to capture. TOS and TOS-Movies. Was the Halloween mask a lifecast or a sculpt?
No sculpted image can ever do Shatner's impossibly good looking face justice. Kind of like why Christians are uncomfortable with people drawing god.
"Well, we sent in a beautiful Shatner head sculpt, it looked like a strapping young Kirk from Star Trek’s inaugural season. Shatner gets ahold of it and forces all these changes to the piece, delaying us a TON. The final result was sort of an amalgamation of young Shatner and early movie Shatner. Never let a star make comments on their own likeness. They just don’t have the right kind of objective perspective, and that might be true of ANYBODY really, not just a star. We paid a premium price to a fantastic likeness sculptor to nail the head in the first round because of our timing issues, and Shatner’s reviews of it ironically contributed to missing the contractual deadline we had. It wasn’t the only reason the piece did not make the deadline, but it was definitely a contributing factor. Of course, the truth is that William Shatner probably never even saw it, and it was probably reviewed by his ‘people’." Article link, with pictures
Gene Roddenberry: The Action Figure. Hilarious comment by anonymous on the page there; "That Roddenberry figure looks like it's ready to have an affair with its secretary, and then break into a studio and cut up some film!"
As an artist who's drawn Shatner a few times, his likeness is REALLY tough to get down. In his younger days, he's classically handsome without any real distinctive features to latch onto (Nimoy has the angular features and the Spock ears & eyebrows, so he's not too tough). And his older days, he's puffier & rounder in general. If you don't get his features just right, he looks completely wrong.
You're probably thinking of Islam there. Of the various things that Christians are uncomfortable with, that isn't one of them.