Are Weta Artist Proofs any different from the retails?

From what I understand, artist proofs are items a company will personally inspect for quality and they're usually sold to people in the industry. Though each company seems to handle proofs differently so i'm not sure what the exact practise of Weta is when it comes to them. I was just wondering if the opportunity came up would it be worth getting an artist proof of a Weta statue. Would the paint job be of better quality than a regular retail statue because i've seen different opinions on that around the web.

I remember this coming up on the Weta Collectors site last year when an artists proof of Smaug the Terrible showed up on EBay ahead of the release of the statue. The people from Weta said it was the same quality as the normal release, but I don't recall if there was any special marking on the base or not. I imagine they would be a bit more desirable on the secondary market but probably not worth spending much above the retail price to get one.

In my general experience APs are usually runs within runs and I usually see them as a way for companies to increase edition sizes without violating an established ES. This is common with bronze offerings where they may do a run of 15 pieces but then have 3 APs. You can buy an AP by request so it isn't something used for approval of the piece. I think what people an AP to be is a product sample or better yet the prototype that is hand painted. Sideshow is auctioning a bunch of hand painted pieces on eBay right now. Big bucks because the paint quality is high. But in my experience APs are nothing special.