I don’t know that it’s greed, exactly, nor am I saying I know it it isn’t — I don’t know and cannot know. As with Jedi Dade, I haven’t had any dealings with REL, though I likely would have eagerly sent him money for the SS K’tinga and the Defiant if I’d had a prayer of being able to afford it. My experience with him over the years has been limited to a couple bouts of gushing over some of the jaw-dropping things he created or (as it turns out) he got created.
The reason I say it might not be greed (or not just that) is that I sometimes get over-extended doing what I do well enough to be paid for it — graphic design and photography — but it typically happens when I’m doing stuff for free. In the majority of cases, I become aware of a need and volunteer my services. I’m doing things I want to do, and 90 percent of the time I’m not getting paid. Unfortunately, even with 20 years of experience and having well-earned knowledge that “under-promise and over-deliver” is the way to go, I am still sometimes guilty of the reverse. I tend to think of a job in terms of how long the actual work will take. In the heat of eagerness, I tend to forget that things rarely go smoothly and that problems will have to be solved with the job itself. Also, life gets in the way and I also need downtime (many design problems are solved away from the computer while I am doing something else), and I have a wife and two little boys who need and deserve my attention. I can usually manage this at my actual job, but only after much effort and experience as a guide. Away from work, it is tougher. And this extends to hobbies as well — I’ve got so many partially-completed models!
I’m definitely not a businessman, and I no longer beat myself up over that. It doesn’t mean I don’t have valuable contributions I can make, or that I’m not talented or intelligent, but no one can do everything no matter how talented and/or intelligent they might be. There’s no question that Richard has talent. Some others may have created all or part of the things he presented as his work, but it certainly appears to be true that some of it was his own work. In any event, the things he presented were uniformly fantastic to my eyes and definitely worthy of purchase for those who could afford them. Perhaps what Richard needs is a partner or partners who can recognize the things he does well and help him manage the rest. I gather his wife was doing some of that, but her possibly being better than he is at that doesn’t mean she could do it all well enough to keep things running smoothly. I’m just saying that he has talent — not just for getting things built, but he also clearly had the ability to find and recognize others with the talent to do things at a high level as well. That’s a talent not everyone has — finding talent and harnessing it is a rare skill in and of itself (it’s one of the things that made Walt Disney such a genius, if I may offer a rarefied example). Going off nothing more than reading these threads, it seems Richard was good at recognizing talent and harnessing it, but the financials and managing time were much more of a challenge and that this was made worse by his apparent desire to make people think he could do it all himself. It just seems that there must be a way to hook the right people together with him and actually get things done, get himself and potential partners paid, get his customers the things that so excited them and made them throw their money at him, and everyone walk away happy. I have no idea who those people are, of course, I just know they must walk the planet. It would be shame if, in the end, Richard’s undeniable talents and abilities are squandered and customers are angered and everyone throws one another under the bus and no one is happy. It is certainly difficult to mend a reputation, but unlike some, Richard at least showed us things. I think most of us believe that, regardless of whether he did all the things he showed himself or he farmed some or all of it out to others, the things he showed us were real and they could be delivered under the right circumstances. I know that until I saw the things he offered, I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to make models at such a high level outside people working at such places as ILM. I hope he is able to right the ship. I believe people can change they way they do things and find a way to make things work for them. I hope he can do that, and find the right people to work with if that is, in fact, what he needs. I’d like to see more of the brilliant work he presented, and go back to just wishing I could afford to buy any of it. It would be a shame for all that ability to go to waste. Just my opinion I’ve formed over the last few months after learning that there were problems in the first place. I hope it is received by all parties in the same spirit it was intended.
Qapla’
SSB
but I would like to see him make good for his own sake.
