Q&A Session with ARH Studios

[Thegameman2011]

Those Frazetta statues were really great pieces. I never got one because could only afford Medusa Victorious, but I wonder why they didn't do so well.

[crimsinwing1989]

Originally Posted by SAB380

Arahom is definitely an interesting cat and that works both ways.
The negatives of doing whatever he wants for many of us are balanced with the positives of him doing whatever he wants .... no other company would go anywhere near as crazy as Conan: The Sacrifice, a 1/3 nude vampire chick or Tarzan: Primal Rage.

It's unfortunate the 'all in' he took on Frazetta didn't work out and has caused multiple years worth of problems through all aspects of the business.

But being disrespectful and giving customers misinformation is bad business though lol, i think it outweighs the positives.

Originally Posted by Thegameman2011

Those Frazetta statues were really great pieces. I never got one because could only afford Medusa Victorious, but I wonder why they didn't do so well.

ARH has a bad reputation.

[Josh-a-tron]

Originally Posted by Thegameman2011

Those Frazetta statues were really great pieces. I never got one because could only afford Medusa Victorious, but I wonder why they didn't do so well.

A lot of Frazetta fans are very passionate about the material. If something doesn't replicate it to their satisfaction then, especially at higher prices, they won't go for it. You also have to think, that when you pick up a license, you need to get more people to see it, as you're paying for the licensing fees. You need to reach a significant amount of potential buyers. ARH is basically on here, a couple other forums and their Facebook page. They did show it off at Comic Con, but again, that limits your audience to one show with the majority of window shoppers doing just that, looking and not buying.

It's a double edge sword though, too. The more potential buyers you have, the more you need to produce to meet demand, and then you get accused of raising edition sizes and ruining collectiblity by those who care about such things.

I think ARH needs to reach out to a wider audience to keep things going. However, it's not my business to run.

[TNovak]

There are a lot of reasons the Frazetta line didn't sell well. A few of them are related to ARH but the vast majority are not. First, anyone who knows me either on this board or from somewhere else knows that there is NOBODY that wants Frazetta stuff produced and to succeed more than I do and I buy most Frazetta stuff that is produced.

That said, let's look at some recent history of Frazetta stuff.

Old school Bowen Death Dealer did pretty well, however it was one of the first and it didn't have much competition. I think it was before all of the comic book stuff.

CS Moore Barbarian is an amazing sculpt, and it was reasonably priced but I know for a fact and spoke to Clay himself about it that the entire run was never produced due to lack of sales. The ES says 6500 but it was much less than that, I don't think he gave me a specific number on that but he did confirm for me that there were only 100 AP nudes done. For years you could still pick one up on ebay for less than $500, even though it was the only one at the time that fully matched the painting and there were only 100 of them.

Right now you can get the CS Moore Princess of Mars for about $69 any time you want.

The Frazettas themselves put out a Dark Kingdom that couldn't even sell 250 and that included an autograph by Frank Sr himself. They also had really poor sales on DD in a swamp.

Reelart put out some amazing Frazettas at very reasonable prices but discontinued the line and as far as I know only sold out 2 statues with larger than 500 ES, Egyptian Queen and Moon Maid. Dracula vs Wolfman only had an ES of 500. If you are a retailer you can STILL get Snow Giants from Dark Horse.

CS Moore had the license and intended to do 4 Frazetta Conan's (new after Barbarian) but only did Conqueror and after poor sales didn't even produce any others. Gad I wanted him to do Destroyer in that scale really bad.

So then ARH does it. They went REALLY big, which also means REALLY expensive. The DD horse is the size of a Shetland pony. Also, of the ones he did in 1/4 scale had either been done and done well before (DD on a horse and Barbarian and even to similar but not exact degree DDIII) so people who had those would be reluctant to shell out near a grand a piece for large duplicates, or were of more obscure and less favored works (Atlantis, Huntress with Cats, and DD III showing leg). And the Virgin of Mahar was more affordable but based on a truly obscure pen and ink drawing and did not include the monster so was really just Frazetta style chick standing in ankle deep water.

