SilentSurfer's Laboratory: Come up to the Lab & See What's on the Slab.

[galactiboy]

The mash-up of the Solo head and Indy was more than just sticking two pieces together; Mando also did quite a bit of alterations to the sculpt to give it a touch more age.

Altering sculpts and adding to them is different that just recasting and actually takes work and some talent. Recasting can be done by anyone w/o much ability and w/o any creative input. Selling altered sculpts admittedly can be a bit of a grey area (how much alteration is enough) but in general that practice has been accepted by collectors. Especially in cases where the items were mass produced and long sold out and/or the sculpt is altered into a previously unavailable character.

 

[Wake]

This. When you start making exceptions it seems hypocritical to claim any stance against recast. The thing that baffles me is the willingness to support the reworked recast. People complain about what happened to Trevor and other sculptors and turn right around and support things like the Han Solo mash up that was two SS heads recast and combined together. There are plenty of sculptors on here offering original work. The garage kit thing is an old and weak argument as well. I've collected garage kits for close to 20 years. The bar keeps getting raised higher and higher. Most of the older stuff has been redone, and done better. With patience and persistance originals eventual become available if that is what you want. May not hurt to give your customers that send you recast to paint a friendly reminder of why the practice hurts the hobby. Maybe they already know and don't care, but the respect people have for you may cause a few to be more careful about who and where they are buying from.

The emboldened statement, as it applies to Trevor Grove Walter Whites, is certainly NOT true. I've been an active participant on these boards for years and firmly believing that if i was patient I would find what I want. I did.... OR SO I THOUGHT. I bought three Walter Whites from a board member who ASSURED me they were originals. Two of which had already been painted by another painter on these forums. I wanted Nathan's magic, so I sent them to him--after a Long waiting time to get in Nathan's queue. Turns out these may be recasts. So I not only paid the original owner his price (remember two of the sculpts were painted already and thusly reflected that in the price), I also sent along my deposit to Nathan for his work, who them stripped them of any paint.... only to discover what I've mentioned. I know you aren't suggesting that Nathan NOT paint them, merely that he should offer a suggestion to be more careful... that's not always possible. It certainly isn't Nathan's fault, nor mine, in fact the member I bought them from mightve been duped as was the original painter. Truth is recasting is a problem that's likely here to stay.

 

[galactiboy]

That is one of the worst issues about recasting... after a little while it is very difficult to determine what is original and what is fake. We of course know anything coming from Q is a recast, but he's still briskly selling away on eBay so every week the ratio between original and recast get's more skewed.

 

[SilentSurfer]

This. When you start making exceptions it seems hypocritical to claim any stance against recast. The thing that baffles me is the willingness to support the reworked recast. People complain about what happened to Trevor and other sculptors and turn right around and support things like the Han Solo mash up that was two SS heads recast and combined together. There are plenty of sculptors on here offering original work. The garage kit thing is an old and weak argument as well. I've collected garage kits for close to 20 years. The bar keeps getting raised higher and higher. Most of the older stuff has been redone, and done better. With patience and persistance originals eventual become available if that is what you want. May not hurt to give your customers that send you recast to paint a friendly reminder of why the practice hurts the hobby. Maybe they already know and don't care, but the respect people have for you may cause a few to be more careful about who and where they are buying from.

I think Galactiboy expressed my view well in regard to reworked stuff. When I was still new to customizing, I took Sideshow's Michael Myers head and resculpted the heck out of it. I sold several copies of my resculpt, and I even showed it to Sideshow's Ops Manager who viewed it as my own original work.

You are right, eventually original stuff (even old model kits) can come back around, but if you're hot for something now and don't want to wait 20 years... I invested in some recasts for my model collection over the years, but did end up replacing some with originals as they came up because originals are usually better quality and have the added pride of ownership factor attached, but even when I ended up buying the original, in no way did I feel it was benefitting the original maker who saw their last profits on the piece long ago and in most cases weren't even in business anymore.

But I understand that by having bought the recast when I wanted it, I did support a shadey industry that does steal profits. It was either that or do without it in my collection, and I was an all or nothing guy. Original if available, then however I can get it.

I always let my customers know when I think they've sent me recasts. And my post that started this topic was another example of me doing exactly what you suggest. We're on the same page there.

 

[csi]

There is only one aspect to recasting that I kinda don't have a problem with, and that's if the model kit (or whatever) is long sold out, the company or sculpter has already made all the money they will, and a recast is the ONLY way for a die hard fan to get one.

That's not the case here though. Trevor is just stopping temporarily (as far as I know).

In fact, I'll have a special reveal at Famcon (I think) of something he might be offering soon, but previously did not have time to cast up.

While buying and/or producing a recast in this instance doesn't hurt the original sculptor, it does hurt the original collector. Every time a recast hits the market it devalues the original. And lets be honest here, all these customs are technically stealing from the actual rights owner anyways, isn't it?

 

[SilentSurfer]

I think I understand where you are coming from. For me though, the pride in owning something is not measured by how many people have it. When I collected models, I collected the pieces I wanted for my collection because they were the best respresentations of certain characters, not because they were limited.

While it's true exclusivity increases value for later resale, I don't collect as future investments. That said, I'm glad when I do sell something if it goes for more than I paid for it, but that is never my intent when collecting.

You could very well say that these customs are stealing from the original rights holders, and you'd legally-speaking be right. The flip side is, the rights holders are clueless as to what fans want, or they know it isn't financially viable to produce them at this quality. I personally don't consider it stealing if the rights owner has no intention of making anything comparable. In fact, because they don't make them, I just see them as pricks for being mad that somebody did it for a few of their most die hard fans. They don't see the celebration of their characters, they just see potential $$$ they aren't pocketing.

