Finally home after 7 weeks.
Got to unbox all my Weta goodies, and I confess to a lot of trepidation doing so given what I've read over at FoU concerning the downward spiral of Weta's QC as of late.
I consider myself quite lucky, all things considered: looking at my collection, I could not single out a piece, old or new, that had a problem when it arrived. Alas, my luck had to run out at some point, though I think the couple of things that I found are quite minor and not worthy of trying to go through the onerous process of returning a statue. The three smaller items were immaculate: #34 Hillside, Theodred and Ringwraith of Forod Helms. Next up was the Torturer of Dol Guldur 1:6. I was concerned when I saw a bunch of paint smudges all over the paper wrapping on the statue, and I know this has been a problem of late with the factory not allowing the paint to dry long enough before shoving these things into a box for shipping. I really wish someone at Weta grew a pair and let whatever factory they are using know that this is simply not acceptable. The number of returned products of late has got to be hurting their bottom line at some point, not to mention their reputation as a company. Luckily, try as I might, I could not detect anywhere on the statue where I saw that the paint had rubbed off. No smears or bare areas. Strange, but I was happy until I found one small and barely noticeable tip of trailing fur at the figure's waist that is broken off. It's probably only about 2mm in length that is missing, and the red paint ends abruptly as it gives way to the white polystone underneath, but due to the angle, this cannot be seen unless you look at the statue from below. Perfect otherwise, so the tiny chip, as much as it sucks, does not warrant a return.
Last was Eomer, and the piece that I was the most excited/dreading about . Four issues that I can see: wobbly base - again, par for the course with Weta these days, not sure why they can't put out a flat base anymore. Next, the rearmost hoof, the one with the metal peg, does not sit flush with the base. Without taking a hammer to force it in, I got it to go as far as I could and it is barely noticeable that there is a gap, but the other two hooves are flush and it won't go in any further. Of the other two problems people are having with this statue, I managed to get the scabbard in after the third try, but can't quite figure out if the little short and moveable strap is supposed to connect to anything on the belt. It's just resting against it right now, but I was expecting a tiny hole to slot it into, or a magnet of some sort, but there is nothing. Odd. Then there are the reins. This was a difficult process, made worse by the fact that the orientation of the hand made it so that the reins were crossed the wrong way, something that was not immediately obvious until I looked at other people's photos. With the hand in perfectly, the right side was too slack, and the left side (from Eomer's perspective) too short. However, after realizing that they were indeed backwards, they fit fine but then the hand was twisted in the wrong direction. That was an easy fix due to the flexibility of the reins, but very deceiving initially, which led me to my error. So, in all, only really two issues, but the scabbard and reins are annoying to deal with. Still, the statue is amazing and well worth the decade-long wait.
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