tubachris85x
Master Member
"Sculpted by" would be a bit of a stretch... Kevin did produce the first runs of TFA armor, but he didn't sculpt them.
Before we confirmed it was actually him who produced the kits, we were highly suspicious due to it obviously looking like his work. As far as who sculpted it? I'm still leaning towards him having a direct hand in that, whether literally or figuratively, the kits were produced by him on order from Anovos. The "tells" of Kevin's work is evident looking at the raw unfinished kit...so him not having any input into the sculpts of the bucks themselves, I disagree. Would saying he utilized 3D printing be more accurate? Seems funny how he was also able to produce nearly identical re-scaled armor for his kids shortly after too, but seems pretty logical that's more likely the case.
The price point was around $1800 (approx. $2000 after taxes) for the unassembled kit and fiberglass helmet which is listed as being $600. The kit right now to for the public is $675.00 (without the intro price), which before taxes and shipping would be $1275...which means 501st members paid $525 more to "have it first"
I still believe it was more cost effective, while falling in line with the legal restrictions, that contracting the job elsewhere was better for a small run. Part of me wants to believe that offering 50 kits to the 501st was partially motivated by Anovos needing the money to produce the armor in the first place for promotional reasons asked by Disne/LFL, seeing the 501st as a tap for making it a reality, especially with Anovo's constant need of pre-orders to fund other product's production...
While, yes, a number of suits, more than just the 50 were made, I have a hard time believing that Anovos would invest so much money into producing the sculpts the same way they do, say like for the OT TK, just to re-work over a year later for actual mass production. That wouldn't make sense. Considering that Anovos was originally using fan-made armor for the base components of specific products (still visible as "prototypes" even), it doesn't seem entirely out of place with the original methodologies....but of course the company can't come out and acknowledge that .