Jabba’s Palace Wooden Figures by John Soukup (aka KettleArt)

A couple of years ago, I got a sketch card by John Soukup from the Topps Galaxy Series 5 (here’s his DeviantArt page). I like it a lot and have it framed it my office. So I was quite interested when I saw some painted wooden Star Wars figures that he made being sold on eBay. I had never seen them before, but apparently he’s made quite a number of these, and for properties other than Star Wars, as well.

I won Jabba and Han in Carbonite and since the seller turned out to be John himself, I inquired about making some others, which he kindly agreed to. They’re made out of 3/4″ thick wood that’s been cut into simple shapes and then painted appropriately.

They’re simple in a way, and certainly have a bit of a folk art feel to them, but they’re very well done (and not too expensive either). The humanoid figures are around 3.5″ tall (which makes them basically in scale with vintage and modern Star Wars figures, now that I think about it), while the tallest is the rancor at about 5″ tall.

My favorites are probably Jabba, the rancor, the Gamorrean and Max Rebo. Here are some individual shots so you can get a better look at the detail. They’re painted all the way around. I particularly like the rancor’s backside 😉

I’m tempted to get more, but it’s hard to know where to stop when Jabba’s Palace is concerned — there’s just so many characters!