All this talk about customs sculpts really hits something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I don’t want to trash any specific artist, but I feel like I see a new TDK/Rises Bruce Wayne sculpt every week and they all have these strange slack jawed expressions with razor blade lips and each one looks weirder and more simian than the last.
There’s a newer Ra’s sculpt out there that’s become popular that looks nothing like Neeson IMO either. It’s bizarre seeing people sell what seem like far superior older sculpts, like the Jnix Ra’s, because someone made a new one.
There’s also Modern Life who seems to do great work but focus on random stuff like Rises Bane for 10 years and I think their most recent product was boots for that figure… Hot Toys Bane has a lot of issues but idk where the demand for better boots for that specific figure comes from.
It’s almost like a phony elitism drives some of the high end custom work rather than the actual benefit to the figure.
With all due respect, isn’t the very definition of “phony elitism” looking down your nose and deriding something you don’t take the time to completely understand?
If you mean to imply that anyone is happy paying excessive amounts of money for an inferior sculpt, then I must respectfully disagree with your conclusion. I don’t know of anyone who fits that profile.
Custom sculpts typically don’t just appear and get offered for sale. If that was the case, then clearly, no one would be purchasing any expensive inferior sculpts (please note that the term “inferior” is used as a purely subjective term). They’re usually organized in runs where interest is first expressed, purchasing commitments are made, and deposits are taken. This is done because no reputable artist is going to spend hundreds of hours (or more) of their own time sculpting (and the expense of casting) for nothing. Depending on the artist’s interpretation of the subject, along with their skill, they deliver their best work. Some results may be construed as better than others, but again, it is a sculpture done by an artist, not a chevy coming off an assembly line.
In the end, all of us “phony elites” pay the artist in full for their best work and receive our sculpts. Clearly, based on this model, the long term viability of any particular artist is based on the level of satisfaction that one has with their work. I hope you now understand that seeing a bunch of inferior sculpts (your opinion) is not an indication of popularity.
As a sort of side note, you very rarely see an artist speaking poorly of another. The exception being when one feels their work has been stolen or they have been artistically wronged somehow. Generally speaking, they have a high level of integrity and can be trusted.
$230 for the spotlight and the second raccoon rooted hair, why not at that point.
