Custom Throne for Black Series Jabba the Hutt Figure

I’ve mentioned before how Hasbro released the regular version of the Black Series Jabba the Hutt figure with no accessories whatsoever. And even the SDCC-exclusive version that came with the hooka/railing and Salacious Crumb seems rather incomplete without a throne. That’s why a lot of people are trying their hands at making their own thrones. I’ve seen people make them out of florist’s foam, insulation foam (version 2 here), and styrofoam (also here). But I wanted something a bit closer to the Sideshow Jabba’s throne — completely sculpted. I’ve dabbled a little bit with sculpting for various customization projects, but I’m still very much a beginner, so this was a major project.

I sculpted the throne from Sculpey on top of a wooden base that I put together out of wood scraps, with a number of nails pounded in it to give the Sculpey something to grab onto. I knew that sculpting the throne out of a solid block of modeling clay would not be a good idea, and I experimented a bit using things like aluminum foil as the base without any luck. So this was my solution. It did end up working pretty well, although it’s rather heavy.

First I spread the Sculpey over the wooden base. It was pretty difficult to get it even. This was the best I could do, but I noticed afterward that the edges were more rounded than they probably should be.

Then I added the cracks. I guess the real throne was supposed to be made of a number of blocks joined together?

Then I pressed some coarse sandpaper up against the surface of the clay to give it some stone-like texture (although you can’t really see it here). I also punched out holes for the gargoyles with the neck of a water bottle, which happened to be the right size. At first I thought I might have to sculpt new gargoyles, which would have been a lot of work, but after seeing some others use the heads from the vintage Kenner playset, it became pretty obvious that they would work even in this larger scale. (I believe the gargoyles are actually a bit oversized for the smaller figures.) I drilled holes in the heads, added metal rings and filled in some of the existing holes in their mouths with epoxy putty before painting them.

I sculpted some accessories like pillows, an animal skin, a piece of cloth (not pictured), a food plate and cup, and finally a little rat-slug creature. I’m not sure what this one’s called, but he was included in Sideshow’s Salacious Crumb Creature Pack. The ones in green were made from epoxy putty, while the tan pillow and piece of cloth were made using Super Sculpey.

Here’s the finished throne by itself. I repainted the Habsro throne and hooka, since they were just bare plastic and didn’t really fit in with the throne. The Leia figure above has also been partially repainted — mostly just to add real metallic looking gold to her bikini, but also retouch her face a bit. This was all quite a bit of work, but I’m pretty happy with the results. Have you tried your hand at making a throne? What did you use, and how did it turn out? Feel free to link to pictures in the comments.