Ringwraith and Steed, how to spot a recast?

[theguru1]

I'd give that ebay one a big miss. Either its a fake, or someone repainted or production just totally stuffed it up. No matter what, the amazon one is what it should look like, tho those pic are stock photo's, not of the one actually being sold.

 

[Spirit Warden]

New member here .
I don't suppose I could get opinions on the validity of these statues?
(bigger pictures here https://sovereignxs.imgur.com/all/#1)




This is the seller I got true form from.
LOTR- RARE-WITCH-KING OF ANGMAR IN TRUE FORM SIDESHOW WETA 0435/1000 THE HOBBIT | eBay






Lastly, i'm interested in getting the Sideshow Nazgul statue, this is the only one i've seen, does it look genuine?



Thanks everyone.

 

[Adolfo]

I would put money down that they are legit...but I think they have been touched up ...I like the WK true form and the Wraith...not the Morgul Lord...I could be wrong in regards to the paint...that camera flash sure can change things..

 

[Spirit Warden]

I would put money down that they are legit...but I think they have been touched up ...I like the WK true form and the Wraith...not the Morgul Lord...I could be wrong in regards to the paint...that camera flash sure can change things..

WK True form, Sauron and Ringwraith on Steed are certainly my favourites. Collecting as a hobby only started about a month ago, the two WK statues above were listed as new, the two most recent ones I bought were used but I was happy to grab a Sauron and Ringwraith on Steed and they have no surface damage so being used didn't matter.

Weta does some lovely sculpts but they have an issue when it comes to paintjobs. I had a conversation with Magnus from Weta support about the Morgul Lord statue when I first got it, the short of it is, their Master in the boardroom matches their advertisement while the retail statues were given a heavy weathered look.

Master:

Retail:

It's not the only time Weta didn't bother to make the retail items match the Master, the Mouth of Sauron bust they made was the same.

Master:

Retail:

As you can see, with both the Morgul lord and Mouth of Sauron, the parts which should be metal and painted sliver/rusty in the masters are just black on the retail with some silver highlights. Magnus confirmed this was correct, frankly i'm surprised nobody complained to Weta when they were released. As much as I love the sculpt I think the paintjob must constitute some kind of false advertisement. As Magnus said however, they're not going to change that and the Morgul Lord and MoS Bust are too old now for redo's.

Out of curiosity, is there a sure fire way to determine if a Weta statue is actually a recast?

 

[VincentVegaFFF]

When it comes to collectibles like his they never look as good as they do in the promo photos. The master is painted with a lot of time and care while the final one is made in a factory in China just cranking each statue out. You've got keep that in mind when buying.

Sideshow is far worse than Weta in this regard. Their Sauron premium format looks amazing on the website but was extremely disappointing looking in person, their Terminator T800 busts have been shipping with super cheap looking plastic teeth for years but they still show the older far superior teeth on the site, their Alien busts have chrome looking teeth in picture while in reality it's sloppy looking silver paint and there are many more and some far worse examples. Never take the website pictures as gospel look for pictures from customers on here if the statue is already out to get an idea of how it actually turned out.

 

[Spirit Warden]

When it comes to collectibles like his they never look as good as they do in the promo photos. The master is painted with a lot of time and care while the final one is made in a factory in China just cranking each statue out. You've got keep that in mind when buying.

Sideshow is far worse than Weta in this regard. Their Sauron premium format looks amazing on the website but was extremely disappointing looking in person, their Terminator T800 busts have been shipping with super cheap looking plastic teeth for years but they still show the older far superior teeth on the site, their Alien busts have chrome looking teeth in picture while in reality it's sloppy looking silver paint and there are many more and some far worse examples. Never take the website pictures as gospel look for pictures from customers on here if the statue is already out to get an idea of how it actually turned out.

Hopefully nobody takes this as a rant. *fingers crossed*

The very first statue I bought was the WK true form, while I figured it'd be somewhat different from the master (which it is) it was still close enough. My issue is more that while I don't expect it to be exact, they shoud at least try. A metal mask painted on the master should be painted that way on the retails too. It doesn't have to be identical, but it shouldn't be left black with some silver lines on it for a weathered effect.

Take a landscape painting for example, if someone was cranking out a bunch of them then there is going to be variations naturally, but if there is a lake in that painting and it's painted blue in the original or 'master', would it be acceptable to leave the lake blank and simply squiggle some blue lines here and there, then call it finished? Don't get me wrong, I know i'm making somewhat of a mountain out of a molehill, but I do think these companies should take more care in at least TRYING to get the retails to match the master, nobody can tell me a Silver+Rusty mask in the master being left black with silver lines in the retails is 'good enough' or even an attempt to make them match.

