Recast Alert – Cosplay Counterfeits?

This company is currently reproducing and selling the work of Luna Armor Works, Gary Sterley Studios, and Incyte Design Studios These hardworking and talented individuals are our friends and they have poured their time, sweat, and tears into the art they produce. Recasting their work and claiming it as your own undermines their effort.

Here is his Ebay listing of the RECASTED Luna Armor Work’s Hunter Helmet (DO NOT BUY)

If you are looking to purchase destiny products, please support the ORIGINAL artists and not this shameless thief.

Gary Sterley Studios Warlock Helmet
Incyte Design Studios Warlock Helmet
Luna Armor Works Hunter Helmet

Recasting is the practice of buying a product from a prop maker, molding it or reproducing it in any way, and selling it without permission. This is considered fraud. To learn more about recasting, here is a very informative thread discussing the topic.

And the response from the company Robot Costumes USA, LLC

The official Robot Costumes USA’s response to the outcry of concern about recasting other artist’s products. Let’s get right to the response by us as a company, we have made the decision to remove all the Destiny helmets in question from Ebay/Facebook/Website and apologize the original artists of these products.

Our only goal was to respond to a large amount of buyers requesting a completed, sized, durable, lightweight, painted and ready to wear Destiny Helmet unlike the original product. Our goal was never to “steal” anyone’s work and call it our own. We paid for these products as Robot Costumes USA (never hiding who we were) and then spent many days resizing, reworking details, adjusting the look, retooling, and reproducing using a completely different material and process to then provide an automotive paint finish.

This is far from “recasting” someone work. We produced a completely different product from the ones we purchase from the original sculptors. Robot Costumes USA would never copy another company’s copyrighted designs and make it our own. All the original designs are the Bungie Corporation’s and not original creations of these sculptors, however we respect the Prop Makers and Cosplay Community for the incredibly talented work they produce.

In the past 20 years of business we have gone from sculptors/costumers to a business with 15 full-time employees producing our own designs and creating custom costumes for clients worldwide. Robot Costumes USA is not in the business to sell cosplay helmets and will only sell our licensed costumes or our copyright protected work.

Interesting points all the way around. I wonder how some of the companies in the table-top industry would handle this situation. Let’s face it folks recasts are a real thing, and as technology advances it the issue will start pushing itself to the forefront of wargaming I’m sure.

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