JND Studios: Christopher Reeve Superman

[Masa_yodamorph]

The JND fanboys are out in full force today lol. The most ANNOYING collectors in this hobby.

What an odd company JND has turned out to be lol.

Why did they “upgrade” something that didn’t need an upgrade. The likeness was one of their best and was great. This is noticeably worse and downgraded. It’s head scratching why they did this, yet didn’t to all of the others that actually needed an upgrade. SO STRANGE.

[Phoenixblazes]

I didn’t like the original sculpt, and I’m not too sure about this one either.

I keep on comparing this against movie stills, and it’s still not quite there.

But since their recent announcement, I’ve foolishly been thinking about getting this if they make the improvements. Now even with subpar improvements, I think I’ve prematurely convinced myself to get this anyway. I’ve already put the cash aside and everything.


Loved how the Clark Kent sculpt turned out. And maybe this is why no one recognises him when he changes into Superman. Because they look nothing alike…….j/k.

[Phoenixblazes]

Originally Posted by Masa_yodamorph

The JND fanboys are out in full force today lol. The most ANNOYING collectors in this hobby.

What an odd company JND has turned out to be lol.

Why did they ‘upgrade’ something that didn’t need an upgrade. The likeness was one of their best and was great. This is noticeably worse and downgraded. It’s head scratching why they did this, yet didn’t to all of the others that actually needed an upgrade. SO STRANGE.

If that’s true, it doesn’t say much for any of their previous sculpts. The only one more critiqued was the Arwen piece.


Though that’s partially has to do with how many found the Clark Kent so recognisable, but found the Superman to be lacking in comparison. Kind of like with the Indiana Jones piece, which came with a close to perfect as perfect can be Sean Connery.

[Blade3327]

Originally Posted by Masa_yodamorph

The JND fanboys are out in full force today lol. The most ANNOYING collectors in this hobby.

I look for the positives.

Originally Posted by PivotRyder

Really improved likeness. Good job jnd the haters can get the sideshow pf since that's what they prefer/ can afford lol.

For example, when someone throws unnecessary things like this into their arguments, it immediately lets me know they're not to be taken seriously. Big time saver, really.

At least the critics put thought into their posts.

[Phoenixblazes]

Originally Posted by Blade3327

I look for the positives.



For example, when someone throws unnecessary things like this into their arguments, it immediately lets me know they're not to be taken seriously. Big time saver, really.

I agree. It’s become a catch all argument. If one critiques JND, it must be because they’re poor etc. While I’m sure it’s true for some of the critics, but surely not all of them.


And I finally received my first JND not that long ago, and it pretty much proved to me something I knew from the beginning after purchasing many other silicone statues from Queen and Infinity. While you may see greater finer details in person (which is impressive on silicone pieces), in general it does not look significantly different from any reasonably well taken photographs. Even those taken on their phones.

So I feel pretty much the same for the arguments that “it doesn’t look like that in person” or “you really need to see it in person before criticising it”.

[ukshaun]

The updated portrait now looks way more like Reeves.
Maybe they should have gone with the slight smile mouth shape, as the current portrait lacks that Reeves spark.


LOADING: Image(s)

The Reeves on the far left features the most iconic mouth shape, with the slight smile. I like this look best.

JND's effort looks way better than the Sideshow effort. I would like Sideshow to have another go

[Phoenixblazes]

Originally Posted by ukshaun

The updated portrait now looks way more like Reeves.
Maybe they should have gone with the slight smile mouth shape, as the current portrait lacks that Reeves spark.


LOADING: Image(s)

The Reeves on the far left features the most iconic mouth shape, with the slight smile. I like this look best.

JND's effort looks way better than the Sideshow effort. I would like Sideshow to have another go

Please no. While Sideshow may be able to produce a reasonable prototype, their production quality control can be very lacking for movie based pieces.

Though we like to say JND has the best prototype to production quality in the market, even they’re not completely immune. But at least with them you more or less know what you’re going to get in hand.

With Sideshow you might have ordered a supermodel, but in the end you instead received a drag queen.

So nowadays, while I still order Sideshow I only preorder through Popcultcha which allows me to cancel at no loss.

[Gollum]

This is easily the best CR Superman that I have seen

SS Superman isn’t for me but many love that statue

[pdenham]

Originally Posted by Masa_yodamorph

The JND fanboys are out in full force today lol. The most ANNOYING collectors in this hobby.

...

Why did they ?upgrade? something that didn?t need an upgrade. The likeness was one of their best and was great. This is noticeably worse and downgraded. It?s head scratching why they did this, yet didn?t to all of the others that actually needed an upgrade. SO STRANGE.

This is the first I'm seeing of someone declaring the first HS so great that it didn't need to be tweaked.
I was as lenient as anyone in giving them some benefit of the doubt with that one (hair, lighting, angles, photography, and the general lack of futzing- all working to undermine what strengths it did have). But I never said it was so great it didn't need adjustments.
I thought that was the generally accepted thought about the figure?

The fact is they have gotten this closer in some aspects, and gone farther afield in others.
It happens.


Here's some visual exercises to help understand where each are hitting their mark and where they are off- with the big caveat that I can easily dig up pics of Reeve himself where the actor, in costume, looks substantially different from pic to pic. That line up of publicity photo shoots above is a perfect example.
The point shouldn't be to make any HS 1:1 with any one pic- if they've been able to conjure up the impression that it is (Reeve) in general, they've done their job.
Like with almost all their output, I can't seriously imagine that anyone looking at only the HS will be struggling to figure out who it is.
Ultimately some people will see it, some won't.

JNDs problem is, at their price points, people are going to want/expect perfection.

[Silas Loki]

I can see this being another contender for the "Discount bin" at the Retailers....at this point, I'm really wondering how many more pieces can JND put out before the bell tolls. I'm a huge JND fan, but even I think their talent is wasted chasing this impossible dream of creating these likenesses of actors.

In my opinion, it's not just JND who are (now) consistently failing to adequately capture actor likenesses, I think we're seeing this across the board, all the major players are struggling to get these likenesses bang on (with a very few notable exceptions) - and a big factor for the intense scrutiny (whether I like it or not) is the price.....for many of us, who can now only afford one, or two pieces a year - near enough is no longer good enough.

I hope JND can change course - with Marvel and D.C. dead - scrambling around looking for replacement I.P. is the wrong way to go....I think a company like JND could really make an impact if they applied their skills to original figure art (...think Court of the Dead, or Honeytrap) - then this stupid back and forth about likeness would just die a death, and we could all go back to simply enjoying cool figures......