mrsparky opened this issue on Sep 10, 2011 · 24 posts
mrsparky posted Sun, 11 September 2011 at 8:15 AM
This is very cool, your model looks so realistic!
Thanks - thats down to Vue's lighting system.
Cant be many left of those in real life, cheap toys tend to have a short lifespan, therefore its collectibility today.
Yep and this one is also a great example of how something can become a modern cultural object,
The 1st film had just finished it's run in the cinemas and was still incredibly popular. So when this appeared a few months before xmas, first on the cover of a Palitoy booklet and a few weeks later in the home shopping catalogues popular at the time, this was the christmas pressie most small boys wanted.
But a limited short production run, combined with the catalogue companies inabilty to deliver, meant a lot of dissapointed kids. Then the toy totally dissapeared from the range. Because this was never being released in the US, tended to be sold privately rather than at trade fairs, and most of the "customers" being 8-10 years old with hazy memorys.
It soon became "invisible" and took on a near mythical status amongst collectors, with some folks beliving it was a prototype or mockup. Along with things like the famed blue Snaggletooth or rocket firing Boba Fett.
Those lucky to have one tended not to announce it either, often being the gem to be shown to other collectors. Either to show off or to demonstrate collecting skills. Usually accompaned by the story of how it was found or how they'd ripped off the original owner.
It wasn't until the web, when some collectors wanted started to show their collection and trade via ebay, that it's existence became widely known again.
It's also an example of big companies can get things wrong, and with star wars stuff twice. First time Fox never belived that star wars merchandising would be that popular, though Lucas wisely did :) Second time with Phantom Menace, fox though we're not getting caught again and licensed 10,000's of items which didn't sell very well.
OBJ origami?
Kinda. The meshes/shapes are made and then assembled like a jigsaw puzzle.