Star Wars Cake

At my mum's in Manchester, she says she knows I don't like Xmas cake so she got me a cake of my own then produces this. Merry Xmas everyone!

Dagobah X-Wing w/ Two Luke Skywalker Action Figures

Been saving this post for a while now, since it's so damn cool I wanted to wait until I had a few more followers. Don't have to go to far into this blog to realize I love action figures and delve a little deeper into my collection and it should be obvious enough that I adore X-wings. So this is maybe my favourite part of my collection.

Above you can see the ship tilted at an angle with moss covering the wings and fuselage making it look as if it could be submerged in Yoda's swamp on Dagobah. Standing in front is another one of my many Luke Skywalker action figures, posed as if trying to lift the X-wing from the swamp. Sorry there is no try, he's simply not lifting the X-wing.

The moss however can be removed as pictured below and I have another, different Luke action figure for this which you can just make out in the cockpit and another R2-D2 figure docked in behind him.

Republic Heroes Video Game

A bit of a lack lustre game here, considering it used the same game engine as the Force Unleashed this really should have been a lot better. The main focus of the game is co-op play which is certainly fun but by no means enough to make up for the ultimately boring gameplay. In terms of plot the game is passable but really doesn't add very much at all to the universe other than the new bounty hunter Kul Teska.

Eeth Koth Action Figure

A member of the Jedi Council in TPM and AOTC and made an appearance in a season 2 episode of TCW.

EU: Splinter of the Mind's Eye

This is the birth of the Expanded Universe right here. This book originally came out in 1978 as the plot to a potential follow up to the original movie, at the time they had no idea how successful Star Wars was going to prove to be and this book assumed only a modest budget would be available for the next Star Wars film, so much so that the story doesn't even feature Han Solo as Harrison Ford was not guaranteed to be back. A great little story however that feels much more simplistic and light hearted than most EU and a very familiar feel to the original movie. Note this book is so early that it doesn't even say Star Wars anywhere on the cover.

Kul Teska Action Figure

From the Clone Wars based video game Republic Heroes, this is Kul Teska the bounty hunter.

Death Watch Action Figures

A Mandalorian faction known as the Death Watch shows up in various Star Wars stories, this group appeared in TCW under the command of Pre Vizsla, see below for an image of Vizsla with his warriors.

Rocket Battle Droid Action Figure

From season 1 of TCW, this is one of the battle droids that went out hunting the Republic escape pods.

EU: Ruins of Dantooine

Quite a strange book this one, its a one-off novel based upon the MMO Star Wars Galaxies. Set between ANH and ESB, Luke, Han and Leia make appearances but are not the main characters. The plot of this book is so unmemorable I genuinely can't say anything about it.

Ashla Action Figure

One of the padawans Yoda is training in AOTC when Obi-wan comes to discuss the missing planet Kamino.

VIDEO: 200th Post Special

For my 200th post I decided to do something a little different, rather than looking at my Star Wars collection, today I want to look at some of my own fan-works that I've created over the years, starting with this video.

This video was first made with the help of a friend back in April 2006, the music is Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt which I thought really suited the story of Anakin Skywalker. Over the last four and half years that video has managed over 190,000 views on YouTube and received over 400 positive comments. The version above only went live on YouTube this morning, I've made few corrections to the edit and greatly improved the ending. Hope you enjoy it, for anyone interested it can be downloaded here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8516127/hurt%20se.wmv

As well as video editting (which I plan to be doing a lot more of in the coming months) I'm also a big fan of using photoshop and wanted to share some of my images here as well. Now camera work is now my strongest suit (as I'm sure this blog has shown) so these are mostly created entirely in photoshop or using images pulled from Google.

This was created by using radial blurs and spiral distort filters to manipulate a picture of some clouds at sunset. I added grain and tweaked the colours then decided it would be cool to add R2 and 3PO and hey presto it's Star Wars art.

This is a still taken straight from TPM and into Photoshop, again I used radial blurs and then I played about with lighting layers and vibrancy filters.

A knocked this together to represent my character for Star Wars D&D. I was playing a Zabrak pilot so this is Bao-Dur from KOTOR II with his eyes and mouth replaced with my own including my beard then placed on Luke's body from ANH.

This a test image for a comic book that may or may not ever see the light of day. A friend and I have written scripts and drawn storyboards and are planning to create a comic series by taking screen shots from the KOTOR games into Photoshop.

Thanks for letting me indulge in today's post, check back soon as I get back to work posting my collection and thanks to all who regularly visit the blog.

Shahan Alama Action Figure

One of Cad Bane's crew from TCW season 1 episode, Hostage Crisis.

EU: Allegiance

A novel by Timothy Zahn set between ANH and ESB with Mara Jade as the main character in her role as the Emperor's Hand.

Ak-rev and Umpass-stay Action Figures

Drummers for the Max Rebo band, Ak-rev (left) and Umpass-stay (right), these guys can be seen in Jabba's palace in ROTJ. Each figure comes with one side of the drum that click together to make one big drum as seen in this image.

GNK Power Droid Action Figure

GNK power droid aka 'Gonk' droid, these guys are seen all over Star Wars and are essentially walking batteries.

TCW Jawa Action Figures

TCW style Jawa double pack action figures.

Droids and Ewoks DVDs

Both these DVDs contain feature length episodes of from respective TV series. Droids is novel enough but Ewoks is unwatchable.

TIE Fighter w/ Pilot Action Figure

This was the first vehicle I had as part of my collection. I love having these vehicles amongst the figures in scale. Watching the films it's hard to appreciate just how big the TIE fighters are.

Qui-Gon Jinn Action Figure

Excellent character, the Northern Irish jedi, however a pretty terrible action figure. Nice pose with the two hands on the lightsaber but the face sculpt makes this one of the worst figures in recent years.