It only seems to be an issue with silver parts too. Witch-King true form, Gandalf, Grima, Saruman, Treebeard etc etc, character will little to no 'metal' parts seem to turn out just fine. As soon as a metal part is introduced they seem to go "meh". I adore the sculpts and for the most part I love the paintjobs, but when companies release something that far off the advertisement I think consumers need to be less caught up in the excitment of owning the product, and instead be saying 'this could be much better, we know your skill level so why is this so far off?' and let them know they need to do better at certain things otherwise it won't change.

As critical as I might come off, I do like the company, I like their support staff, the majority of their products and so on. I'm just pointing out a consistant flaw they have with certain products.

 

[VincentVegaFFF]

Absolutely, I agree they should try to match the prototype as much as possible and the example I posted above are based on my actual purchases so I completely understand the disappointment, I'm just pointing out that it's an issue with many companies, not just Weta. In an ideal world the companies would replace their promo photos with pictures of the actual production pieces once they're made but that's never going to happen. That's why I suggest waiting to see pictures of the finished piece in hand before order, if you can. It can be hard to hold off when there's a very limited edition or exclusive item or preorder discount.

 

[Spirit Warden]

Absolutely, I agree they should try to match the prototype as much as possible and the example I posted above are based on my actual purchases so I completely understand the disappointment, I'm just pointing out that it's an issue with many companies, not just Weta. In an ideal world the companies would replace their promo photos with pictures of the actual production pieces once they're made but that's never going to happen. That's why I suggest waiting to see pictures of the finished piece in hand before order, if you can. It can be hard to hold off when there's a very limited edition or exclusive item or preorder discount.

Before anything, does anyone here know if there is a difference between the Sideshow Ringwraith regular and exclusive edition besides the swapable morgul blade hand? Cheers.

If they ever release another Morgul Lord in a different pose i'm certainly going to wait before I buy it. Sadly, seeing that statue collecting is a hobby I started only a few weeks ago and i'm generally used to advertisements matching the product it was very confusing to see the statue so different, at first I thought the paint may have been damaged or I got a defect. Only after contacting Weta and them confirming it was correct I was just left feeling like "....oh". Then more recently (about a week, maybe a little less) I opened the Mouth of Sauron bust and I was just thinking "...again???"

As for the "that's never going to happen". I don't know, they usually make at least 1000 statues of each product, Morgul Lord being 9500. If 9500 people complained about it back when they were in production I imagine Weta would have taken notice, same thing applies to any manufacturer really. Magnus from Weta support seemed surprised about my complaint as if nobody had ever brought it up before, he certainly wasn't aware there was even an issue until I contacted him about it.

Being new I can only hazard a guess, but perhaps the statue collecting community as a whole has become used to recieveing products which differ a lot from the promo? Just from the last few comments I can see how different companies have been making retails inferior to the masters, while it would be unfair to expect the exact same quality on every retail as that of the master, I think consumers should be more willing to stick up for themselves with these products and say "hey, this deviates heavily from the master and needs to be fixed" as I do believe that if 9500 people were complaining it would at least force a company to examine what is going wrong, for example the heavy weathered paintjob in the Morgul Lord statue and Mouth of Sauron bust (hate to keep parroting about those two products but i've only had experience with Weta products personally :/)

 

[Max111]

Looks fake.
Why dont u get the 1/4 Sideshow version?

I'd give that ebay one a big miss. Either its a fake, or someone repainted or production just totally stuffed it up. No matter what, the amazon one is what it should look like, tho those pic are stock photo's, not of the one actually being sold.

^ Thank you both for responding and sorry I didn't reply as fast as you posted, been having a big think about it all.

Thank you for your opinions on the WETA ebay version, I suspected it might be dodgy but I guess was living in hope, too much money to take a risk on. And thanks re the tip on the new Sideshow version, but it's a bit too animated for what I was looking for. The WETA version is less dramatic but has much more of a dark brooding presence which I think is what the subject needs (or at least is what I personally was looking for as it's a better match to the Ralph Bakshi Nazgul). I guess the only way I'll get a reliably authentic WETA version (with a good finish) is to either pay top dollar from a respectable dealer (like the amazon offer), but that makes it too much money, or pick one up in person at an event / convention (which may take years for one to turn up).

So I've bought an Asmus Eowyn and ASI Aragorn 1/6 scale figures (which I can be certain are genuine, and I guess are a more cheerful thing to live with), and will treat them like fixed statues rather than action figures. Guess I'll need to apply my old military modelling skills to buffing them up to look as good as possible (which I wouldn't dare do on a proper collectible statue for risk of defacing it), & I may even need to learn to sew!

