Why We Work With Select Artists Only

Most collectible brands won’t tell you who sculpted their models. There’s a reason for that.

They don’t know — or they don’t want to admit it came from a mass marketplace, a recycled base mesh, or a low-cost template retextured for this month’s drop.

We do things differently.

At Dastardly & Delightful, every figure we release comes from a sculptor we trust. We work with a small, select group of independent artists whose work meets our standard — not just in technical skill, but in tone, form, and finish. These aren’t one-time hires. They’re paid monthly. We invest in their time so they can work with discipline — not deadlines.

This means our releases are slower. Scarcer. More expensive to make. But that’s how we protect the work. It’s how we make sure the sculpt holds presence — not just polish.

There are no anonymous kits here. No AI. No crowd-tested poses. We don’t chase artists with follower counts. We choose sculptors who treat form seriously — and we treat them seriously in return.

We credit our artists visibly. We don’t ghost-edit their work. We don’t underpay, overwrite, or squeeze. And when a figure enters our edition process, we keep the sculptor involved — because authorship matters.

This isn’t just good ethics. It’s good collecting.

Because when a piece is built right from the beginning,
you don’t have to apologise for what it becomes.