Crix Madine Action Figure

Rebel General who first appeared in ROTJ. Madine had been an Imperial Officer who defected to the Alliance.

Armoured Scout Tank w/ Battle Droid Action Figure

Cool mini-tank, this never appears in any Star Wars sources but was first released along side TPM in 1999 then was released and repainted alongside TCW.

EU: Tales of Series

Three novels that are actually anthologies of short stories. The first is Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina and each story follows a different character from the famous cantina scene in ANH all with the common plot point of Han shooting Greedo. The second is Tales of the Bounty Hunters and each story follows a different bounty hunter from the line up on the star destroyer bridge in ESB. Finally you have Tales from Jabba's Palace where each story follows a different character from Jabba's Palace or sail barge.

Gungan Warrior Action Figure

A Gungan warrior with a large war horn as seen in TPM when the Gungan army is coming out of the mist and onto the battle field.

Star Wars Pez Dispensers

A good cliche of marketing, the Pez dispenser. When my mum bought me these I think she was expecting me to find it humorous and then eat the candy but not this collector, instead they became my collection of mint in packaging Star Wars Pez dispensers.

ARF Trooper Action Figures

Republic ARF Troopers, trooper on the left is in jungle camo while the one on the right is in plain white.

Titanium Millennium Falcon

Been a while since I last posted any of my titanium collection, mainly because they're so hard to photograph. What you can't really see here is that this is a great sculpt, full of small details that is let down by a poor paint job.

Hoth Rebel Trooper Action Figures

Same figure twice here so I have one displayed with helmet and one without. At seperat times the same figure came with different parts of the HK-47 build-a-droid which is why I have two.

Star Wars Clone Wars Vol. 1&2 DVDs

When you read on this blog about the original Clone Wars microseries this is the show I'm talking about. Originally aired on Cartoon Network between the releases of AOTC and ROTS, these were short five minute episodes, the show moved very quickly and covered a lot of material and introduced a lot of characters considering there's only two hours worth of footage across both DVDs.

Yavin Medal Ceremony Action Figure Diorama

Some day I hope to use all my action figures for dioramas like this but with miniature sets. This one I'm very happy with however, it's the final scene from ANH when Luke, Han, but not Chewie get medals for destroying the Death Star.

Left is Luke Skywalker in his yellow jacket, I love this look and plan on doing it as a Halloween costume some year.

Great Figure overall, comes with lightsaber hilt, blaster pistol, a medal and most notably one of the better looking Luke action figures. For whatever reason Hasbro seem to struggle to capture Mark Hamill's likeness, this one is better than most.

Right is Han Solo and Chewbacca, these are different figures from the ones I posted when I started this blog. I like how Han is reaching as if for his medal.

The Chewie sculpt I think is great but the Han isn't the best, the other figure I previously posted where Han is in his ESB jacket is much more detailed.

Left is Jan Dodona, an early leader of the Rebel Alliance.

This figure is key to the whole diorama as it comes with the medals.

Interestingly it comes with three medals even though in the film Chewie never gets his medal, maybe Hasbro thinks Chewie is more deserving of it than George Lucas does?

Right is Princess Leia in her dress from the ceremony. This is an older action figure but was the only one I could find of Leia in this outfit.

The face sculpt isn't great and the proportions a bit odd, I don't recall the Princess ever being quite so... developed.

Below, last but by no means least, is R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Podracer Video Games

Star Wars Episode 1 Podracer on N64 and it's sequel Racer Revenge on PS2. The original N64 games gets bad reviews and probably deserves them but I still remember the game fondly. The sequel I only bought in the last couple of years, only played it the once on a friends PS2, didn't seem great but maybe someday I'll get a chance to play it again and form a better opinion of it. What I really need to complete this set is the arcade machine...

AAT Driver Battle Droid Action Figure

A battle droid from TCW line, this one's green deco marks it as an AAT driver.

Joclad Danva and Roth-Del Masona Action Figures

Two background characters from the Geonosis Arena in AOTC. On left is Joclad Danva and on the right is Roth-Del Masona.

General Carlist Rieekan Action Figure

The General in charge of Echo base on Hoth from ESB. Awesome likeness in this figure, so easy to image this figure saying 'Prepare for ground assault.'

IG-100 MagnaGuard Action Figure

Previously I posted one of these droids that was in the animated style of TCW, this one however is based on the ROTS MagnaGuards complete with cloak and head wrap.

Chief Moradmin Bast Action Figure

Another character from the Death Star briefing scenes in ANH.

EU: Original Trilogy Novelizations

I remember seeing these versions of these books on sale as a kid when the special editions came out in 1997, at the time I couldn't afford them but the idea of Star Wars books really captured my imagination and I recall being exciting to learn Ep4 had its own subtitle, A New Hope. So when I came to collect all the Star Wars novels years later I decided to track down these versions.

Stormtrooper Action Figure

A variant on the standard Storm Trooper based on how they were drawn in the old Marvel comic series with blue forearms and a blue belt.

Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun Action Figures

Young Owen Lars and his girlfriend Beru Whitesun as they appeared in AOTC.

The Force Unleashed I and II

The first Force Unleashed was an awesome game with at the time original gameplay and a great story that proved Star Wars games can be as epic as Star Wars movies. The second came was only released in Europe today and disappointingly I'm already finished it, the game started well but the story suddenly ends only four to five hours in, shame because what is there is good.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Video Game

Not only is this probably the worst Star Wars game I've ever played, it's probably the worst game I've ever played. So why then is it in my collection? I think the cover looks really cool and I picked it up cheap. Never got passed the second level of this abomination.