THE DYING ART OF HAND SCULPTING AND THE RISE OF DIGITAL SCULPTING

While the likes of Sideshow and PCS still work with hand sculpting here and there it is undeniably being substituted by digital sculpting. Let’s face it, hand sculpting is a dying art and digital sculpting came to take it’s place. It’s easier, faster, allows a humongous level of detail and textures; overall it is a cheaper and more efficient way to create the figures we love. However, by being easy to manipulate the number of new “artisans” and studios are blossoming and maybe the market will get overcrowded by them. I think it already is. Let’s see how it goes two years from now.

Is it a good thing to have so many people sculpting and producing figures? Well, I believe this will drive the market to a more brand oriented behavior. With an overpopulated market with custom/independent pieces popping at a frantic pace, not always with the production quality one might expect, collectors more than ever will stick to the brands they know and trust. Not so long time ago, custom/independent pieces costed much more than branded pieces. But as the big brands keep on rising their prices, soon this won’t make much of a difference anymore. In this sea of figures for the same average price where to look up for you next piece? A unknown producer or XM or Sideshow? Of course there will be astonishing independent sculpts as there are right now, I saw a jaw dropping Beast over a bureau the next day that I believe is the best Beast sculpt ever made. Unfortunately, it was an unpainted unassembled kit and I could not afford for the paint app for this one. Painting will be a paramount differential in years to come so much so as the sculpt itself. As prices even and more people get good on ZBrush, the quality of painting and overall finishing will be evermore crucial to determine the success of a piece. Again, the big brands are the places to look at regarding these factors.

Albeit the number of products offered will multiply in the coming years, most collectors will feel more comfortable to play it safe and bet on the big stablished brands. At least that’s what I believe so. I also believe that not so far from now the maket will suffer a severe collapse, as many will jump out of the collector’s bandwagon because they just followed a trend that is no more and only the core collectors will remain. However, even those have a limited space to display their figures, so one can only have so many figures before runs out of space. Prices on secondary market will drastically fall, as people will get rid of not so beloved pieces in order to get new ones. Not to mention those that are trying to sell everything because are not following the trend anymore. Until, in a more distant future… if you want to know and laugh at my face, here’s the link…  

http://ccfigures.blogspot.com.br/2016/06/a-look-into-future-of-colleting.html

ABANDONING THE ADDICTION

My last acquisition. Or so I hope.

I thought it would be harder. To stop buying collectible figures. But once the decision was taken it was extremely easy for me to give up. I still have circa $150 in reward points on Sideshow that I intend to spent most probably in the She-Ra they’ll launch. Maybe it was easier than I thought because there hasn’t been any new statue that really grabbed my attention. This certainly helped me a lot. It also helped the fact that I don’t have any more free space to display new statues appropriately. I’ve put “Blackstar” from Bowie on the CD player because this was the album I used to listen when writing for this blog when it was the most important aspect of my life and I used to publish several posts a week. Always to receive heavy criticism from you, fellow collectors. I think the prices rise have come to a halt nowadays, at least at Sideshow side of things, stabilizing around the $500 for the average figures. This is a good thing. But the money I spent last year in figures almost broke me (another reason that pushed me to stop). I realize that, besides the lack of free space, collecting such expensive pieces was above and beyond my financial reality. I’m Brazilian and Economy is not going all too well around here. But even if it was going all fine it would still be unbearable to me to spend so much money on said figures. Want it or not $500 is not small money and can make a huge difference in one’s budget. Let alone if you spend this amount every two months average. Sometimes spending over 1k in one month. I confess I was a bit out of control in the past two years. And realize that collecting is like an addiction and decided that I needed to stop for the reasons aforementioned and because no addiction is good. Am I satisfied with my collection? Of course not. That are several pieces I would like to have and many will come that will get me drooling over them but one needs to know when to draw a line of what is sane and what is sheer insanity. I was insane about figures didn’t measuring the consequences of my urge to have the next cool piece that appeared. I am addicted to other things, heavy stuff, and had to put myself together, utilize a great deal of self-criticism, self-control, discipline and will to stop them. That was not easy at all. By comparison, to quit collecting figures was a piece of cake. Even though I love my collection, I still get myself thinking in the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on the pieces with astonishment. And what boggles me the most is what people will do with this figures when I’m no longer here? Of course my family will not want to keep them nor know the value of said statues or how fragile and delicate they are. So, I don’t know which end they’ll have but most certainly will not be a good one. And if I happen to move to another country, which is a great possibility, how will I take them with me? And where will I display them if I get to live with my brother in the US? There isn’t space to display them in his house and of course will be impossible for me to bring them all with me on a plane. So the statues can become quite a burden to me and my family. I never took all of this in consideration when I bought them. Have you?  In order to solve this I will be obliged to sell them for a price way below the market average since I will have to compensate the shipping costs from Brazil to US lowering the price to make them an attractive sale. But this is the future and problems that concern only to me, it is not the general scenario of the collectors.

