When I went to Wonderfest earlier this year, I asked the guy teaching the class about doing kits of unlicensed characters and he just said, "If a big company takes notice and issues a cease and desist on you...take it as a compliment." It kind of eased my mind on the subject, but now it seems to be a bigger deal than I thought. I've not created kits myself, but have plans to in the future. Guess I'll do my own creations.
I don't mind what SF is doing here, and I don't support recasting production statues, but I hate it that the big companies even give a crap. It's not like they're going broke, and it really creates even more interest for their characters. I'm trying to put myself in their shoes, but I just don't think I would care if some kid was making and selling statues of my creation in his basement. So long as it's not a direct recast. Obviously underground guys are making sculpts that people want and can't get from the big companies. That's why I started sculpting to begin with. From a collector standpoint, there are a lot of personal commissions I really wish were kits so I could have one. I just see this as a discouraging of creativity to some small degree. Plus, look at how many of us collectors have some kit or recast of a licensed character in their collection somewhere. Either way, that's just my opinion and I'm getting more and more into original creations anyway. It's more exciting than these 10 new Iron Man/Hulk/Wolverine statues we get every year.
