If rendered with a little care this could be outstanding. I just got to this thing today, having received it last week and given it a cursory look-see without my glasses on, in low light. First impression--cool! Anyway, I went to hang this thing over an expensive medieval-styled mirror tonight, and with work lights in place and my glasses on, I could see at once that the end of the raven's beak had not been carved, or shaped, or whatever they do. The bird's beak ends in an ugly, bulbous plastic tumor. Nice. For heaven's sake, they shipped this thing out like that?! I've quickly learned that you can expect wide variability in quality-control (and that's being kind) from anything made in China, because they'll happily ship you absolutely any old thing! Conversely, the Chinese are well capable of making high quality items with nice workmanship, provided they are motivated to do so. Last summer, I exchanged five expensive Chinese-made telescopes before finally switching models from the same manufacturer, to ultimately receive an acceptable sample. In fact, the last one delivered was ostensibly flawless both optically and cosmetically. Oh, they can do it if they want to! I'll update this review, provided they ship an acceptable rendition of this otherwise very cool wall-mounted figure. As I say, it has the potential of being an outstanding piece, and I'll go to the OEM to get a good one if I have to (my wife likes it). By the bye, this is not a heavy piece, and it is simple to hang if you have any savvy with these things. I'll explain how to do this quickly and easily, if they eventually ship me a good one. If this is to be a gift, order early and inspect it immediately in a well-lit room before accepting it. Good luck! UPDATE: Well, as usual the folks at Amazon had a new "Raven" delivered to me within two days of my asking (everything in life should work so well as Amazon.com!). The replacement Raven has a beak like the one shown on the webpage (so far so good). But the paintwork on the branch and other parts of the bird was better on the first one... Happily, my wife is an accomplished artist with all manner of paints, and has the skills necessary to not only touch this up, but to make it better than stock, so this one is a keeper! I'm bumping it up to four stars, because at this price-point, I've found no competition for it, and it really is very cool! This is a 3/4 wall sculpture, designed along the lines of a "frieze" that morphs flat into the wall. This one is done so that it's best presented on a right-hand wall, to be viewed obliquely from the front and side, since the left rear quarter sort of disappears into the wall. My method for hanging things like this is to insert plastic wall anchors into the hanger holes at the back of the sculpture, making sure they're perfectly perpendicular to the back of the sculpture (tape them into place if you have to), and putting a drop of liquid soap on the outside ends of the plastic anchors. After deciding exactly where I want the sculpture, and how I want it orientated, I gently press the whole thing against the wall without twisting or dragging it in the slightest, leaving two round spots where the liquid soap marked the wall. I then center a nail or screw in each soap dot, and start a hole. In my case, I was able to drill a pilot hole in each "soap dot" using a drill bit just slightly smaller than the mounting screw. I then carefully turned a screw into both holes, straight into the plaster with a power screw driver, leaving about 1/8" of each screw sticking out. I then carefully aligned the hangers with the screw, taking care not to scratch the wall, and the screws slid right into the hanger holes on the first attempt. Note: You may want to paint or color the hanging hardware "black" before mounting the raven, as the bright silver hardware will show up between the wall and the sculpture. I used a permanent black magic marker for this, and since the hardware's in shadow, you don't even see it now. In this case, I only used the plastic anchors to mark the wall, and did not use them to mount the sculpture (in this location, I am confident that it will hold with just the screws). RayB