Another thing that turned me off collecting is that from now on every statue will be computer generated and not hand sculpted, given scarce exceptions. Even though this means more detailed and fast produced pieces it also steals a great deal of the magic these statues have to me. Even though is the same artist doing his thing on Z Brush, I believe pieces created by hand to have a more artistic and limited flavor. Maybe I’m being a bit conservative here but that’s because I started collecting quite a while ago in mid 90’s. I will not blind myself to the benefits of technology and denial that there’s still artistry in modelling statues digitally but to me it steals part of the “soul” of the statues. The sum of all these factors made me abandon the addiction all the more easily. It was a blast to participate of such a vibrant and passionate community even though my posts were more bashed than praised. That’s not a definitive goodbye, since I’ll still follow the community and the market because I still love statues. But it will be like an alcoholic entering a bar and asking a Coke. I may or may not write a new article here and there but that is not an exciting piece of info to you as I’m aware. Excuse me for my broken English. As I said time and time again, I’m a self-taught English speaker so I don’t know even the basic formal rules. Sorry for that. And happy collecting to you all. :) 

A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE OF COLLECTING

Always wanted to have one of these in your collection? I did and I do.
How about have 3, 7, 100?

Before I start I must add that there’s nothing too exciting on the horizon for my taste, that is. You may be excited about the newest Prime 1 figure, per example. So what’s to write about? The statue collecting is not a cheap hobby. Besides that, you never have enough room because you never know when that (or those) new figure(s) will appear to enchanted you and make you empty your pockets once more. It’s endless.

I believe the future of collecting to me will be when the statues will be built from the ground up in 3D programs and you’ll buy the blueprint and print your own perfect figure in your house 3D printer that does all the painting and everything else. Make no mistake, the future of statue collecting will be virtual/digital. You buy the model, you print and paint it yourself, or better saying, you'll let your affordable 3D printer take care of all the job. I believe you will even be able to customize the painting like the tone of red of a Daredevil statue or if instead of red you prefer the yellow costume, you can customize it to be the yellow version Daredevil or you can even print both. You will choose if your new Hulk will be red, green or grey and so on. I believe modders will be able to change a 3D original model itself adding features or correcting things they thing are not okay. They will be able to add more details and even resell the modded blueprints on eBay or elsewhere. To me that will be the end of collectibles as we know them. The end of limited edition industries reigning supreme. It will be the era of customization. There will be artists that will create from scratch all new figures as already happens today (the difference is that today they take care of the production of the pieces, not only the creative part) and sell the blueprints of them. 

I believe Japanese manufacturing is already all mechanized or almost completely. It is virtually humanly impossible to paint every single piece with the same degree of precision in minimum details as they’re doing nowadays. Even Bowen used 3D software sculpting back in the old days. My Spider-Man Museum says this in the box. There will be so much variety and so many independent talented artisans out there one won't know what to choose. When there isn’t any more space to display figures I’ll be obliged to stop. As I throw away the boxes of the figures I’m 100% sure will be part of my collection I won’t even been able to resell these to get more room if I get bored with some piece. What didn’t happen so far, thank God. I still look with marvel at my first figure, a Bowen Man-Thing statue. It’s indeed still one of the more perfect and beloved items of my collection. And I hope it continues to feel that way.

I believe virtualization will achieve a level when you will be able to scan a sold out piece and replicate it at home. And people will sell this 100% perfect copycats to those who don’t own the statue. You will see. Sooner than you think. And you will value much more the collection you have at home. I’ll most certainly will. For the sake of nostalgia. And studios as they work today will have a hard time to adapt to the new market as much as the music industry did.

I one word, think of Deviant Art but in 3D, to be printed in 3D. That's sort of what the future of collecting will look like to me. Or maybe it doesn't happen so openly, maybe it will continue under the radar as commissioned works happen today, through forums and Facebook groups disguised as demonstrations of works in progress, portfolios and things like that. To keep things under licensers radars but with much more talented players all working copyright free because it will be impossible to licensers to track them all down.

And yes, I'm a romantic old fashioned guy, I'll miss limited edition figures. I still buy CD's for Christ sake! But, on the other hand, I also believe in the TechnologicalSingularity! You can read here my take on the future of the universe.