I don't think they are production photos. They don't match whats been shipped to us AT ALL. The speckling on the upper part of the head matches pre-pro, NOT the undefined paint on the customers production pieces. And the mouth has the dark tones (clearly not just clever lighting) used on the pre-pro piece, not the light pink vag that we are getting.
Those are production pieces. They'll always have professional lighting there, but I actually had the prototype Sideshow page up earlier today and hit refresh and all the pictures changed. They do that as soon as production pieces go out, as they tend to not match up identically due to professional painting and time being spent on the proto, etc...
I've looked at it more since coming home, and I'll be keeping mine. It definitely has a loot of plastic to it at times, but if they did it...if their actual reasoning was for the detail, then I can somewhat forgive it. My pictures earlier showed details in the damaged side, and now that I got to take a look at it without worrying about rushing out for work, I do see plenty of holes, and scarring that may have been harder to pull off otherwise at this size. I'm not 100% sure, and I'm in no way making excuses...I don't sculpt, so I don't really know.
But there are lots of little burns and damaged pieces of skin and such...it's more detailed than I'd originally thought when I first looked at it. The paint on mine, at least, isn't bad. And by isn't bad I mean, I can put it up and not go, "Ugh, that really glares at me...those splotches..." or whatever it may be. Again, I would've liked some more detail on painted side of the damaged inside mandible; however, there are small veins in the mouth, and it's not all one flat shade of pink like the previous Predator LSB fiasco a few years ago.
It's entirely possible this was the way it was meant to be the entire time, as the last LSB got major complaints due to paints, lacking detail and overall mleh-ness. Again, maybe they could have done it all in polystone and had it work, but I think they did a great job on the sculpt and detail overall...it's definitely a beautiful piece.
The HARDEST thing to get over is the cost. That's the main thing here. It's such a huge jump over the previous pieces that it's definitely hard to settle for anything less than the perfection of the prototype. The prototype had even MORE details than this one, and even better paint apps. That would've been something worthy of every penny spent.
This one, when all is said and done, should've been around $499.99 tops. Maybe the plan to go PVC and spend more time on details and such raised the cost...that's stuff that we're not privy to, but wish we were. I don't know of PVC Vs. Polystone costs, but a few here have posted that PVC is more costly to use...if that's the case, then that's likely where most of the money went, as there's a lot of it here.
In the end, it's not the masterpiece I was hoping for when I bought it, but as I said before, I do still like it. It's a beautiful sculpt. For the cost, I should say love, and it may grow on me to that point! Once I put it with my Big Chap and Xenomorph Warrior LSBs, and take it in as a group, it'll likely fit in nicely.
I keep getting up, walking over and looking at it (display is kind of a mess at the moment) and they did capture Wolf in it. The seam that people are mentioning on the mandible is something I hadn't noticed at first, and that's likely because mine is blended in fairly well. Maybe it showed up more in my previous pictures, but I can only see half a line there, and I'm not sure where else it really connects to, and the line really looks like battle damage to me, and the bottom of the seam is melded into the bottom of the mandible, so it all looks like one piece to me.
In the end, I would've liked it to be cheaper. I used $100 RP on it, $180 at the door for customs and delivery, and whatever the exchange from US to Canadian is on the $625 (left over + shipping) is...so, I'm guessing it'll be about $700 + the $180...so definitely too expensive, but I mean, my breakout T-Rex from Chronicle ended up near $900-$1000 in the end too because international collecting is just BRUTAL these days when you add it all up.
If I knew more about PVC vs. Polystone, maybe I'd get it in terms of pricing...but focusing on what was delivered, the piece itself is solid...the PVC sculpt is also really well done with lots of details (not as much as the proto, but quite a bit) and I think it'll fit in with the Big Chap and Xeno Warrior nicely.
Man, I ramble

In short, I don't regret buying it...I wanted a Wolf LSB, and this'll fit my needs. I'm not absolutely blown away ala Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword/Machiko, but I'm not utterly disappointed either. It all really comes down to the price.
I'm sure at some point Prime 1 will release a Wolf...not sure they'll do a bust or not, but knowing them it'll likely be 1:1 and way out of my league both in price and size, and I'm sure it'll blow this out of the water...but that's if they do it...I think they'll be more likely to make a new 1:3 or 1:4 piece. That will be temptation that I'll truly need to ignore!
