sla's out of his budget - I agree it would be better. But not only are the machines much more expensive than fdm but the running costs are considerably higher as well.
And I'm guessing there is a time limit of his job contract which totally rules out anything on a crowd funded website. Even the good ones usually take at least 12 months over the stated delivery time before they ship.
You also need to factor in learning the in's and out of 3d printing and designing for 3d printing.

If you fit a 0.2 or 0.3 mm nozzle on an 0.05mm layer height machine. Yes it will take about a week to print anything, but you can get serious detail in there. And if they are going to be painted anyway, you can easy add in extra detail.

The moai is only $900. Looks good. But if they actually start shipping by june 2017 - I'll eat the hat of your choice :-) Looks like the standard crowdfunded setup.
The t-1000 looks great, but way out of budget. They claim to be shipping pretty much now, interested to see if that happens. Would be a first. But does look like a more professional setup than most crow fund outfits.