In the past year, Sideshow Collectibles has taken center stage with the acquisition of the posable 12" Star Wars action figure line, and collector interest has been feverish for any new revelations regarding the development and direction of the well-received series.
In addition, Sideshow continues to impress with their striking line of Premium Format statues (1:4 scale), the recent Leia becoming an instant star in an already brilliant cast of sculpted New Hope characters. The new life-size bust series (1:1 scale) is also garnering a lot of attention among fans, with two baddies already announced -- Darth Maul and Greedo -- and more to come.
With three successful Star Wars lines currently underway, Sideshow has earned a place in the limelight alongside other popular producers of quality saga collectibles. The new 12" figure series, which debuted with the Jedi Luke figure last fall and recently followed with Episode III's Anakin and Obi-Wan, has fans wondering when they might see a Sith breach the Jedi band of brothers. "In the near future," says Senior Licensing Coordinator Brock Otterbacher. "How near? Well, it may be a few announcements away, and that's all I can say..."
With the recent announcement of the Anakin and Obi-Wan figures, the question of price point consistency across the line has been raised by collectors, since Anakin retails for about $5 more than Jedi Luke. According to Otterbacher, prices will depend on several factors, including tooling, wardrobe, accessories, and more.
"Price points do fluctuate based on the complexity of a character," explains Otterbacher. "But the misconception is that the less a character comes with, the less expensive it is to manufacture."
Asked hypothetically about how price would be determined for a character like C-3PO, which would require little in the way of wardrobe and accessories, Otterbacher suggests that several other factors could affect production costs. "With a character like C-3PO, there is no existing body, unlike the other characters, and the bodies are one of the more expensive parts to create from scratch. So what you have is a situation where you have to create every part, and without getting into the production jargon, this makes for the possibility of a piece that may be expensive to produce, especially at the edition sizes we set. However, fans shouldn't fret, as we would probably come up with a way to keep the price down."
With the 12 inch figure line tackling the Jedi characters of Episodes III and VI, the Premium Format series has stuck primarily with the cast of A New Hope. The singular exception to this rule was the inclusion of General Grievous among the Episode IV crew. "It was totally intentional," explains Otterbacher. "We wanted to start our first Star Wars line with the film that started it all -- A New Hope. But, in the case of Grievous, we felt the character was strong enough visually to break out of this, not to mention the excitement from the latest film. We will be moving on to another film with the next announcement, and I think fans will be very pleasantly surprised by what's next."
Speaking of pleasant surprises, the Premium Format line's most recent addition, Princess Leia, has been lauded by fans as one of the most striking sculpts ever devised for Episode IV's soft-faced, strong-willed heroine. Sideshow sculptor Andy Bergholtz was challenged with hitting actress Carrie Fisher's youthful appearance in A New Hope, a task that many have attempted with varying degrees of success.
"Female portraits are almost always more difficult than male portraits," explains Bergholtz, "mainly because female likenesses generally rely more on very fine subtleties than with males. Sculpting Leia from A New Hope was particularly challenging because the actress was so young in the first film -- she still had a very youthful 'fullness' about her that obscures some of her more defining facial features that we've come to recognize so well in the subsequent films. I think that was the toughest part for me, capturing the 'baby-faced' look of the character -- the New Hope Luke figure presented the same challenge."
"I think there have been some very fine Leia portraits done in the past," continues Bergholtz, "most of which were done at very small scales which is much more difficult than what I had to deal with. I had the advantage of working on a larger scale than any Leia figure has been done before, which made my job a little easier."
Though Bergholtz traditionally works in 1:4 and 1:6 scale when sculpting the heads, one might wonder why sculpts simply aren't done large and tooled down to the appropriate size. "The most obvious disadvantage of sculpting large and tooling down is the cost," he explains, "but there is also a bit of detail lost in the process of scaling down a sculpture. Very often a scaled-down sculpture will need to be reworked a bit by the factory, and that can be risky when dealing with something such as likenesses, which rely heavily on very subtle nuances. 1:6 and 1:4 are actually very comfortable scales to sculpt in, so there's no real need to deal with those challenges."
In addition to the striking likenesses Sideshow has achieved with its Premium Format sculptures, the poses of the figures themselves seem very much in line with fans' memories of the iconic characters. This is likely due to the sculpted poses being inspired by images captured from the films themselves, or from widely circulated publicity stills published on posters, gum cards, and other paraphernalia of the day. To many, this lends an added nostalgic appeal to the series.
"So far, with the exception of Grievous, we've taken the poses from classic images," says Otterbacher. "However, we're not only going to take poses from this imagery -- [like Grievous] some poses will more capture the spirit of a character, rather than an exact image."
Hot on the heels of the Premium Format series is a new line that's actually caught the eye of 1:1 prop replica enthusiasts -- life-size character busts. With just two released so far -- Darth Maul and Greedo -- fans are finding great promise with this line in terms of display possibilities alongside their prop replica lightsabers and blasters. Of course, these stunning sculptures can stand alone beautifully without accessorizing, but combining two celebrated lines of collectibles has many fans eager to add these busts to their display cases.
While artist Miles Teves' Greedo sculpture is real enough to send a twitch through your trigger finger, Darth Maul's snarling glare captures the unnerving Sith apprentice with devilish detail. The sculpting for Maul was done by Spectral Motion.
"Spectral Motion is an amazing special effects company that Sideshow is proud to have both a partnership and a friendship with," says Otterbacher. "They have many talented artists in their shop, and we were honored to have them put a team together to produce Maul. If you want to see their talents on screen, check out films such as Hellboy, Fantastic Four, and the upcoming films X3 and Lady in the Water."
Sideshow's exquisite line of busts, statues, and figures adds a new recruit to its prestigious 12 inch figure series on January 6: Obi-Wan Kenobi (as seen in Episode III). To preorder, make sure to sign up at their website before midnight on January 5.
As always, stay tuned to starwars.com for the latest updates from Sideshow Collectibles' expanding line of Star Wars figures, statues, and busts.
