McQuarrie Concepts
McQuarrie Concept Duel
Originally uploaded by rdeetz
Today's scene was inspired by this iconic painting.
I think it's really cool that Hasbro has started to make figures based on the original artwork of Ralph McQuarrie. For long-time Star Wars fans, these paintings are well known (almost revered) and the figures appear to be very nicely executed.
They actually released the first "McQ" as part of the Saga collection several years ago (after it won a Fan's Choice poll, I believe) but they have really ramped up the collection in 2007:
- Luke Skywalker (Or is it really "Deak Starkiller"?)
- "Starkiller Hero" (The combined Luke/Leia character.)
- R2-D2 & C-3PO
- Han Solo (Love the cape!)
- Chewbacca
- Obi-Wan and Yoda (They picked a pretty tame Yoda version; I kinda wish they would have done the gnome/Santa Claus concept I saw once.)
- Darth Vader (With swappable heads!)
- Stormtrooper
- Snowtrooper
- Boba Fett (I'm glad the final version wasn't so white—too much like the Stormtroopers—but he looks seriously cool.)
- Rebel Trooper
Here is a nice gallery of some of the famous artwork that inspired the movies (and these figures).
The catch is, these figures are popular to a fault. I have yet to see any of the recent wave "in the wild." (Of the list above, only Stormtrooper, Boba Fett, Chewbacca, Luke, and R2/3PO have been released so far.) I got my Luke and the droids online (since they were convention exclusive); I don't plan to buy each one, but I would at least like to see them in person.