In early 2005, Fewture announced the release of an all-new Predator statue that was sculpted by master Takayuki Takeya called the Ancient Predator, and would be a limited production run of 500 units sold exclusively through their retail location in Japan, the Fewture Store. That meant this would have to be bought locally, or from dealers that went to pick them up themselves before they could sell them off on eBay or on their online shops. I had made arrangements at that time to get at least one of these statues, but to make a long story short, there was a major screw up and I ended up empty handed, the statues were sold out and I was SOL unless I wanted to pay $650 + shipping from Asia. This statue became a serious grail for me, and despite my constant searching on eBay and other sites, I managed to miss a couple that sold for a pretty decent price… I was definitely getting frustrated trying to pick this up.

Well, last week my good friend Dan, owner of The Hive forum, not only scored one of these beautiful pieces for himself but he also picked up a second for yours truly! Is this guy a sweetheart or what?! (Take that comment as you will) On top of that, he didn’t even charge me what he paid for it.. he asked me what I was willing to pay before I knew what was going on and basically charged me that. Dan, you’re my personal hero… a lifetime’s supply of hero biscuits for you sir!

Tonight, the statue arrived, has been photographed and now resides safely behind glass in my office. Here’s my thoughts on this piece:

AMAZING! Seriously, I don’t care if you dig this sculpt or not, the detail and paint application is absolutely insane, especially considering this is a pre-painted production item. Measuring in at just over 14″ tall, the piece has some great size to it and looks to be about 1:6 scale or so and is cast in Polystone. The package includes assembly instructions, a product flyer and a sealed certificate of authenticity, which is important because this thing is getting recast like CRAZY! The base is a clear, green tinted resin and the entire thing sits on a black finished wood pedestal with padding and product information on the underside.

The piece basically depicts an ancient predator warrior, covered in tattoos and tribal marking aboard this skinned looking horse with an obviously Alien influenced head. The armor and weapons all have a samurai style design, which looks absolutely fantastic… the horse’s armor is extremely detailed and has a beautiful paint application that looks 100% metallic. It also appears that our ancient warrior has been hunting rogue Predators, because his spear comes with an awesome blade that has a skewered Predator head attached to it… you have the choice of a fully painted and uncloaked head, or a head that is in full cloak mode. I can hear the fan-boys crying about this one, but all nerd-ism aside, it looks bad-ass.

The paint itself is very well done, and easily beats the other pre-paint statue companies in the detail department with Sideshow being the only real match for this with their premium format statues. Put this piece next to some Palisades products (God rest their souls) and the quality difference is nothing short of a slap upside the head to be honest. In fact, this piece ranks right up there with the custom kits I’ve had built by various artists in the garage kit industry.

So overall, you can’t go wrong with this statue… it’s no wonder the thing sells for double it’s initial retail price now. It’s so detailed, even the horse has a… *cough* unit. I kid you not. If you ar elooking to buy one, know what you are getting into! Read my article about this piece getting recast here!

So, full marks to Fewture on this one! You don’t get much better than this. Click the icon below to visit the full gallery of photos I took of this beautiful piece!

Dan