Anyone has a right to criticize anyone selling something through this forum (using free publicity and marketing in the process) to the extent they want to, so long as it is not overly disrespectful. There are a few exceptions with SSC artists where there is less leeway than others because of the relationship of SSC with the board, but. . .in general, this is something that holds, and is important for the purpose of having honest discussions on these things. Folks can prefer others to behave this way or that way, but this is really board policy. Just want to make that clear.
To Batfan's post, clearly criticisms of Rainman are not off-limits, since they go on all the time, including in Iminime threads where he has done sculpts for them.
However, I do think the expectations of Rainman should make "photorealistic" sculpts is not a rational expectation collectors should hold. He just doesn't always do this. Sometimes he gets a better likeness, sometimes, as pointed out previously, the sculpts are more off, but seem to share some common stylistic elements that distinguish them as Rainman's work vs., say, Erick Sosa or Rocco or Grove or Serang or whomever. And this is part of it being art, and not a 3-D sculpt captured using little computer nodes on an actor's face.
I would say that on balance, it's about a 50/50 chance folks are going to get really accurate sculpts with Rainman, and it is a total crap shoot. So, of course you can be disappointed about it, but to have expectations to that effect goes against the evidence out there. Blondie, Tuco, Durden, Alex, Stansfield, Dexter, Pee-Wee, Jules, Tony Soprano, Ra's al Ghul, Lector, this guy--they all are pretty widely accepted as having less than "photorealistic" sculpts. If you can dig and appreciate them for what they are, then I would say that makes you a Rainman fan. If not, then I would suggest you are a fan of quality, accurate figures, including those that are sometimes made by Rainman, but not always. No shame there. But maybe it would be helpful if folks recognized this fact and stopped feeling like it is the end of the world when Rainman does what he frequently does, and supplies us with a stylized sculpt. The criticisms are also fine, but I think they should be couched in an understanding that this is really Rainman's kind of method and product, and always has been as long as his site has been up.
If you want to say that he doesn't evolve in terms of his sculpting style, then that's fair enough, but he's got his own thing going. There are other artists out there that stick to a common and accepted form, and they are accepted for that, so I'm not sure that he really needs to evolve in this sense. Maybe that drives some artists, but not others. And I think that's a'aight.
