Mighty Jabba's Collection

I haven’t been posting here very much recently (in fact I see that this is my first post for 2021!). The reason is simple. When I make a post on platforms like YouTube and Instagram I get hundreds or thousands of views and dozens of comments. Here, I generally get nothing. I understand that’s just the nature of the modern internet — people don’t really read blogs much anymore. But it’s generally not worth it to me to be posting here if nobody reads it. That said, this site won’t be going away anytime soon. I like having a permanent “home” like this, and there’s more than a decade of back posts that show up when people Google various collectibles that I’ve featured. Still, I don’t expect to be posting a much here moving forward. If you like the site, please follow me on Instagram, as that’s where I’ve been posting additions to my collection. And of course it would be great if you could subscribe to me on YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, in my latest video I talk about the process of preparing my “Visible Hutt” figure for release, including making boxes and opening an Etsy store, and give details about their upcoming release (this Friday the 23rd!)

https://youtu.be/sYSHACN-71o

I’m teaming up with Regal Robot to give away one of their Jabba the Hutt Concept Maquettes on my YouTube channel. The short video below explains about the contest and how to enter (unfortunately it is limited to the US for licensing reasons). 

And here is a direct link to the contest page:
https://kingsumo.com/g/asmbff/win-an-officially-licensed-jabba-the-hutt-concept-maquette-replica-from-regal-robot

Back in July of 2015, Gentle Giant showed a prototype of a Jumbo Jabba the Hutt figure that was supposed to be released in their line of Jumbo Kenner Star Wars figures. It looked pretty impressive, and even though I knew it would be expensive, I eagerly awaited news of when it would be available for preorder. I also picked up a number of other Jumbo figures that I knew would go well with Jabba in a future display. But as the days turned into months and then years, and the momentum for Gentle Giant’s Jumbo line seemed to wane, it seemed less and less likely that they would actually be releasing this figure.

After about five years had passed, I discovered the 3D scans of vintage action figures that Desert Octopus had been making and selling on Cults3D.com. He had scans of a lot of vintage Kenner figures, and while he didn’t have a Jabba, when I reached out to him it seemed like he was open to the idea of scanning one. Maybe this was my chance to finally get a Jumbo Jabba. So I sent him one of my vintage Jabba figures, with the request that he scan it at as high a resolution as possible so that it could be blown up to a large size. The model that he created was perfect for what I wanted.

But of course printing it at Jumbo size was going to be a bit of a challenge, so first I decided to try just recreating the figure at actual size. I printed it on my Longer Orange 30 resin 3D printer, and I think it turned out really well, although even broken up into its component parts it barely fit on the print platform.

I then did my best to paint it to resemble the original figure:

After that, I got a little sidetracked by printing various other versions of the figure, including a blue “holographic” version, a red, a green, and a transparent version:

And I even turned the transparent version into a lamp with color-changing LEDs.

But of course what I really wanted was to make a Jumbo Jabba, so I started by trying to figure out how big he should be in the Jumbo scale. And this is where I went wrong at first. I had assumed that the Gentle Giant Jumbo figures were 1/6 scale, so a humanoid would be roughly 12″. But as it turns out a lot of them are quite a bit taller. Their Jumbo Bib Fortuna, for example, was around 13.5″ tall! So unfortunately my first attempt at a Jabba was too small. I printed the Jumbo versions using a traditional FDM 3D printer (the Creality CR-10 S4 and S5).

You can my first version and my final version below, with an original Kenner figure for scale:

I made a video about the process of printing and painting the figure, so I won’t go into too much detail here. But I think it turned out rather well in the end. Here he is with all of my Jumbo Kenner figures, and an actual Kenner Jabba for scale:

During the making of Return of the Jedi, Phil Tippet created a maquette to present to George Lucas to get his final approval for the Jabba character. This concept maquette was the first incarnation of the character as we know him, so as a Jabba fan and collector, it was a sort of “holy grail” piece for me.

But as I posted back in 2011, the original piece was listed in a Profiles in History auction with an estimated price of $30,000 to $50,000, so this is a very high-ticket item. It apparently didn’t sell then, but I believe it did sell a while later (possibly for less than the original asking price, but still way more that I could hope to afford). I mused at the time that it would be great if someplace would make a collectible based on the piece, and it appears that the folks at Regal Robot heard my prayers, because that’s exactly what they’ve done.

This piece was apparently created by 3D modeling it from scratch, but with full access to the original piece, and from what I can tell it looks quite accurate. They’ve decided to recreate it as it originally would have looked, rather than the piece as it is today, since it’s pretty beat up at this point, with missing paint and some chips, etc.

I think they did a great job on the paint. One thing that surprised me is that he actually has stripes on his tail! They’re a bit harder to make out on the original piece, but they are there.

I’m very happy to finally be able to add this piece to my collection. As of this writing, it’s still available on Regal Robot’s website for $349, but it’s limited to just 250 pieces so I don’t expect that to last long.

I also made a YouTube video showing off the piece, which you can see below.

I was pretty surprised when I found out about this product during one of Regal Robot’s livestreams. Sideshow Collectibles already has a 1/6 scale Rancor statue coming out later this year, so with the addition of this prop replica, fans of Jabba’s favorite pet certainly are spoiled for choice. 

But while Sideshow’s offering is a statue of the rancor as a “character” (meaning that it is an artist’s interpretation of what the rancor would look like if it were actually real), Regal Robot’s rancor is intended to be a replica of the actual prop used in Return of the Jedi. There have been a lot of rancor statues made over the years, but as far as I know this is the first time someone has tried to exactly replicate the puppet from the film (although they are recreating it in resin rather than trying to make it an actual puppet). It’s apparently based on a 3D scan of the surviving prop, so this is about as legit as it gets. It will also come with a plaque signed by Phil Tippet, who was one of the sculptors and puppeteers of the Rancor.

The piece will be limited to only 83 pieces (1983 being the release year of Return of the Jedi). As you might imagine, something like this doesn’t come cheap. Their asking price is $2,999. Unfortunately that puts it out of my reach, but this does look like a very impressive piece.

Preorders will start on October 5th at 12PM EST, although I’m not sure when it is actually due to ship. More info can be had on Regal Robot’s site.