Life-Size Gamorrean Guard Bust by Sideshow Collectibles

Sideshow Collectibles’ line of life-size Star Wars busts is interesting for a few reasons. Although they recently added characters like Darth Vader and Boba Fett, most of the busts have been of rather minor alien characters. While they may not have had a lot of screen time (or even any lines) their designs are iconically Star Wars. With human characters, if the likeness is even slightly off it will ruin the whole piece for many people, and it can be hard to get a human to look realistic with the kind of factory paint jobs that Sideshow uses. So I think the alien characters have actually been pretty good choices. They’re typically limited to around 300 pieces (like this one), although they make more of the major characters.

I used to own a few of these (Bossk, Greedo and Yoda to be specific) and while they were cool, I thought the paint jobs were a little on the simplistic side, and the sculpts for Yoda and Bossk seemed a little off (with Yoda at least I think something happened in production, since the original sculpt looked better). This, combined with the expense and the room they require prompted me to sell them off and stop collecting life-size busts. So I had some mixed feelings when they announced their Gamorrean Guard one a couple of years ago. It looked great and the character was a great match for my collection, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to buy any more life-size busts.

Recently I decided that I really did need to have one of these guys in my collection, so I made it a sort of early Christmas present to myself. And I’ll have to say that I’m glad I did. The sculpt is excellent — probably the best I’ve ever seen. But then again Sideshow’s strength is usually the sculpts, while the production paint jobs are often disappointing compared to the prototypes. But I’m extremely impressed by the paint job on this one. They managed to pull off the subtle variations in color that you’d expect for this character. It really does look realistic in person, like an actual Gamorrean is standing there in my office. The slobber on the nose and mouth is quite nice, and even the metal and leather parts on the helmet look very realistic. I wish all of Sideshow’s pieces were this good.

It’s a big piece, and fairly deep, so it can be difficult to find a good place to display it. But I found a pretty good spot on the shelves in my office, next to the Slave Leia PF and life-size Salacious Crumb that I’m fairly happy with. Until now, my favorite Gamorrean Guard piece was the Attakus Gamorrean Guard statue, but I think this probably edges it out by a bit. I’m hoping that they’ll make more life-size Jabba’s palace pieces.