It’s not too often that we see the birth of a new franchise. Well, these are curious times, indeed. Bounties of Bathos™ is a new and original sci-fi concept created by visionaries and artists that have a deep understanding of the [statue] collector community. If someone were to yell: “By collectors, for collectors” (oh, I guess I just did that *snap*) it could not have carried anymore weight than it does now.
The purpose of this article is to have a closer look at the very first character that has been announced by the team and HMO Collectibles. That character is Ren – technologically enchanced bounty hunter and professional keister-kicker! I’ll stick to the main points that I typically touch-on when doing one of my “My Toughts on…”-articles: the sculpt, the pose, the base and my final thoughts.
Ren is the main protagonist of Bathos. She was born in the small city of Sera, a daughter of a sniper who survived the Two Great Wars of Bathos.
From a tender young age, she was taught to fight, shoot and survive in the harsh desert realms.
Left with mortal injuries from her encounter with the Zectus King, Dealer, she was saved by first mech-builders of Bathos, Zero and the Crow King. Bestowed with techno-organic parts and armed with a taste for vengeance, Ren emerged stronger, meaner and more beautiful than ever before.
Facts
- Price: $550
- Extras:
- Alternative masked portrait
- Comic pages
- Novelization
- Art print
- Edition Size: 125 pieces (world-wide)
- Scale: 1/4th
- Pre-order link: http://hand-made-object.com/product/bounties-of-bathos-ren/
Ren is, as quoted above, the main protagonist of the Bounties of Bathos story. After having been left mortally wounded, she was saved and made into this techno-organic being (essentially a cyborg) as part of her recovery, I’d assume. At this point in time, this (as well as the very short bio quoted above) is basically all I know about her. I’m looking forward to learning more of her story in the future.
The Sculpt
What strikes me the most about this statue is the high level of detail to the sculpt. If you look very closely to the photos in this article, you will notice the various surface textures going on everywhere on the statue. Everything from the realistically sculpted scarf/cloak to the armored parts of her legs. The armor on her chest to the cyborg/mechanical arm. It just has this very organic feel to it due to these authentic and convincing details. It is this aspect of Ren that really graps my attention.
There is wear and tear to Ren’s armor parts that have been detailed out in minor dents and battle-damage on the sculpt, and it is further emphasized by the masterful paintwork. Again, this contributes to the overall organic feel of the statue. Her mechanical arm looks brilliant too. It’s so well detailed. It’s really impressive in and of itself.
There seems to be a sophisticated use of decals (or something similar) on her arm/wrist monitor (above) and also on her chest armor, with a hexagonal mesh-like texture with a shiny finish (on the underside of her bewbs).
One of the most impressive aspects of this statue is the fact that they applied a luminescent paint onto particular details of the sculpt. This is described as HMO’s UVT Tech, and it essentially provides a level of illumination to certain minute pieces of the statue, including her armor, her eye-piece, and probably also her wrist-monitor. It is this ingenuity that I can really appreciate about this statue, and it illustrates the vision and passion that the creators have put into this piece.
Luminescence!
This piece comes with two portraits. The standard portrait is the one depicted above, and the alternative portrait features a masked/helmeted head. Both of these portrait options look very cool, but the standard unmasked one surely attracts me the most. The sculpt of the female facial features is amazing. I just love how the features are carved out. She has this youthful look to her that somehow is in stark contrast to the mechanized, somewhat brutal look of her cyborg parts. She simply put looks beautiful, and manages to seduce my nerdy geek-heart. Man, could you imagine what a good cosplay of this could look like? Phew!
All in all, I’m quite sold on this piece in terms of its sculpt. From a design and production quality stand-point, it looks very promising, and I dare say that it is in a league of its own.
The Pose
Well, guess what! We have a museum-style pose here, folks! You know how I feel about those (I love them). It’s not that I dislike dynamic poses. The new Deadpool Premium Format by Sideshow looks amazing, and that is all due to the dynamic pose. However, in general, I do prefer a simple static pose when it comes to representing a fictitious character. It’s less distracting and more easy on the eyes. Especially with a highly detailed character like this one, where so much is already going on all around her body. I find it to fit this character very well.
She looks great as she is standing there. The mechanical legs are again an awesome contrast to her female form, but she manages to appear very appealing still. There is a nice organic feel between her human aspect and her mechanical enhancements.
The Base
The base is relatively simple, but it fits the overall theme very well. This being the very first “Bathos” piece, I find it crucially important that the base somehow communicates this theme in its appearance. From what little knowledge I have of the universe, it lives up to my expectation of what Bathos is and feels like. A harsh and hostile environment. That is the sense I get when looking at this base.
I’ve never been a fan of too big and too distracting bases. It depends on the piece of course, but generally speaking, I want the main focus to be the character. So there needs to be a balance between the figure and the base. I feel I get this with this base.
It’s a stylish base that has an emblem being repeated, apparently in all four directions. If you look closely, you’ll recognize the emblem from her shoulder-pad. It’s nice with this theme going on. Hopefully, the other statues of the Bathos-line will have a similar theme. Dani has stated (in my interview) that he values when a line of statues compliment each other. This would surely be a good way of achieving just that.
The base is relatively compacts, as is the entire statue, actually. This makes it much easier for collectors to find a room for it in their collections. It’s been a general outcry in recent years that a lot of collectors are running into space issues when it comes to collecting. So it’s nice to see a new piece that takes this into account.
Final Thoughts
I have a very positive impression of this piece, and actually the entire line that Dani and his team is working on. In my opinion, a key component in this is that Dani is a community insider. He is in tune with the large statue collecting establishment, and knows very well what is liked and disliked by many. This knowledge allows him to achieve something that seems extraordinary and superb. By looking at this statue it seems like he is delivering just that to collectors.
The production quality is very high here. Those who might be familiar with other projects that Dani has been involved with knows that the quality is very high.
I think what matters most to me is that this is clearly a statue made by a collector intended for other collectors. As I said in the very beginning of this article: “By collectors, for collectors”. It really shines through. This is something that the creators would have desired to own themselves. It possesses the qualities that they value. That’s the vision that lies behind this piece, and surely in the pieces that will follow. That is a passion and motivation that I can get behind. It’s also just very impressive the mere scale of this franchise that the team is creating. Not only will we be getting statues. These pieces will be accompanied by artwork, comics and novelizations. All this in order to really set the tone and mood of these characters. It adds a lot of depth and lore to the world of Bathos, and it surely is going to be something that fans can dive right into, and get lost in – and fall in love with.
The edition size is going to be 125 pieces for this particular statue. Dani has stated that he wants the Bathos line to truly be a rare collectibles line. This means that future pieces will at most have an edition size of 350 pieces. By today’s standard, an edition size of 350, and in this case, 125 is exceptionally low! Huge producers like Sideshow have begun releasing statue with an E.S. of many thousands. Sure, they have the buyers at hand too, but it sure takes its toll when it comes to the feeling of rarity – it’s pretty much non-existent. Bounties of Bathos is going to be a very limited and rare line of collectibles. That’s for sure.
With that said, I think I basically touched upon everything I had in mind when it comes to this piece. It honestly looks awesome, and things look very promising as to the future ofthis line. It’s original and its very own entity. I’m excited to see what the future will have in store for us collectors. I feel pretty confident in Dani and his team.
/DarthChrisDK
Learn more about the world of Bathos via the official website: http://hand-made-object.com/bathos
Pre-order:
http://hand-made-object.com/product/bounties-of-bathos-ren/
