I can’t speak for all JND statues as I only have 1. But I can honestly say that pictures don’t do it justice, at least for the Cavill Superman statue I have. I had my concerns leading up to receiving it and regularly voiced them in the respective thread.
It’s definitely way more lifelike than any collectible I’ve ever had and the likeness is way more accurate in hand than any online picture I’ve seen, though some have come close. The difference in taking pics of them is very similar to how one can take a really good selfie photo where you look really good but then there’s the candid or even group photo where you can look totally different. You know it’s the same person but the two photos aren’t showing the same information. Not to say he has more authority than anyone else, but even Batman Statue Collector has said that JND’s TDK Batman is one of the best Bale Batman pieces he’s ever seen, while admitting that it looks way better in person than pics show, despite his previous remarks. He’s pretty critical of JND for the same reasons many here have been to the point of continually being called a “JND hater,” even though he praised the JND TDK Batman once he finally saw it in hand. I think even JND themselves called him out on social media (maybe Facebook)
Or, if we want to go a recent collectible comparison, just look how bad InArt’s The Batman looks in many of the recent reviews with pretty much only Black’s photos being the ones that appear to show the figure in its true light. Difference between that and JND is that for whatever reason, ppl chalk up the figure looking bad there as a fault of the reviewer and not the product, whereas with JND, it’s always the fault of the product and not the reviewer. I personally think it’s the price that sets ppl off as well as the way the company carries itself.
There are plenty of 1/6 products, old and new, official or custom, at all price points that can look really great in photos b/c of lighting/lens/angle that mask the faults or enhance the good. You’re usually never going to truly know how good something is until you have it in hand. I’ve seen pics of Mike Yuan’s Joker pieces from certain collectors that make it look like trash and I wonder if he just takes really good photos of his work or if those collector pics are just that bad. We’ve seen it time and time again on this forum where a figure is released and arguably looks bad until ppl start getting it in hand and start praising that it gains or regains its popularly so much that ppl scramble to get it.
As
@67L88Stingray mentioned, Queen Studios isn’t perfect either. They recently revealed their production piece of the life-size Man of Steel bust and it really took a downgrade from the prototype. Both of their 1/4 and 1/3 TDK Jokers are misses in my opinion along with their 1/3 TDK Batman to name a few. To their credit, 1/4 BvS Knightmare Batman looks to have turned out great though.
I’m not a JND apologist though as I’ve been critical of this John Wick piece as well as other items by them. I do think they get a little too much hate though which appears to be mostly rooted in the price point and/or the company’s self perception where as other companies in the same space making similar products with similar misses don’t get nearly the same amount of scrutiny in my opinion. I’m happy to have the one JND piece that I do and very much look forward to adding the Reeve 2-pack to my collection as well as maybe The Witcher piece.
