Slave Leia Premium Format Figure (Sideshow Exclusive Version)
I’ve had my eye on this piece since it was first announced, but PFs are expensive and I always felt this was a purchase that could wait. But after winning the Jedi Luke PF a while back, I felt like I should finally pick one of these up. I eventually found a very good price on a used one, so I arranged to get it as a birthday present. 😀
Carrie Fisher is somewhat petite, so the statue is on the small side for a PF: about 16″ from the bottom of the base to the top of her head. The vibro-axe she’s holding does add some more height of course. PFs are supposed to be mixed media statues, so some people had hoped that the metal bikini might actually be a separate metal piece, but it’s just sculpted on. Still, it looks good. The “mixed media” elements consist of the cloth skirt and metal chain. The skirt has a wire in it, allowing you to pose it a bit.
A lot of people criticized this piece after it was released, saying that she looked too bug-eyed. And I think that’s a valid criticism. People have repainted it to look a lot better. But if you’re looking at it from a normal viewing distance (say, a couple of feet away), it looks just fine. I think this is one of the best likenesses of Carrie Fisher that has ever been produced. Much better than the Gentle Giant bust or the full-sized statue (I don’t have that one), and light years beyond the Attakus Slave Leia. I like that they kept her figure more realistic, rather than going for an overly buxom Leia like the Gentle Giant statue. I also like that they went with a more combative pose, rather than a “come hither” sexy one. This is Leia ready to kick some butt, and I’ve always thought her strength rather than her sex appeal was her most attractive feature.
This is the Sideshow Exclusive version of the statue, and that means that it comes with an additional Salacious Crumb statue. As exclusives go, this is very good one. A 1/4 scale Crumb is a fairly large statue in its own right, at around 6 inches tall, although you do pay more for it. The regular version retailed for $249.99, while the exclusive version was $25 more, at $274.99. Something about the pose makes his head look too big, and the paint could be a bit more nuanced, but for the price it’s a nice bonus.
Vintage Jabba the Hutt Book Cover by Stuart Hall
About a year ago, I posted about the Stuart Hall notebook and folder. This time it’s a book cover. I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan, where book covers for paperback novels are common (most bookstores will put one on for you when you buy a book), so that’s probably why I had it in my head that this would be for a novel. But it’s actually intended for use with school textbooks. It’s quite large. Each side is about 11 x 14, so it’s around 28 inches wide when you open it up. Inside is a section for you to write your name, address, the subject, etc. This originally came in a two-pack with a similar cover that had biker scouts on it.
Manga-Style Jabba and Leia T-Shirt
The art on this shirt originally appeared on the cover of a Star Wars manga (Japanese comic book) published in the US by Dark Horse Comics. It’s the second of four books devoted to the story from Return of the Jedi, which makes the message in Japanese at the bottom of the shirt rather odd. It reads 新たなる希望, or “A New Hope.” Obviously, that is the title that should go with the first set of comics, rather than this one. It should read ジェダイの復讐, or “Return of the Jedi” but either someone made a mistake, or they just figured nobody would be able to read it and didn’t bother to put the correct title.
Jabba the Hutt and Han Solo ChromArt Print by OSP Publishing
The certificate of authenticity for this reads, “This ChromArt Chromium Print is made by a special patented process to create an illusion of depth.” And I guess there is a subtle three-dimensional effect there somewhere. Basically, they’ve printed a still from the film on a metallic sheet that has been embossed somehow. You can see it better in a closeup:
It’s not unattractive, but of course I would have preferred something other than the “Special Edition” Jabba. But since this came out in 1997 when the new versions of the films were being re-released, I guess it can’t be helped.. Frankly, I’m not sure why the average person would want to display something like this. The made a number of different ChromArt prints, but they must not have sold very well, since I got mine for under $5 still in the shrink wrap. Its outside dimensions are 11 x 14, but the actual image is about 9.5 x 6.5.
“Homer the Hutt”
Pop culture mashups seem to be all the rage these days. It seems like every T-shirt and poster site has designs that combine Star Wars with other popular properties. This is kind of an interesting example, though. I got the poster above on ebay a while back. It’s apparently by a Mexican artist named Martin Lopez, although I don’t really have any information about him. It’s rather large at 13 x 36 (an inch too tall for a off-the-shelf frame, alas).
