Rant: If you’re going to make an item with Jabba’s picture on it, please don’t use a photo of the Sideshow Collectibles figure
This is something that’s been bothering me for some time. I’ve seen quite a few unlicensed items that use stock photos of the Sideshow Collectibles 1/6 scale Jabba to represent Jabba the Hutt. Now the Sideshow Jabba is excellent, but it’s clearly not Jabba from Return of the Jedi. I don’t know if these people really don’t know the difference (I imagine that is true in at least some cases) or if they’re just being lazy and using the first high res photo that they find on a Google image search. Either way, it looks silly. Allow me to show you a few examples. I won’t be providing links to these products since I don’t really like them and don’t want to give their creators free publicity.
Take this mug for example. It’s not a bad parody of the Starbucks logo, but then they go and stick a photo of an action figure in the middle. Silly.
Or this “Jabba the Pimp” “art print” that someone is charging $40 for. I could whip this up in Photoshop in a matter of minutes. In fact, I did using nothing but images found in short Google searches. It’s art!
Or these “wine glass charms.” They used stock photos for everyone but Jabba (aside from Vader, which is a digital painting), so I can only guess that they thought this was really him.
There’s more where these came from, but you get the idea. If you want to make something like this, take a second and find a decent image of Jabba. There are quite a few around.
Vintage Jabba’s Palace Puzzle from Waddingtons UK
I got this months ago and really thought I had already posted about it, but apparently not. I did already write about another Waddingtons puzzle from the UK — one of Jedi Luke in Jabba’s Palace. Like that one, this puzzle came with a “Super Print,” which is an 11″ by 17″ poster of the image from the puzzle. It’s a nice little bonus that is often lost.
I have an American puzzle from Craft Master that uses the same photograph, so when I got this puzzle I noticed right away that the original image had been touched up by hand. I remember thinking that the Craft Master puzzle was pretty dark and drab looking, and I wonder if somebody at Waddingtons didn’t agree, since they’ve added extra detailing and highlighting in neon colors.
You can see that Jabba has bright orange, yellow and blue highlights. It looks a little odd in closeup, but actually makes the overall image look much better. I like it.
Toy Expo 98 Exclusive Oola Figure Autographed by Femi Taylor
This is a figure that was exclusive to the 1998 Toy Expo in Philadelphia. Well, the figure itself is just the normal Power of the Force Oola and Salacious Crumb from Hasbro, but a cover has been attached to it so that it can be opened like a book. Opening the cover reveals an autographed photo of Femi Taylor (who played Oola both in the original film and the Special Edition that came out in 1997). I believe the figure was originally only available as a mailaway offer, so they must have worked something out with Kenner to get 1,000 of them for this promotion.
I’m not a fan of autographing action figures in general. It actually can detract from the value of the figure in many cases, and you usually can’t see the signature very well compared to an autographed photo. But this is a bit of an exception, since it’s a product that was sold this way. It’s wasn’t expensive and I didn’t have a Femi Taylor autograph, so I figured, why not? I do intend to get an autographed photo to frame as well at some point, though.
Jabba the Hutt with Han Solo Stein from Dram Tree
Dram Tree put out a number of large and heavy Star Wars-themed steins in the late 1990s. They all had the same generic “Star Wars” design, but with different pictures on the front. I posted about their Jabba’s Palace design more than two years ago, but I put off buying this one for a long time.
It’s no secret that I don’t like the idea of inserting Jabba into A New Hope. Aside from the fact that the CGI Jabba looks nothing like the character in Jedi and seems shoehorned into a scene that was never made with him in mind (which is in fact the case), I think introducing the character of Jabba so early in the trilogy ruins the moment when we finally see him in his palace. However, I do collect pieces featuring the CGI Jabba, since they’re part of the character’s history and sometimes are so bad they’re funny (this one might qualify in that regard).
I also have a bit of a bad history with this particular stein, since I finally broke down and bought one last year only to have it arrive in pieces. It took a while for me to find another halfway decent deal.
Painted Jabba the Hutt Model Kit by Knight Models
I wrote about the Knight Models Jabba the Hutt model kit a few weeks ago, and now I’ve finished painting mine up. Above, you can see what the model looks like after assembly and before priming and painting. You have a little freedom in terms of where to put the pillows and cups, but Leia pretty much has to go in one position since they have sculpted part of her costume onto the throne itself, and there’s an indentation where her left hand is supposed to go as well.
