Johnathan Rader (Rader Studios)

[Derek Sohoza]

Has anyone here ever ordered any model kits from Johnathan Rader? I ordered an edmontosaurus kit June 9th. His site says the orders take 3 to 5 weeks to ship. It's now been 6 weeks, and although I've tried to email him, I haven't gotten any reply back. I would've messaged him on his account here, but it says he hasn't been online since June 19th.

I'm just wondering if his models usually take this long to ship. It's not like I'm in a whole different country.

And I don't mean this as any sort of personal attack. I've just never heard of anything that small taking almost a month and a half to ship. And I don't even mind it taking that long if something happened or wasn't ready. But at least keep me in the loop, ya know?

[ataraxus]

my first order goes near one year until the package arrived me, for the second order i wait now since 2 Years!!!!!
since 1 1/2 year i heard never from him! Happy waiting! 

[postsaurischian]

I've been told that other people also have been waiting for years and I've been warned by a highly professional Dinosaur model dealer not to send Jonathan money.

I tried to contact him because there can be no two opinions: His models are exceptionally beautiful ......., but I for one completely lost interest . Strangely enough he talked to two other people about my request ..., but I never got an answer .

Fortunately nowadays we have some more other model creators that are very talented.

[tyrantqueen]

I'm afraid to say this, but Raderstudios has a bit of a reputation for bad communication at the moment

I wanted to order his acrocanthosaurus model. But I heard so many bad things about his service and was afraid to order anything from him. I saw the kit for sale in Dan's Dinosaurs (which I believe is a trustworthy site) and I sent an email to them asking about the situation, and I was told that all Rader kit orders are on hold for a while.  Have you tried contacting him via his Clubhouse account?

[ataraxus]

Have you tried contacting him via his Clubhouse account?

makes no difference if you try to contact him via dtf or Facebook or what else. he does not answer...

[dinocat]

I concur. He does great work. I have a few of his kits and want a couple more. No reply.

[dinoking]

Yes, I am having the same experience with him. I ordered his Edmontasaurus model over a year ago and have not recieved it. It is my understanding  that the mold for the model is worn out and needs to be replaced. Apparently,  replacing the mold is not a priority. I have tried contacting him several times since he told me about the mold  but have not gotten a reply to any of my E-mails. I suggested that he send another one of his models (same price as the Edmontasurus) as a replacement until the problem was fixed but have not heard back from him. It is a shame since I was interested in buying several of his other models including the rather expensive Supersaurus model. At this point , I would recomend NOT dealing with him.

[copper]

i also once ordered from him, never got the model.  but in the end i was lucky; Dan was so kind and gave me a different kit as a replacement.

[Derek Sohoza]

i also once ordered from him, never got the model.  but in the end i was lucky; Dan was so kind and gave me a different kit as a replacement.

But you ordered it through Dan's Dinosaurs then, yes? Because I ordered mine directly from Rader's site.

[Derek Sohoza]

ANOTHER IMPORTANT QUESTION I'D LIKE TO ASK ALL THOSE WHO VIEW THIS POST:
(And I feel it's something everyone registered to this forum should know about)

Are there any other people that deal in the selling of models that are, for all we can tell, unreliable?

So far, besides Rader, I've only purchased models from Dan's Dinosaurs and Shane Foulkes. Both of whom I would highly recommend.

[copper]

i also once ordered from him, never got the model.  but in the end i was lucky; Dan was so kind and gave me a different kit as a replacement.

But you ordered it through Dan's Dinosaurs then, yes? Because I ordered mine directly from Rader's site.

from dan's dinosaurs, that's correct.

[dutchdinolover]

I have a really bad experience with Rader studio as well: I ordered and paid for his very nice camarasaurus and acrocanthosaurus. I never got the models and it took more than a year and three dozen of emails to get my money back. I lost my interest in his models, although very beautiful. Really shameful. I wrote even emails to his university email (if you search you can find it hidden on his website, that seemed to work eventually.

Good luck for al of you with the same problem.

[s.foulkes]

Holy crap this is ridiculous, whats going on with him.? he needs to quit sculpting more and more models if he refuses to ship them out this isn't a business where you take the money and run. then make more and take the money and run. If he can make it to the bank he can make it to the post office. waiting 1 to 2 months is not a big deal but more than 90 days or longer is crazy. shame.