I remembered seeing a similar image before, and after a little searching I found the image below, which looks a lot more like a piece of official Simpsons art. I’ve even seen some people selling prints and T-shirts with this on it, but they were all clearly unlicensed. It took me a while, but I finally managed to track down the original image. It’s from the Simpson’s Masterpiece Gallery, a book of Simpsons posters. The posters in the book are about 10.5 x 14 in size.
If you compare the two images, it’s clear that Lopez was “inspired” by the version from the poster book, but there are a number of important differences. In the official image, the family appear to just be dressed up as characters from Jabba’s palace. Maggie the baby seems to be wearing some fake Salacious Crumb nose and ears, Homer is in a Jabba suit with clear seams on it, and Lisa’s Bib Fortuna head tentacles appear to be stuck on with tape.
If you look at the Lopez image, the characters aren’t just pretending — they’re actually a combination of the two kinds of characters, although you can still see the “tape” on Lisa’s head, which makes me think that he didn’t understand what that actually was. Instead of Maggie, we have Nelson as Salacious Crumb (and in a rather gross touch, Maggie is playing the role of a froggy snack). For some reason, Bart is wearing a white Jedi uniform and has a pink lightsaber, and instead of a picture of Mr. Burns as the Emperor on the wall, we have him actually standing there, which makes very little sense.
Anyway, I thought this was an interesting comparison. The Lopez version is actually pretty cool, but I’m not crazy about some of the changes he made, and overall it seems way too similar to the original.
Mexican Bootlegs of Vintage Kenner Figures
Someone looking at these for the first time would certainly be forgiven for thinking that they had been made by a creative preschooler, but they are in fact Mexican bootlegs of Kenner Star Wars figures. There’s no way to precisely date these, but figures like them were produced from the mid 80s to the 90s. (From left to right they are bootlegs of the Kenner Klaatu, Bib Fortuna, Weequay, and Klaatu in Skiff Guard Outfit figures. The Gamorrean is not based on the Kenner Gamorrean figure.)
Bootlegs of Star Wars figures have been around almost as long as the figures themselves, and are actually a complete sub-genre of Star Wars collecting. They’ve been produced in many different countries, but the ones from Mexico and Poland are some of the most well known. Basically, someone just took a Kenner action figure and made a mold from it so they could create a bunch of knockoffs using cheap plastics. The Mexican ones are generally only semi-articulated — their arms move, but the legs, head and body are all one solid piece of plastic. These were often just sold in plain plastic baggies, although some had rudimentary cards with generic Star Wars art on them.
The first thing you probably notice about these is the paint, which is extremely questionable. It’s generally quite sloppy, and while some of them seemed to try and make an effort to reproduce the color schemes of the actual figures, they can often be completely different. It’s not unusual to see the same figure painted in dozens of different ways. I don’t think anyone has a totally satisfying explanation for this — probably because there are as many reasons as there were people creating the figures. They might have been trying to make new “characters” by inventing new color schemes, or they might have just been using whatever paint they had on hand. Whatever the reason, some of them are very strange indeed, and that’s part of their charm. I like how the ones above have been given mustaches (or is that fangs on the one to the left?)
One of the most interesting ones is the Gamorrean Guard, because it’s one of the few figures that isn’t based directly on a Kenner figure. For some reason, they actually made an original sculpt for this. My feeling is probably that the Kenner Gamorrean was simply too large. It’s infamous for not fitting in any of the vintage carrying cases, and my hunch is that it might have been too big for their molds. In any case, it’s interesting to get a unique sculpt like this, even if he does have a silver face for some reason…
The vintage Jabba figure was also much too large and complicated in its design to easily bootleg, but there was a Mexican “mini-Jabba” figure created. This one is very rare and valuable, so I don’t have one, but it’s MUCH smaller than the vintage Jabba figure. To give you an idea, here is a picture of it next to a bootleg R2 figure.
I don’t think I’ll be collecting a lot of these figures, but they are an interesting sub-genre, and show just how popular Star Wars was.
Painted AMT/ERTL Rancor Model Kit
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may recall me posting about the AMT/ERTL Rancor model kit last March. It’s a vinyl model kit that came out in 1998. When you open the box, it looks something like this:
It took me quite a while to even attempt assembling it. since I had never made a kit like this before. It was a little daunting because there are a lot of parts, many of which have “collars” of extraneous vinyl around the edges that need to be trimmed away before assembly. And even after you’ve done that, you’re likely to find that they don’t fit together all that well because the vinyl gets slightly misshapen after it is removed from the molds.