I would say you need intermediate modeling skills to complete this kit. You will need to use a pin vise (small hand-held drill) to securely attach certain parts like the hooka pipe and hose. I also drilled some holes in the railing and hooka and used metal pins (actually pieces of paper clip) to reinforce the join between the two pieces. Salacious Crumb was a particular problem because he comes in 6 pieces, which is kind of ridiculous for such a small model. I thought I had lost one of his incredibly tiny ears and fashioned my own replacement that you can see in the picture above, but I finally located the real one and replaced it.
I didn’t really care for the paint job that Knight Models uses as their example, which you can see here (it’s very well done technically — I just don’t like the colors). So I went with orange and green, which is my preferred color scheme for Jabba. Overall, the painting went pretty well, although Leia was a little tricky due to the complexity of her costume and her tiny facial features. The kit comes with a separate chain for Jabba to hold, as well as a thin wire to use for the hooka hose, and I think those add a nice amount of detail.
I still think that the kit is considerably more expensive than it should be, given that very little metal is actual used in it, but I’m glad I got it. The Jabba sculpt is one of the top 3 or 4 that I’ve ever seen. Knight Models also has Gamorrean Guard and Boushh models, but considering that they cost $70+ apiece for models that are really quite small, I’ll probably just get Jabba — at least for now.
Upcoming: Jabba the Hutt and Slave Leia Bobble-Heads from Funko
I posted about the Funko Pop Gamorrean Guard a while ago, and I’m glad to see that they’re adding more characters from Jabba’s palace, including the big slug himself and Slave Leia. The pictures are from Toy Fair 2012, and were found in this Flickr stream. I assume these will see release sometime later this year.
“The Phantom Menace” Poster with Jabba the Hutt from Taco Bell
My son and I are going to see The Phantom Menace today in the theater today. He’s very excited. 🙂 So I thought I would write a bit about this poster, which was available at Taco Bell restaurants in 1999 when the film was originally released. Forgive the picture — I had a hard time getting the poster to lay flat, and I don’t plan on framing this one…
When I first saw this poster, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The composition is terrible. It’s got Jabba in the background and two Darth Mauls for no apparent reason. But when I got my copy from an ebay seller, it also had a Taco Bell flyer rolled in with it, which showed that this was one of 4 posters that link together to form one large collage of images from The Phantom Menace. In that context it makes little bit more sense, but I still think they should’ve made each individual poster work separately as well as part of the overall collage. Each poster is 17″ x 22″ so the entire collage would be rather large.
Jabba’s Palace Tie-Dyed Shirt from Liquid Blue
I was unsure about this one when I first saw pictures of it. Tie-dye and Star Wars don’t immediately go together in my mind, but in person it’s pretty impressive looking. I don’t think I’d actually wear it, but it’s kind of cool. I like how almost the entire front is covered with art (including Jabba, Leia, Bib Fortuna, Boba Fett and C-3PO on the top and the rancor on the bottom). The images are clearly based on stock photos, but it looks like they’ve had a filter applied to them, or maybe they’ve been drawn over. The effect is a nice one — almost like a painting.
I was surprised that there’s also a complete design on the back, featuring the Max Rebo Band, Han Solo in Carbonite and Jabba’s new dancers from the special edition of Return of the Jedi, plus Leia as Boushh with Chewbacca and some other palace aliens. While I could have done without the addition of the new dancers, this shirt does a pretty good job of picking up on a lot of the key characters and scenes from Jabba’s palace.
I’m not positive when this was made, but the presence of the special edition characters places it in the late 90s or later.
Upcoming: Closer Look At New LEGO Jabba’s Palace
I wrote about our first glimpse of the upcoming LEGO Jabba’s Palace set a couple of months ago, and now we get a much better look at the set in the form of a short demo by a LEGO employee at a Toy Fair. The Jabba figure looks great, and his torso can even swivel — much better than the original figure, in my opinion (although that also has its charms). You can also see how the trap door works, and how Jabba’s throne will slide up to cover it. There’s even stairs on either side of the throne, which even the action figure versions have never included. So far, it looks fantastic. The only issue is that he says that it’s a product for Christmas 2012, which seems like a very long time away. 😦
“Gangster’s Palace” Papercraft by Brian Gubicza
I posted about the “Gangster’s Palace” print by Brian Gubicza a while ago. With this papercraft version, the finished product is a small box about 2 inches wide and 1.5 inches tall and deep, with 3 layers of cutouts to give it a sort of shadowbox effect.
I found the PDF template below on a French site called “Paper Toy.” I’m hosting it here as well just in case something happens to that version. You need to print it out on some nice thick paper or card stock and then assemble it with some glue. It wasn’t very hard, although I probably could have been a bit more precise with some of my cuts. Using a metal ruler and an exacto knife might have helped. It’s a cute little project that reminds me a bit of the Blockheadz papercraft figures I got last year, although of course that is completely different in scale and complexity.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
