A Message from Randy RE: Gold Chrome Nova

[dEnny!]

In case you hadn't heard:

Notice: Gold Chrome Nova mini-bust

Due to the limited production and the complex chroming process, if you are not completely satisfied with your Gold Chrome Nova Bust, Bowen Designs will only accept returns for a refund of the purchase price.

There will be no replacements, exchanges or repairs for this item.

Hopefully you will be happy with your bust, but if there are any discrepancies please contact our office at sales@bowendesigns.com or call our office at 503-786-0542.

PS: 150 of the Gold Chrome Nova's were coated in simple gold chrome with no shading. We're referring to this variation as: Blinding Chrome. They will be randomly inserted into the edition run.

Please take care when opening your Gold Chrome Nova mini-bust
- there is no clear tape around the interior styrafoam packaging
(due to additional inspections)

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A message from Randy:

I want to start off by just saying that I've read through some (but not all) of the feedback on the internet, and I want to apologize for any confusion with regard to the Frankie Raye project.

I honestly felt that the best representation for the character was not a straight gold interpretation (i.e. Blinding Chrome). All the reference material that I viewed, shows her looking predominantly silver with gold shading. This is what we were attempting to represent in the various incarnations.

And, yes, I've seen some of the artwork depicting her as all gold, but most of the material that I was seeing, showed her as I've stated. These various versions were all approved by Marvel, so we felt we were doing the right thing.

As I've stated previously, seeing the blinding chrome was actually a mistake. This was something that the factory sent late in the production. When I saw how the samples looked, I naively thought to myself: Hey, these look kinda' cool. It might be a nice surprise for a few people to get something different. So we went ahead and produced the balance of the pieces that way. Silly me.

I can now see by the negativity displayed here that releasing these was indeed a mistake. We were reluctant to proceed with another version at all, but we simply thought we were giving people something that would more accurately represent the character.

The factories that we use don't like producing the chrome pieces because of the high rejection rate. We will probably not be doing any further chrome pieces (except for a couple of projects that are already in the pipeline).

On a side note:
As many of you know, the photographed look of a sculpture depends on many factors. Most notably: lighting.

The shots that we took, were indeed the translucent shaded color/over chrome that we received as our initial sample. The lighting in our studio is fluorescent and is not the greatest for showing the piece as it actually appears. Add to this; that we have an older digital camera that we use for taking the sneak peek photos. We're going to be getting a new camera soon. This is not an excuse, it's just the facts.

I'm very sorry that many of you were disappointed. This is truly not our goal. Having disappointed collectors does not improve our bottom line. I invite any and all persons who are disappointed to return the pieces for a refund of the product price.

Sincerely,

Randy

[dEnny!]

I should be getting mine this weekend and while I'd love the blinding chrome piece I think it's pretty cool of Randy to surprise some of his fans with a special, limited piece, but considering how collectible these are those who didn't get one (of each really) I'm not surprised by all the negativity.

I know I was bummed when I wasn't selected to get one of the Gold Bucky mini-busts he produced, but he saved me money because it was pretty expensive. People always get angry when they feel left out and every Bowen fan wants that hard to get piece to show they are the biggest fan around.

Sorry Randy, no good deed goes unpunished.