Link: Custom Sculpted Jabba the Hutt & Salacious Crumb in Scale with Hasbro’s “Black Series”
This is some very impressive custom work! Joe Amaro sculpted these figures to be in scale with Hasbro’s upcoming line of 6″ Star Wars figures, aka the “Black Series.” Joe is a professional sculptor, but apparently did this for his own satisfaction, and to accompany the upcoming Black Series Boba Fett figure. What a stellar job. I know I’d buy one of these. 🙂 Click through to his site for more pictures, some “making of” shots, and a picture of his next figure — a Gamorrean Guard!
In honor of May the Fourth, Sideshow Collectibles is giving away a very nice set of 1/6 scale Jabba’s Palace figures. It’s not the complete lineup, as it’s missing Gamorrean Guards and the archway piece, but it’s a fantastic selection of stuff. I’ll be sitting this one out, of course, since I have everything already.
Tatooine Creature T-Shirt (Unknown Maker)
I haven’t been able to figure out who produced this shirt, but it’s pretty cool. It has Jabba, Salacious Crumb, a Gamorrean Guard, and the rancor, with a tusken raider in the background. About all I can say for sure is that it’s an adult size.
Has anyone seen this one before, or know who produced it?
It’s funny, but there are still Jabba-related products out there that I’ve never seen before. This is one of them. Until it popped up on eBay, I had no idea that it existed. According to the Star Wars Collector’s Archive, Sales Corporation made hats for several different characters: Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, Paploo (the ewok), Chewbacca and the Gamorrean Guard. Most of those choices make sense, since they’re major characters, and while Paploo isn’t anybody’s favorite ewok, he was probably more of a placeholder for ewoks in general.
The Gamorrean though is a bit of a head-scratcher. It’s really interesting that the Gamorreans got so many clothing items and collectibles dedicated to them, given the fact that the they were essentially background characters who did very little and said nothing. This isn’t even the only vintage Gamorrean hat I have! There’s also a baseball cap, also by Sales Corporation. In fact, I’m thinking of doing a little article listing all of the Gamorrean Guard items that have been made. It should be fun.
Maybe sometime my son can wear this and I can wear one of my Jabba hats (like this one, this one, this one or this one.) 🙂
“Walkies!” Print (Jabba and Leia) by Matt Dixon
This is an older piece of artwork, but I stumbled upon it for the first time a few weeks ago and contacted UK-based artist Matt Dixon to see if I could get a print. It’s a clever concept. It sort of illustrates how Leia turned the tables on Jabba in the film, but this time she’s making him her pet (just as Jabba did to her) rather than strangling him. I like the “J” dog tag. 🙂
The title of the piece is “Walkies!” which is a reference to famed dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse, who always used to use that phrase when talking her dogs out for a walk to encourage them to do their business. The print is an 8×10.
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!
Star Wars Operation (R2D2/C-3PO) by Hasbro
This is a Star Warsy version of the classic electronic Operation game. Instead of operating on what I can only assume is a late-stage alcoholic, you’re trying to remove various foreign objects from R2-D2 (and a couple from C-3PO), but the basic concept is the same.
It’s called a “silly skill game” on the box, and I guess that’s a pretty accurate description. I suppose you do need a steady hand to be able to remove the items in the cavities with the tweezers without touching the sides, but I found it to be surprisingly easy. My son had a slightly harder time, but we were both able to do it pretty easily, which made it a lot less tense than I had remembered the game being as a kid. If you do touch the side, a sound clip from R2 or C-3PO is played. The “screaming” R2 seemed very appropriate, but some of the other clips (like C-3PO saying that he would gladly donate any of his circuits or gears) seemed a little out of place.
I know what you’re thinking. What does this have to do with Jabba? The pieces you’re removing have some Star Wars connection, like a “Rusty Restraining Bolt,” a “Bad Motivator,” or an “Overweight Glob of Grease.” Of course that phrase was originally said by C-3PO of R2 in A New Hope, but they’ve chosen to represent it as everyone’s favorite Hutt.
And yeah, I did kind of buy the game just to get this piece (which now lives on one of my collection shelves), but I got it cheaply second hand, and my son and I also had some fun with it.
Attacktix Jabba the Hutt Prototype
I first posted about the Attacktix Jabba the Hutt figure (on the right above) more than 3 years ago. The prototype on the left would have been used at some point in the production process for that figure. In some cases, the figures called “prototypes” in eBay auctions are actually just bootleg versions of figures that people working in the Chinese factory have made using leftover plastic for the express purpose of selling on eBay. They’re interesting curiosities, but weren’t actually used in the production of the figure. And of course it’s not unheard of for someone to simply remove the paint from a production figure to try and pass it off as a prototype as well.
There are couple of things that lead me to believe that this one is a legitimate prototype. One is the lack of any copyright information on the bottom. It’s also missing the painted text, but the copyright information is part of the plastic itself and is often missing from prototypes.
It also uses a different colored plastic for the lever on the back (white instead of green). (On the production figure, the white on Jabba’s front is actually paint that has been applied over the green plastic.) I got one of the blue balls that Jabba fires with this prototype, and it’s also a slightly different color than the production balls (a darker blue).
The internal mechanism is also white. Part of it actually has a marble pattern, which I thought was interesting.
Here it is with the unreleased Gamorrean Guard figure that I posted about a while ago. (The Gamorrean, I now notice, has copyright info on it as well as paint on the base, which might indicate that it was from later in the production process.) Anyway, I enjoy finding these kinds of unpainted prototypes since they’re rare and give you a little glimpse into the production process.
Link: Jabba the Hutt-Shaped Cut of Meat & Lemon on eBay
In the latest installment of strange things vaguely resembling Jabba the Hutt that people are trying to sell on eBay, we have a cut of meat and a large lemon. And no, they’re not from the same seller.
The auction for the meat is coming from Australia and reads:
A piece of slow roasted scotch fillet that has an uncanny resemblance to Jabba the hutt here is your chance to own a one of a kind unique piece of memorabilia. Dimensions 3cm x 2cm 3mm thick Happy bidding good luck.
Tempting… But it does at least bear a very mild resemblance to a grinning Jabba. As for the lemon, the seller writes:
Large 5″x4″ 3.5″ diameter Bright Yellow CRAZY DEFORMED LEMON!
This thing is bizzar!! Looks a bit like Jabba the Hutt, or some Fat Alien-Like Sea Creature.
About the size of a heart, and looks like a FREAK HEART TOO.Very Clean and Hard, Thick Skinned. Smells Great Check it out! And Enjoy
It is a rather large and misshapen lemon to be sure, but I think any connection to Jabba is only in the seller’s mind.
I stumbled upon the original painting for this print on eBay, but it was considerably out of my price range. I contacted the artist (Davy R from Subversive Star Wars) and he kindly agreed to make it available to me as a print. I’m not sure where the “birthday party” part of the title comes from, but perhaps Jabba is entertaining his little Huttlet on his birthday? In any case, it’s quite well done and I love seeing different versions of Jabba, whether it’s as a late 18th century robber baron, a Greek God, or Santa Claus. The print is 11×14.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
