Dear Friends and Fellow Collectors,

There have been many unhappy folks writing to us about Magneto selling out and our PO process. Both myself and Ben have been kept busy trying to explain and pacify the angry peeps (again we are so so sorry!) I thought it would also be good to explain how it works here.



Firstly, I would like to apologize for our sudden opening of PO for Magneto on Thursday. Many of you are right, we should be giving fair notice instead of opening Mags up for PO so suddenly. We have underestimated the demand to be very honest and we thought it was cool to suddenly announce it for that "excitement" and "surprise!" factor. Epic Back fired so yeah its our bad. :( We will learn from this and improve! From now on, ALL pre orders will only happen AFTER we have provided at least 2 weeks in advance notice! In fact, we are going to plan and let all of you know our PO dates for all upcoming statues right now! They are (all in 2014);

1. Hawkeye – 5th Sept
   

2. Wolverine (Yellow) – 19th Sept
   

3. Antman – 3rd Oct
   

4. Thanos – 17th Oct
   

5. Ms Marvel – 31th Oct
   

6. Thor – 14 Nov
   

7. Mark 7 – 28th Nov
   There, now no more sudden surprises! :)

Secondly, there is a misconception of "SOLD OUT". Many peeps think we are saying its SOLD OUT everywhere but we are only referring to the stocks on our online store being sold out (it was written on http://www.xm-studios.com/magneto-sold-out-in-record-time!.aspx) Hmmm... I'm not sure why but folks don't seem to read our web pages (I need to put more sexy pics of Ben on it perhaps) - I still get large volumes or purchase from countries we aren't allowed to sell... but I digress.

There are also concerns that "friends" of XM Studios get first dibs on ordering so it's not fair to other collectors. That's not true. Here's what actually happens before we announce SOLD OUT on our web store www.xm-studios.com. Let's take Mags as an example;

1. From the ES of 800 for Mags, we will first allocate stocks for our online store, reserve some for our members (Prestige and Standard), then release the rest to our approved Distributors.
   

2. Prior to opening PO publicly, we would first inform our prestige members (http://www.xm-studios.com/members/register.asp) so they have first dibs. Now, please note that some prestige members are in Singapore so they do walk in to our studios to look at ongoing paint work and progress so some of them actually KNOW they want Mags before it goes for official PO and as prestige members, we do accept their advance PO but they only make up a small group so they shouldn't affect other collectors or distributors that much really. We do NOT accept early POs from normal email requests or walk-ins to keep it fair for everyone else. We also restrict members to 1 piece per purchase as best as we can.
   

3. Once we have opened POs officially on our Website, within a week, our other distributors will follow suit, give and take a day or two.
   

4. When we say SOLD OUT on our website, it means the allocated numbers on our website is SOLD OUT so we aren't accepting any more direct online purchases. However, our distributors are holding on to stocks too and how they choose to sell or open for PO is out of our control. We don't even know if they have actually "sold out" on their end because from a business invoicing perspective, we only see large orders from them - we don't actually know who they are selling it to on an individual level.
   

5. Therefore SOLD OUT on our website isn't as bad as you think... please continue to check with your local Distributors who may have stocks (or cancellations) But to be honest, seeing from the demands and emails so far, this piece looks like it is going to be truly sold out soon (if it hasn't already).

Last but not least, I'm truly sorry if some of you can't get a Mags... we do rely a lot on our distributors rather than direct sale so it's hard for us to control how our distributors allocate or sell our stock. We are really grateful and thankful for the support and will continue to see how we can improve our PO process so please keep sending us your feedback. Customer service wise, it's really just myself and Ben but he is usually busy at painting, QCing and prototyping so if I have been slow at responding, its my bad. (I've been replying 200 emails over the last 2 days)

We are still a lean team with lots to learn - hopefully with our first couple of products out, we will be able to hire a Pepper Potts to help us with Customer service and admin LOL. Who wants to apply for this job? (Please send photo in an sexy outfit!)

Black Widow prototpye is out! Ben is flying to China to get it painted properly and we will be able to reveal it by end of this month! As for dioramas... yes but it will likely be in 1/6 scale or else it would be tough for folks to display em! Actually, if you look at the bases for our 1/4 scale Avengers, they are designed to be placed together in battle ravaged NYC so they are kinda dioramas in a way. But read on below for more on this...

We have confirmed that Semic Distributions will be carrying our products in France (I believe they also ship to Europe) http://www.semic-distribution.com/ I've also updated them as an official disributor on this thread's first page! Go Europe friends! :)

Here's the BIG update;

What we have been given approval to roll out by Marvel (All 1/4 scale classic Comics).

1) Blackbolt (inhumans)
2) Medusa (inhumans)
3) Doctor Strange
4) She Hulk
5) Dare Devil
6) Elektra
7) Ultron
8) Nick Fury
9) Winter soldier
10) Deadpool

We are trying to get Ironman classic out to complete our 1/4 scale Avengers set but have been asked to KIV due to too much Ironman merchandise going out at the moment.So it will happen but it's gonna have to wait...

Now notice there's a distinct lack of X-Men in the roll out? Basically, there's been some franchise issues that Fox and Disney is working out so we have been advised to stop any X-men products until this is sorted out (hopefully soon!) We were lucky our Magneto and Yellow Wolverine got approved. Now we are very concerned about Phoenix... they have asked us to stop production for now. Man... we have invested so much time/costs and we know alot of you folks are looking forward to it so we are praying hard they will let Pheonix go through as well. Am being extra extra nice to the Disney folks now - hope to push this through.

So having said that, all X-men characters are off for now - no Juggie, or Cyclops etc... gotta wait for the franchise rights to be sorted out. :( Sorry guys! We also can't reveal what has been turned down.. doing so will imply what other companies are rolling out which means we will get into the naughty corner and possibly trouble! Sorry....

But don't worry guys, we have 3 new lines being negotiated and we should be able to reveal what they are soon...

Another Big news is that we have managed to get Erick Sosa to work with us as our Art Director for the next 12 months! He's a really busy and awesome dude and I'm deeply honored to be able to work with him. It's agreed in principal and we will need to work out some documents but we are gonna be rockin' new statues in 2015! YEAH BABY!

No XM statues will EVER be hollow. NEVER. A light weight statue just doesn't cut it. You need to hold it and literally feel your hands trembling with excitement and weight of the statue to feel it's presence and value. Ok, I need to chill but yeah basically all our stuff are heavy and 100% densed quality Cold Cast.

2) Medusa (inhumans)
5) Dare Devil
6) Elektra

Yup they are main projects which Marvel has given us the green light (or want us to do) in 2015. If we get X men going again, we would still want to put them in 2015 as well. Therefore it is important to note that we may not necessarily roll out EVERY character on the above list... if we are able to get some of our original preferred characters re-approved, we might switch some of them out. For example, SS made a really nice Deadpool already so if we had to choose between say Cable vs Deadpool, we might do Cable instead because we feel he is more needed.

But we'll listen to the community of course so if there are some really strong demands for certain characters to be made, we will still consider them seriously as long as we have the bandwidth to make em good. We also need to bear in mind we are lean and we need to balance between roll out an QC. QC is very important for us so if it means we push out some characters later, we will do so.