The truth is there are a lot of Frazetta fans, but not anywhere near like there are Batman, or Spiderman, or Star Wars or stuff like that. From that group you have to have people that also want 3D versions of the art, which a surprising number do not I have found. And of that smaller number you have to get those that have Thousands of extra dollars lying around that they are willing to spend on them and you also have to consider that a lot of those guys also collect other statues and so that is also in play.

Once you Ven Diagram all those groups you don't actually have that many guys left. So I hope the new Frazetta guys do well but I also think a lot of Frazettas will fall flat and even the ones that do well will sell in the 300 to 500 copies range. Maybe Cat Woman or Destroyer could do better, but I don't know. Silver Warrior is loved by everybody. Even my wife loves it and she doesn't like Frazetta so that might have a good chance.

[crimsinwing1989]

Moral of the story, if your a statue company looking to make money, don't license frazetta.

[TNovak]

Originally Posted by crimsinwing1989

Moral of the story, if your a statue company looking to make money, don't license frazetta.

Re-reading my post I did kind of come across that way which was not my intent exactly. Just saying that Iron Man or Star Wars Character level sales expectations are unrealistic.

I do think that one of the biggest problems with the ARH line was that the big draws had already been done. Just as anecdotal evidence besides me two of the bigger Frazetta fans I know are Shedman and Wolfbrother and Shedman passed on DD on a horse because he is happy with his Bowen and ditto for Wolfbrother on the Barbarian because he has his Paul Moore painted CS Moore version. When you think that there are at least a few thousand each of those out there that there are going to be a lot of guys like that. I had to pass on Huntress and Cats because of the large awkward base size and would need to do special shelf for it and also was never one of my favorite (in fact one of my least favorite) paintings and also I had already ordered 4 other expensive ARH statues at about the same time.

I told Clay that I thought he made a mistake doing Conquorer first. I bet if he had done Destroyer he would have done really well with it. Conqueror is SO difficult for a statue because he is in motion and the horse is in such a bizzarro position and Conan's face looks like a blow up sex doll unless you have the battle context. To save money he didn't include any of the surrounding guys and then to support the horse you have to have the "mist" effect. I don't know, I wonder what would have happened if he had done the first 2 of the 4 as Destroyer and Conan and ape? But the point with CS Moore is he is beloved and respected in the statue and collecting industry and Shelley and his customer service was always excellent and he still had issues so just ARH issues described in this thread don't explain it all IMO.

Now, with all that said DD (for whatever reason) seems popular like Batman. You can do as many as you want and they sell, so maybe that will be a good springboard start. I think Cat Woman and Silver Warrior have tremendous appeal to Frazetta fans and also are unique in that those two in particular also have great appeal to a lot of people who aren't necessarily Frazetta fans. So I hope more than I can convey, that they all do REALLY well and whoever produces Frazetta stuff can count on me as a customer.

[Josh-a-tron]

I agree with just about everything you said, which is why it so important to reach as many Frazetta fans as possible. You only have a limited audience that will shell out money for this stuff at prices this high. Might have done them some good to reach out to fantasy sites and things like that to get a more eyes on the product. Not saying it would have definitely worked, but it's better than not doing it.

[TNovak]

Originally Posted by Josh-a-tron

I agree with just about everything you said, which is why it so important to reach as many Frazetta fans as possible. You only have a limited audience that will shell out money for this stuff at prices this high. Might have done them some good to reach out to fantasy sites and things like that to get a more eyes on the product. Not saying it would have definitely worked, but it's better than not doing it.

I also have to say this makes sense in general but I don't know what it costs to do that or which ones are best etc etc, but I have also always wondered why the Frazettas didn't give ARH a little boost and offer the statues for sale even if just by web link from their website or even have some on hand at the museum? I visited the museum in 2014 and spoke to Jr and his wife Lori and their son William and all were excited about the statue line but if I didn't already know about it it wouldn't have come up. There was no ads or pics of sculpts of "coming soon" or anything like that. I don't know how many visitors they get but even a few more sales would likely have helped a lot. All water under the bridge now I guess but you are certainly correct in the most basic marketing truth "You will make zero sales to customers who are unaware your product exists"

[dao2]

Originally Posted by crimsinwing1989

ARH has a bad reputation.

It actually wasn't that bad, and they were doing pretty well before Frazetta. They had big plans for Frazetta but it ----ed em ;p

[Nugchompa]