But one of the nice things about vinyl is that it’s easy to cut and also easy to reshape. You just need to put the part in some hot water to soften it, then put it in cold water to get it to stick in its new shape. I did that when assembling the various pieces so that the joins would be tight, and even bent his right arm a bit, since it turned out to be too low to allow his feet to sit flat on the ground. If you don’t do this, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get the pieces to fit together well enough to glue them (you just use regular superglue, by the way). Even with the hot water trick, there were still some gaps, which I had to fill using epoxy putty. I tried to sculpt the putty to match the surrounding area, and I’m happy to say that you really can’t see any seams at all on the finished model.
Once everything was assembled, I gave the whole thing a white undercoat and then painted it with a combination of Games Workshop and Vallejo acrylic paints. Working with something this size always takes me a long time. Maybe it’s because I started painting 25mm miniatures. I’m always impressed that companies like Gentle Giant or Sideshow can create a good looking paint job in a factory atmosphere. I don’t know how long it takes them to paint something this size (about 11″ high) but I’m sure they’re many many times faster than me.
I didn’t try too hard to replicate the exact on-screen look of the Rancor, instead just using a color scheme that I thought looked good and that wouldn’t be too hard to accomplish with the tools I had at hand. I don’t use an airbrush, for example.
I used a little 5-minute epoxy glue to recreate his drool, and also added a metal ring for his earring. The model has a sculpted earring, but it doesn’t look as realistic in my opinion.
I’ve seen a number of built up versions of this model, and for some reason a lot of people just leave it the way it is, without any sort of base. I don’t understand this, since it looks unfinished and isn’t particularly stable, either. For my base, I bought a wooden oval at Hobby Lobby, and then created the floor of the Rancor pit using a mixture of white glue, sand, and pebbles. The bones came from an old Pirates of the Caribbean skeleton figure that I had lying around. (I think this is the one, although my skull looks less textured than the one in the picture. I dremelled out the eyeballs that were there, so it would just be a plain skull.)
I’m quite pleased with how this turned out. It’s impressive that a 15-year-old model kit can still hold its own against entries from Gentle Giant and Sideshow.
Jabba the Hutt’s Skiff by Deagostini (The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection #53)
I wrote about the Deagostini Sail Barge a while back, and here is their version of the skiff. Like the Sail Barge, it’s similar to Hasbro’s Titanium series skiff, but a bit bigger and more detailed.
All of the vehicles in this series come with little plastic cases, which is kind of nice, I guess, although it does make their footprint a lot bigger than the Titanium series models. Since this is number 53 in the series, you can see that they made a huge number of them, so it might be difficult to display them all well.
The case comes off of the base, but the skiff appears to be screwed onto the base.
Above is a shot of it with the Titanium skiff. As you can see, it’s slightly bigger and a totally different color. The gangplank on the Titanium version slides in and out, but the one on the Deagostini version doesn’t move. Overall, I would definitely give the edge to the Deagostini version, as the paint job looks better and the details are finer. For example, the railings and the fins are a lot thinner and more accurate looking.
Vintage Sigma Ceramic Boba Fett
I’ve been waiting to get one of these for quite a while. Boba Fett’s fanbase being what it is, it can be hard to get these for what I would call a reasonable price, but I finally managed to get one. Like the others in the series, I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly impressive on its own. He looks a little odd without his range finder/antenna for one thing. But as a part of the overall Jabba’s palace lineup, I think it’s pretty cool.
I believe the only Sigma ceramic figure that I don’t have that could conceivably fit in a Jabba’s palace display is Jedi Luke.
Below is a shot of all of my Sigma figures together. Pictured from left to right are the Gamorrean Guard, Klaatu, the Jabba the Hutt bank, Boba Fett, Bib Fortuna, R2-D2 and C-3PO, the Rebo Band music box, and Leia as Boushh. Click the picture for a larger view.
Jabba the Hutt Pencil Sketch Card by Richard Salvucci
Richard Salvucci did this very impressive pencil drawing of Jabba on a 3.5 x 2.5 sketch card. It looks even better in person. Almost like a black and white photograph until you look at it more closely.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 