| C-3PO Unpainted 4-up Hardcopy (Alternate Sculpting) | |
| Many of the Micro Collection's dozens
of figures underwent considerable
revision in the early stages of their development. Heads of figures would be
cut off and re-attached at slightly different angles, bases were enlarged or
cut down, arms would be re-positioned--in short, modifications were made during
the production process whenever it was felt that the product could be improved
in some way. Often, hardcopies would be made from
the original wax sculptings
before these changes were enacted; but in a few cases, figures seem to have
actually made it to the final production stage (meaning the stage at which they
could be produced as metal miniatures) before they were altered. In these latter
cases, modifications were cut directly into the production molds, since going
back to the earlier, pre-tooling stages would have been too expensive.
Here we have an example of a figure--a C3PO from the Millennium Falcon that was subtley changed during the sculpting/hardcopy phase of production. The differences between this from production are the positioning of the arms and the hands. What probably happened here was that, after Kenner received the 4-up from the vendor that produced their hardcopies for them, they decided that the figure should be detailed in a slightly different manner. So they either modified the existing sculpting or had an entirely new sculpting made, and had another round of hardcopies made of the revised sculpt. This sculpting is the same as the one used in the Micro Collection Lucasfilm presentation piece. |
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| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Chris Nichols |
| From the collection of: | Chris Nichols |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | Empire Strikes Back |
| Licensee: | Kenner |
| Year: | 1980 |
| Category: | Prototypes / Micro Collection |
