How Do Queen Studios Keep it Hyper-Real?

If you are new to collecting, sometimes it can be a bit tricky to understand and/or to choose the right collectable, especially with the prices and sheer volume of collectables available. Even for veteran collectors, the hyper-real statues and busts that Queen Studios has pioneered are realtively new, especially the silicone pieces.  

So, we thought we would help you out, we've put together a 101 on Queen Studios busts and what makes them different from the rest. And to help you what to look for and what to avoid.

A LITTLE ABOUT QUEEN STUDIOS

Queen Studios started in 2018 and has slowly been building a reputable profile within the movie and comic collectible industry. Our team’s focus is mainly producing statues and busts of Marvel and DC characters, but we also have worked with other licenses from Hasbro and 20th Century Fox.

Our goal is to create the world's most realistic statues and busts that perfectly represent the characters we all know and love. We are proud to be the first collectibles company licensed by Marvel and DC to create hyper-real busts out of silicone and we're slowly becoming a fan favourite for various scale statues in polystone as well.

WHAT IS A BUST?

Busts, typically speaking are sculpted by by hand, or digitially sculpted using 3D sculpting software. Both techniques require incredible skill and attention to detail, especially to capture the subject, which in our industry is usually a comic book or movie character. 

Unlike statues, busts capture a character or person from the top half of their body and in some cases from the hips upwards (the jury may still be out on the last definition). It is common, but not always obeyed, that the arms are not included. This is usually to save space, and/or because the arms are not considered important enough to form.

WHY COLLECT A QUEEN STUDIOS BUST?

At Queen Studios, our busts are crafted from silicone and polystone. Polystone is an industry favourite as it is an extremely strong and versatile material. When painted by skilled artists, polystone can be made to look like almost any material. On one hand it could resemble a shiny or matte metal like on our Iron Man busts, or it can be painted to look like skin (like our smaller scale statues).

You will probably notice a lot of our busts have an incredible likeness to the actors who play these awesome characters. This is achieved using silicone. Up until recently, silicone was used by a handfull of studios and independent artists, but due to the difficulty of creating these pieces and the costs involved, they were not widely available for the average comic book or movie enthusiast.

However, Queen Studios’ artists use a special silicone to form life-like skin which is not only more affordable for collectors than before, but also captures the character's likeness consistantly from one bust to another. You can check out our dedicate silicone post here. 

Queen Studios is the first company to be granted licences by Marvel and DC to create these hyper-realistic silicone busts. This is great for the MCU and DCEU fans, as it allows you to take a piece of what you see on screen and put it in your home, man-cave or fem-dem.

OUR SILICONE

As silicone is a relatively new material in the collecting hobby, we know that there are a lot of collectors that are unsure on the material. We have a full post on what silicone is and how it is used here. But right now, we can give a brief overview of the type of silicone that we use. 

Queen Studios' silicone is a high-performance silicone that is often used in the food and medial industry. This type of silicone can withstand high and low temperatures while mainting it's shape and not degrading. We chose this type of silicone, as it is durable, but also maluable. Once we have sculpted the character, the silicone can be layered on top of a polyresin base and then painted to accurately capture the characters skin tone and facial features. This type of silicone will stand the test of time, lasting for over 25 years if stored and cared for correctly. After this time, the soft skin-like silicone should get firmer, but maintain it's appearance. 

OUR TEAM 

Queen Studios does not limit it's talent to just hyper-realistic busts! These superhero movies we’re obsessing over came from somewhere. They came from a time and place where CGI wasn’t possible, a time where your entertainment was sourced from the page. Thor, Batman, Catwoman and Spider-Man all came from comic books. Comic books our team still draw inspiration from. Queen Studios scope is not only limited to the movie universes these comic books have formed into. The team are constantly finding ways of bringing the page to life. 

The point is, Queen Studios work with all aspects of the Superhero medium and the team work endlessly making sure they create a product that looks as good as it does on screen or in the comic book.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

As not every superhero character is the same, neither is the time spent on Research and Development. If a bust has quite a few intricate details the development process will be longer and more arduous than the research process. The Queen Studio team takes this into consideration for every single product produced. For example, with the Iron Spider-Man bust, we've been working on this since the end of 2019, we we haven't stopped until he looks exactly like the Peter Parker played by Tom Holland.

The first step in our process starts with an idea, the idea can come from anyone in the team. It can be a MCU character, a DCEU character or even something from a comic book 15 years ago. If the idea is strong and well presented, we roll with it. From the idea, our artists mock-up a preliminary 3D model of the bust, which will be used to obtain the relevant approval from the appropriate studio. Once approval is obtained, that’s when the fun starts. If the subject of the bust stars in several movies, the team then has to decide which movie to base the bust on? Once the movie is chosen, which scene? Once we have a scene, which pose? And so on. Ever detail is accounted for, everything from which scene to blemishes on a characters armor or skin. Once completed, a more accurate 3D model is created along with the bust’s base.

Support

Finally, consider the support you will receive. Customer satisfaction is at the heart of Queen Studios and our fan's and collector's satisfaction speaks volumes. We speak directly with our fans making sure collector's needs and wants are both taken care of. We regularly interview individual collectors, and share what they have to say about their favourite QS pieces. So, if there is anything else you are uncertain about, feel free to ask away over at our Facebook

                            Stay Tuned for more from Queen Studios!

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Post by Luke Wainhouse