[garybarth]

Wow, that's quite a forensic analysis. Okay, here's my thoughts:

1) You can't expect the production unit's paint job to match the prototype perfectly. I'm sorry but that is just not realistic. One is painted over the course of 10 days by a master painter in the U.S. for $1000-1500, while the consumer version is painted by multiple assembly line painters in China over the course of a couple days. I can tell you that this statue looks amazing in person.

2) We reduced the amount of deep surface detail in Kratos' beard to make the molding process easier because the "worms" of hair (as we called them) worked well for the full 1:1 scale statue I made for the PSX tradeshow, but the factory had concerns about molding/casting them. That change was approved by the studio.

3) This statue was originally created using an older version of the Kratos model that had super thick eyebrows. Once we printed and painted the prototype, the eyebrows no longer matched the model that was in the game and we "took down" the eyebrows so they didn't look like two caterpillars sleeping on his forehead. That, combined with the lack of dramatic lighting, and the lower angles from the original pics may be causing what you think is the change in expression, but I can assure you that we didn't change it.

4) The same goes for Atreus. He was molded off the same tooling masters so his face was not augmented at all. With regard to the paint, as I mentioned, we are still making paint adjustments to parts of the statue. I'll see about adding more apps to his skin (he has kind of a cold, pastey skin tone in the game).

I am very happy with the quality of this statue. The amount of paint detail is amazing and the pictures don't do it justice, but I also know that I won't be able to please everyone. If you have concerns, you should hold off until the unboxing videos hit and make your decision then.

Thanks,
Gary