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[Max111]

While I'm here, I used to work in senior marketing, re the comments about the production runs not matching the masters, some deviance fair enough, but only on the basis that they are hand painted and therefore bound to have small differences. From what people are saying in this thread it's much more than that, they use a statue painted professionally by a skilled person to sell statues painted by unskilled factory workers - it is straight forward false advertising & mis-selling, they get away with it with the consumers because the demand outstrips supply, but in UK it would be very easy to get them (and their distributors) into serious trouble with the authorities like ASA & Trading Standards. That would be worth doing, you wouldn't get anything out of it personally but it might help kick them into touch and for the future.

Overall though, I'd guess the best thing to do would be to submit formal written complaints (organised so on mass but submitted separately for maximum effect) to Middle Earth Enterprises (if I'm correct in believing are the license owners for all Tolkien stuff) about their licensed products being significantly lower quality in their finish to what's been advertised, which is mis-selling and an abuse of their license. They're profiting by doing this, they make a ton of money out of those licenses, ultimately they're responsible for what's sold under them. And MEE need a good reputation, or at least an unspoiled one to optimise the money they can make going forward. A facebook campaign against Middle Earth Enterprises regarding their inferior / negligent quality control of the products made by those they rent their licences too might wake them up to it.

 

[Spirit Warden]

^ Thank you both for responding and sorry I didn't reply as fast as you posted, been having a big think about it all.

Thank you for your opinions on the WETA ebay version, I suspected it might be dodgy but I guess was living in hope, too much money to take a risk on. And thanks re the tip on the new Sideshow version, but it's a bit too animated for what I was looking for. The WETA version is less dramatic but has much more of a dark brooding presence which I think is what the subject needs (or at least is what I personally was looking for as it's a better match to the Ralph Bakshi Nazgul). I guess the only way I'll get a reliably authentic WETA version (with a good finish) is to either pay top dollar from a respectable dealer (like the amazon offer), but that makes it too much money, or pick one up in person at an event / convention (which may take years for one to turn up).

So I've bought an Asmus Eowyn and ASI Aragorn 1/6 scale figures (which I can be certain are genuine, and I guess are a more cheerful thing to live with), and will treat them like fixed statues rather than action figures. Guess I'll need to apply my old military modelling skills to buffing them up to look as good as possible (which I wouldn't dare do on a proper collectible statue for risk of defacing it), & I may even need to learn to sew!

Thanks again for your advice.

I was lucky, I managed to grab a genuine one from ebay on the 28th of Sep for 355, you can get one from Amazon but you could also wait for one to pop up on ebay. With items coming and going so quickly a genuine one is bound to appear and frankly on the Amazon.co.uk site there is only a single person selling the statue and they have only 75% positive feedback which doesn't sound too great.

 

[Max111]

Thanks for the tip, glad you got one at a decent price, I will keep an ongoing eye on ebay. Actually I'm making a list of things I'll search for every week cuz it does change all the time

 

[VincentVegaFFF]

While I'm here, I used to work in senior marketing, re the comments about the production runs not matching the masters, some deviance fair enough, but only on the basis that they are hand painted and therefore bound to have small differences. From what people are saying in this thread it's much more than that, they use a statue painted professionally by a skilled person to sell statues painted by unskilled factory workers - it is straight forward false advertising & mis-selling, they get away with it with the consumers because the demand outstrips supply, but in UK it would be very easy to get them (and their distributors) into serious trouble with the authorities like ASA & Trading Standards. That would be worth doing, you wouldn't get anything out of it personally but it might help kick them into touch and for the future.

Overall though, I'd guess the best thing to do would be to submit formal written complaints (organised so on mass but submitted separately for maximum effect) to Middle Earth Enterprises (if I'm correct in believing are the license owners for all Tolkien stuff) about their licensed products being significantly lower quality in their finish to what's been advertised, which is mis-selling and an abuse of their license. They're profiting by doing this, they make a ton of money out of those licenses, ultimately they're responsible for what's sold under them. And MEE need a good reputation, or at least an unspoiled one to optimise the money they can make going forward. A facebook campaign against Middle Earth Enterprises regarding their inferior / negligent quality control of the products made by those they rent their licences too might wake them up to it.

I'm not sure about the legalities and I'm sure they vary from country to,country but Sideshow does have the "prototype shown" tag on the top of their pages which probably gives them some wiggle room in this regard. How that would stand up on any type of legal situation I don't know but it's worth pointing out.

As for the statues in this thread they're very old, I believe from back around the time the films were first released. Sideshow has now sold out of all of their own Middle Earth products (the figures they have now are being made by another company, Sideshow is just selling them) and with no movies on the way and not a single product from The Hobbit made they've now likely washed their hands of Middle Earth for good so there's not much to be done there. Weta's items are more consistently higher quality and not such a step down from the pronto and given their history with Middle Earth I'm not sure Middle Earth Enterprises are going to want to be too strict with Weta.