Kotobukiya fine art generally suffer from bad paint apps and that's no secret. Some are just really flat or others plain bad. It's no wonder that I've painted up partly or completely a lot of my Kotobukiya pieces because I felt the sculpts themselves were worth the headache and the extra money spent.
The Brown Wolverine was unfortunately plagued with serious QC issues for a lot of people ranging from flat and dull choices of paint to not having paint within the lines and even some parts of the sculpt being rough. I think it was exceptionally bad but not all fine arts are that bad. The flip side to the argument is that then would you consider Kotobukiya to be good value for money when Bowen statues cost the same as Kotobukiyas cost, well more or less and the overall quality of the Bowen statues were way better in paint applications, packaging and overall finishing.
Coming to DC Designer series statues I
do think they are good value for the money considering how much you're paying for them . I do own a couple of them and their paint jobs are pretty good and vibrant and I've paid about a 100 bucks for a 1/6 DC cold cast porcelain statue which would definitely make me less whinny about lapses.
In the end its an individual choice to what you think is acceptable for the money you're paying.
Would I want to pay Kotobukiyas new price points and receive the same quality I've been getting till date.....
HELL NO! Unless it's a character that I really love and absolutely have to add to my collection then that can be an exception.
The only reason we're having this conversation is because Erick's sculpting for Kotobukiya and there's no other competition to Koto in the Marvel 1/6 scale market is what keeps this thing relevant.
Sorry for the long post but some things have to be addressed.