As a Sideshow fan and a Buffy fan whose emotional attachment to the ‘verse has not wavered even with the demise of both shows, I am very interested in this, though I also have some questions/concerns. First of all, I would assume this type of project has been done before, in which case, can any of you share your experiences? Maybe I’m jaded, but for many years I collected military figures and something like this would often come up, usually for a whole figure, but I honestly never heard of one coming completely to fruition. On the contrary, I’ve heard horror stories of either customers putting money down for R&D only to have something fall through, or the customers backing out, leaving the artist holding the bag for their hard work, or some variation thereof. One would think making multiple copies of just a head would be simpler than a whole figure, so I am hoping there would be a realistically good chance of completing this commission. Still, I have a couple questions.
1. Is the intention to approach a professional sculptor and have them create a blank that would be bought by the partnership outright, then have a separate contract for casting copies? Not that the two couldn’t be the same individual for artists/casters.
2. Regardless of whether it’s a professional or a hobbyist who will do the portrait, will we still have right of refusal if the final product fails to meet reasonable expectations? Putting aside the question of what is reasonable (even though it’s a hugely important one, but it’s another can of worms), portfolios are fine, but to be fair, even wonderful sculptors can have a bad day. Not to pick on Andy because I love many of his sculpts (CSM, Hulk, etc)., but even the best can have a Willow day (sorry, Andy). Similarly, I love Trev’s work, and an added plus, I believe Trev mentioned he is a Whedonverse fan, which I always think helps more than it hurts when executing human portraits, but both these guys are busy, and it’s hard to imagine any professional, even one who’s also a fan (fingers crossed on Trev being interested, though), would take on a commission without a contract and a decent payment (I’m not in the business, but isn’t $500 a bit of a lowball estimate?) Even so, I’d still want right of refusal, no matter the artist’s credentials.
3. Does my being a partner allow me to take a head I buy for $40, and recast it to make a variant (i.e., S2 Buffy Wes vs. S5 Angel Wes). Taking this one step further, do I have a right to recast my variant and charge for copies? I guess this question is more for the benefit of the original artist. I know it would bug the hell out of me if someone took a piece I worked hard on, altered it, and sold it. Of course it’s different if the artist sold their rights to the original blank, but if so, how is ownership of the head by the partnership defined?
These are the kinds of questions that make me hesitant to just jump in and say, add me to the list. I mean, I do want a Wesley in my collection very badly. And a Gunn, Fred, Anya, Tara, Dawn, and a Faith, as played by the lovely Eliza Dukshu, to replace the man-woman official release. But I believe it’s the practical as well as business issues that are keeping this project from taking off. If whoever heads this project can clarify some of the logistics, I would be willing to commit up to $50.
Back in the other thread, Sunhoc said he would try to throw a Wes portrait together quickly just to give us an idea of what he might do with that request. I really liked that approach and would love it if we could use some similar mechanism to eliminate a lot of the guesswork that is keeping this thing from flying. Maybe if we could get enough people committed (I would think at least 12 @ $45) to buying an approved portrait, we can throw the field open for a 1-day (or 1-week) “rough” portrait submission? That way, only interested professional artists and/or skilled hobbyists would bother replying. Anyway, just some random thoughts, but in good conscience, I can’t say “Yes” yet.
