Hi everyone,
I just could not resist coming here to post a few words.
First, I want to thank you for all the support, nice words and constructive criticism, we have been receiving in this forum. Please keep in mind that the work we do at ARH is for YOU guys, and we try our hardest to make the best statues/products we are capable of, and I personally appreciate all the feedback here.
Also, I would like to address a couple of points, so you guys can better understand our plans for this and the next year.
1. We have about 12 statues scheduled to release this year, and this is more than twice we have ever produced in a year. Also some of the upcoming pieces will be expensive due to size and complexity, and unfortunately we can’t escape this. A 1/4th scale Frazetta Death Dealer, or Alexander the Great ridding Bucephalus, or even our Tarzan fighting a crocodile are huge pieces and will cost a lot more to produce.
So because of that, some of the other statues need to have a much lower price tag, or it will be too expensive to pre-order all the ones you might want. Thinking of that, I made some decisions that included reducing the size of the bases, not making crazy dioramas with all the ideas I would like to incorporate, and even sculpting some less elaborate pieces than what we normally do. All this in order to offer more affordable prices in some of our 2014 pieces.
Hercules is a good example of that. I took a long time deciding what I would sculpt. My first instinct was to make a crazy diorama like I did with Conan last year, and have Hercules killing the Hydra or fighting Cerberus the three headed dog. But then again, I would be creating another huge and expensive piece, so I decided to capture what I think is the essence of Hercules and make a simple museum style piece without a diorama but nonetheless a great depiction of the character as I see him.
I got inspiration for his looks from the movie with Dwayne Johnson which I believe was a good movie and with a good representation for the character (Let’s not get into the Samoan/Hawaiian issue because I definitely overlooked that!)
The long sword I did was also based on the movie, and I honestly think it looks really good since Hercules is a demi-god with super-human strength, and it would look kinda ridiculous for him to hold a small bronze sword, despite of this being the accurate type of sword for the period.
2. For Arhian, I apologize for my first attempt of a paint job. It was way pass midnight when I started painting her, and I was extremely exhausted, dying to finish her, and put the pre-orders up. It was a mistake that I will not make again!!
The pictures I first took were also a big disappointment because professional studio pictures require equipment, camera, and especially lenses that I don’t have, so my feeble attempt to take those pictures myself were nothing more than a shameful disaster, and I apologize for this!
In regards to the near future, we will continue to try to elevate our game and increase the quality of our products even more. We are a very small company with meager capital, and unfortunately our sales have not been enough yet for us to implement all the improvements we want. One thing I can assure you guys. Alex (Averone) has convinced me that we must upgrade our Styrofoam, and we will starting this year, use only EPE foam that is more rigid and a lot better. This is a promise, and you guys can quote me on that!
3. Although I have already mentioned it somewhere, I would like to explain one more time that our prices are high because we sell very few pieces, and even though, we don’t have to pay license royalties in most of our pieces, it does not automatically makes our costs any lower than any other company. A company like Sideshow for instance sells thousands of pieces of one same statue, and by doing that they divide their “fixed costs” by thousands, while we sell only a couple hundred. I’m sure you are all aware of the concept of “fixed costs” and “overheads costs,” so I don’t need to get into details.
The more pieces a company sells, the lesser is the cost of a product, and unfortunately, the amount of pieces we sell isn’t yet what we would need in order to make the prices lower.
Finally, I would like to invite you all to be in NY this year at the Comic Con. We will have a great display with a 20’ x 20’ booth. We will display at least 10 pieces, and we will have the presence of Frank Frazetta Jr. signing posters for all those who pre-order a Frazetta statue at the show!
Thanks,
Arahom Radjah
ARH Studios Inc.
welcome 
