Padmé Amidala Action Figure

This is the only Padmé figure in my collection. It's not a bad likeness to actress but fails utterly to convey how stunning Natalie Portman looks in AOTC.

Agen Kolar Action Figure

This is Zabrak Jedi Knight, Agen Kolar who appeared in the background of AOTC and ROTS. You may recall I recently posted an image of an Eeth Koth action figure, another Zabrak Jedi, Eeth was to return in AOTC and ROTS however a different actor was used, the appearance was different enough that the character became Agen Kolar instead. A similar thing happened with Jedi Knights, Adi Gallia and Stass Allie. Below is a comparison between Agen Kolar and Eeth Koth.

Report: My First Troop with the Emerald Garrison

Yesterday I got my first opportunity to work with the Emerald Garrison, from their website, 'Based in both Northern and the Republic of Ireland, our professionalism and dedication to costuming has brought us some of the largest events throughout the UK and Ireland, including Invasion Belfast, Invasion Dublin, Invasion Cork, Toys 4 Big Boys and the Download music festival. Our aim is to enjoy what we do and help raise awareness for all of the charities we work through.'

Yesterday was the Armagh St Patrick's Day parade where I got to serve as a crew member for the guys in costume. My different roles yesterday included, helping the guys get suited up, ensuring no kids abused/assaulted the troopers, taking photographs, being eyes and ears for the troopers and preventing a giant dalek from running over our group.

It was a great experience all in all and I'm really looking forward to doing it again as soon as possible. You can check out the Emerald Garrison at www.irelandgarrison.com.

UPDATE: It wasn't my camera I was using but I have managed to get a couple more pics I took on the day. The first pic I posted up here was either me or Brendan, the other crew member, I'm not sure as we both tooks photo's of that group shot. The image directly above this was actually in the Belfast Telegraph but these new images were definitely taken by me, hope you enjoy.

Echo Action Figure

I few of the blogs I follow have been paying tribute to Echo this week after his untimely death on last week's TCW episode so here's mine.

This is CT-21-0408 aka Echo, he got this nickname for constantly 'echoing' reg manuals. Echo first appeared in season one where his squad met Rex and Cody, Rex calls Echo a 'shiney' in reference to his unmarked armour and gives him the blue hand print as in my tribute above.

Echo went on to appear in a total of five TCW episodes before his death making him one of the longest running characters to be killed off.

EU: The Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy

An interesting trilogy this one, its set both before and after ROTJ and tells the story of how Boba Fett escaped the Sarlaac Pit and survived. The books tie-in and supplement the events of Shadows of the Empire and the Tales of the Bounty Hunters.

Overall they're a decent read with some great stuff as well as some slower parts. There's also some pretty unusual tech/concepts that you don't see anywhere else in Star Wars such as Kud'ar Mub'at.

Astromech Action Figures

Above are three astromech units from TCW series, left is R3-S6 aka "Goldie" and right is R2-D2, both of these figures I've posted before, however center is R4-P17, Obi-Wan Kenobi's astromech during the Clone Wars.

On the right is R4-C7 from an ARC-170 star fighter set I have that I have yet to post.

Left of this text is another R2-D2 figure, this is the one I use in my Yavin Medal Ceremony diorama, what I didn't show off before was that this is actually a ROTJ inspired model that has a button on the front to make Luke's lightsaber pop out the top as R2 does on Jabba's sail barge.

This figure is based on the original concept art for R2-D2, I have more figures in this series and will post them all in the near future. As you can see R2's design didn't change a great deal but I'm glad they decided against the arms.

On the left is the R2-D2 figure I use with my Dagobah X-Wing, interesting feature on this model is that it plays R2 sounds and the photoreceptor lights up (the light only ever flickers, getting a decent photograph was a nightmare).

Lastly here is a simple group photograph of all seven astromechs, without whom doors couldn't open, starfighters couldn't fly and death star plans couldn't be sent.