Breaking Bad's producers absolutely loved Trevor's headsculpts to the point that some of us customizers even chipped in to give the producers compete sets of the figures.

Contrastingly, the Walking Dead producers (same TV channel) **** a brick when they saw custom figures of their characters despite the fact that I have yet to see them officially license 1/6 stuff that fans would eat up.

 

[Invictus Sol]

...Breaking Bad's producers absolutely loved Trevor's headsculpts to the point that some of us customizers even chipped in to give the producers compete sets of the figures.

Contrastingly, the Walking Dead producers (same TV channel) **** a brick when they saw custom figures of their characters despite the fact that I have yet to see them officially license 1/6 stuff that fans would eat up.

I've heard a few times that the Breaking Bad producers were happy to see what the customizers had done with the characters, but didn't realize they actually had a set for themselves. Very cool, Nathan (and whomever else was involved)! Breaking Bad is probably my favourite TV show of all time, so I can only imagine how great it'd feel to know the producers appreciated one's work ("Say my name." - "Y-you're Silent Surfer." - "You're goddamn right!").

 

[galactiboy]

And that even translated into Trevor doing some official work sculpting BB figures. Not in 1/6, but still pretty awesome how that developed for him.

 

[TurdFerguson]

Recasting definitly sucks, but for the uninitiated it's hard to tell what's what, or most don't even know what that means.
I remember when I first starting buying predator statue kits on eBay I had no idea about recasting and bought several cheap kits from overseas, only to find out later that the reason they were so cheap was because they WERE cheap and stolen.
The recasters prey on the uninformed.

And we are initiated. lol

This really does suck though. One of my biggest problems in life is getting blamed for something I didn't do and not getting credit when it's deserved. For the people that see it on ebay and are like wow this is amazing and they don't know the artist that put his soul into it. I really hope that Q at least doesn't tell these people who buy them it's his work.

 

[Walker]

Hey SS, how exactly can you tell a recast apart from an original sculpt? Are recasts of really low quality?

 

[SilentSurfer]

With Trevor's specifically, I've painted so many castings directly from him that I know his casting habits, the color range of his resin mixture, and the quality of the castings. Trevor has never sent me anything with flaws in it like air bubbles or chips.

With sculpts with hair, there is usually a spot on the top rear of the head that is slightly different in color inidicating where he used putty to sculpt back the detail lost from the mold pour spout. One of the Walters I'm working on now had that, the other was a copy directly from that head as the resculpted spot was identical, but not a different color from the rest of the resin (and there was a tiny imperfection on the underside of the neck that was the same on the original piece).

 

[small_studios]

With Trevor's specifically, I've painted so many castings directly from him that I know his casting habits, the color range of his resin mixture, and the quality of the castings. Trevor has never sent me anything with flaws in it like air bubbles or chips.

With sculpts with hair, there is usually a spot on the top rear of the head that is slightly different in color inidicating where he used putty to sculpt back the detail lost from the mold pour spout. One of the Walters I'm working on now had that, the other was a copy directly from that head as the resculpted spot was identical, but not a different color from the rest of the resin (and there was a tiny imperfection on the underside of the neck that was the same on the original piece).

I have painted countless Trevor sculpts and can confirm everything Nathan stated above. I always appreciated the extra mile Trev went to fix those air bubbles and refine his castings. That is what makes his sculpts enjoyable to paint. There really isn't any prep work involved. Unfortunaely there isn't anything that can be done to prevent recasting from happening unless you just stop sculpting all together. I do suppose if it bothers you enough Nathan you can always opt out of painting the recasts that get sent your way.

 

[SilentSurfer]

It only bothers me on behalf of my friend Trevor. Beyond that I get paid to paint, and it doesn't matter to me what my paint goes on as long as the people sending it to me aren't deliberately feeding me recasts all the time.

Thank God you can't recast a paint job, huh?

 

[LordAzrael]

I always go back to the artist first but sometimes they are no longer offering a sculpt :-( trev is a great guy to deal with and given us some great sculpts

 

[SilentSurfer]

Started a very scary project today; one that required me to behead my Sideshow Elvira PF (the first one) to graft on the new PF's neck so it can use the new Trevor headsculpt. I also cut off her left arm at the elbow in order to put her hand on her hip as is her signature pose so she no longer has to "Walk Like an Egyptian" or "Vogue" or whatever Snow White was doing before she became Elvira. She will also be getting the accurate bracelets from the new PF.

I will finally have the ultimate Elvira collectible/custom!

I really had to nut up to put my Dremel to her neck because once started there was no going back if I wanted a PF with that dress ever again, but so far so good. Blending the new neck on next.

WIP picks later.

 

[Dr. Odd]

That'll be cool, look forward to pics

 

[Wake]

Sounds awesome!

 

[Fluid]

I'm sooooooooo looking forward to seeing Trev's NEW work. Your paint and his sculpts are jaw droppingly amazing together.

 

[SilentSurfer]

Neck graft awesomeness achieved! Now to start reposing some fingers.

 

[DarthMagnus]

Started a very scary project today; one that required me to behead my Sideshow Elvira PF (the first one) to graft on the new PF's neck so it can use the new Trevor headsculpt. I also cut off her left arm at the elbow in order to put her hand on her hip as is her signature pose so she no longer has to "Walk Like an Egyptian" or "Vogue" or whatever Snow White was doing before she became Elvira. She will also be getting the accurate bracelets from the new PF.

I will finally have the ultimate Elvira collectible/custom!

I really had to nut up to put my Dremel to her neck because once started there was no going back if I wanted a PF with that dress ever again, but so far so good. Blending the new neck on next.

WIP picks later.

Can't wait!