[ataraxus]

a friend from here knows Jonathan and he told me  he ist extremely busy with studying and he has stomach Problems so i can accept the fact that an order Needs longer time but so many unanswered emails... a good communication is a very important Point. and the most curious Thing is that i did new stuff (Kaprosuchus, cerato,sue) why he makes advertisement when i have no time for casting and shipping. also i`m a bit pissed of that some People get the stuff and some not...a really sad tale.

[ataraxus]

Are there any other people that deal in the selling of models that are, for all we can tell, unreliable?

[/quote]

my experiences:

Shane, David Silva (Creativebeast), Sean Cooper (Paleocraft) fast and friendly, highly recommendable

CM Studio and Keith strasser: recommendable, sometimes it Needs a bit time but always i received the stuff and the communication is good

Galileo (Geenemodels) different, sometimes fast and complete with good communication, sometimes slow and no answers, at last i got all my stuff from him.i only use PayPal. when i wait longer than 6 weeks i open a conflict.

[tyrantqueen]

Even worse, I think Galileo is deliberately ignoring my emails. I have PM'd him three times about a model I ordered a year ago. First time he replied and said he would look into it. But I never received any reply, so I messaged him again.

I know he is coming online, because I have seen his posts on the clubhouse forum. I don't know what I've done wrong, I was never rude or impolite when I messaged him I wasn't bugging him either, the emails were sent weeks apart from each other.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

In my experience a lot of artists can't handle the business end of things correctly. They get to over-extended on money, materials. ect.  One fellow I dealt with that still hasn't come through in 2 years or so  took money for product, spent the money on bills and couldn't buy what he needed to fill orders.  That seems to be a recurring a theme. Funds for items go to other places besides where they should. Most everyone of these guys need a good helper whose only job is answering all emails and dealing with people and keeping the artist on track..a PR person or secretary would be good for them.

Ignoring messages is just ignoring the problem..to me it feels like a write off..they no longer care to even update you so they don't care if your order is complete or the transaction fulfilled. Pretty much what happened to me recently.

[Gorgonzola]

In my experience a lot of artists can't handle the business end of things correctly. They get to over-extended on money, materials. ect.  One fellow I dealt with that still hasn't come through in 2 years or so  took money for product, spent the money on bills and couldn't buy what he needed to fill orders.  That seems to be a recurring a theme. Funds for items go to other places besides where they should. Most everyone of these guys need a good helper whose only job is answering all emails and dealing with people and keeping the artist on track..a PR person or secretary would be good for them.

Ignoring messages is just ignoring the problem..to me it feels like a write off..they no longer care to even update you so they don't care if your order is complete or the transaction fulfilled. Pretty much what happened to me recently.

Yeah, I never got why people ignore messages...I've freaked out a few times when Shapeways tells me I had models that didn't print, but I have no means of knowing who ordered so I could tell them I'm on the case and should get a fix out ASAP.  Instead I gotta rely on telling Shapeways to tell the customer to let them know it's okay now...extremely unintuitive and backwards for customer service.  Hopefully they listened to that survey they gave me...

It sort of ties into that whole thing I've heard a lot of my friends (and myself) talk about when it comes to being a professional artist - you've got three things you can be: Good, Reliable, Friendly.  Chances are you're only going to ever be able to be two, but you should always strive for the three. I've always taken it as you can never be certain how good you really are in comparison to your peers, so you damn well better be reliable and friendly. There's only a handful of people that can get by in life by putting out masterpieces while being a complete jerk that doesn't commmunicate with the client.

[triceratops83]

Old thread, but I just thought I'd chime in here, so that this doesn't just end on a down note. I bought a kit from Mr Rader about July/August this year and he was nothing but an absolute pleasure to deal with. He was very communicative and quick to respond, the kit was finished as quickly as with other artists I have bought from and was delivered surprisingly quickly to a remote area. Whatever problems may have occurred in the past I am here to say that I would happily buy from Mr Rader in the future.

[tyrantqueen]

I'd like to buy a couple of Rader's kits but I won't be doing it through Rader himself (probably through Dan or Alchemy Works). I hate to sound mean, but the guy has a pretty bad track record (I think there is someone who has been waiting over six years for a commission from him).