FLOSI
Nerf Herder
Man, I love Star Wars, and I love 1/6th. For those here that know me well those are two obvious statements. We're at a cross roads in the 1/6th OT SW world right now. We have Vader, Luke, Han, Ben, Leia, 3po, Stormtroopers, Boba Fett and decent stand in R2-D2s (while we wait for the eventual Tamashii (SP) version....
There's one big glaring hole in that list though.... Chewbacca!!! I'm so damn sick and tired of waiting and hoping... "Maybe Hot Toys will make it??" "Sideshow will do it one day".... Bah!! This is all conjecture. We have no Chewbacca and we have no idea when and if one is ever going to come!
I've seen some really nice Chewies over the years, including a really great one put together by Elvis recently. Still, as skilled as the craftsmanship maybe there's always been an issue in regards to the body. Chewie/Peter Mayhew is not only tall but also quite thin. Once fur is added to any standard body, regardless of girth or lack thereof, it usually ends up being too wide and stocky.
Through research I found that Mayhew was close to 8' tall with the costume on. He was 7'2" when shooting ANH, with 4" risers in the feet/shoes and another 4" or so added to the head from the fur.
So, a 16" body (with head) that's super thin??? Well, through a little luck I think I may have found a solution!
My son has had this Lego set sitting around for a good year:
He never touches the thing, but one day when helping him put some toys away I picked the thing up and though it might just work for Chewie.
I started putting together a body and here is what I've come up with:
As I tried to get the proportions right I printed out a pic of Chewie at 14-15" to compare to:
I then slapped some of the Hasbro Chewie fur on:
I liked the way it was going but I ended up even adding more height to get a thinner look, which brought me to this:
And here is where it stands ATM, sewn up in back and semi-groomed (sorry about the flash, this was taken at night):
The extra joints are now glued in place. I've used medical tape to hold the moving joints together so they don't fall apart. The hands and feet still need some paint but the body is pretty much done at this point, so now I'm onto the head!!
I'm really hoping this can start more and more people on the path to making their own Chewie. I've been working with BarryO on this over the last few weeks so he'll be showing his progress off soon as well. If we can get enough people working on this I have no doubt that we as a community can bring this project to the next level.
There's one big glaring hole in that list though.... Chewbacca!!! I'm so damn sick and tired of waiting and hoping... "Maybe Hot Toys will make it??" "Sideshow will do it one day".... Bah!! This is all conjecture. We have no Chewbacca and we have no idea when and if one is ever going to come!
I've seen some really nice Chewies over the years, including a really great one put together by Elvis recently. Still, as skilled as the craftsmanship maybe there's always been an issue in regards to the body. Chewie/Peter Mayhew is not only tall but also quite thin. Once fur is added to any standard body, regardless of girth or lack thereof, it usually ends up being too wide and stocky.
Through research I found that Mayhew was close to 8' tall with the costume on. He was 7'2" when shooting ANH, with 4" risers in the feet/shoes and another 4" or so added to the head from the fur.
So, a 16" body (with head) that's super thin??? Well, through a little luck I think I may have found a solution!
My son has had this Lego set sitting around for a good year:
He never touches the thing, but one day when helping him put some toys away I picked the thing up and though it might just work for Chewie.
I started putting together a body and here is what I've come up with:
As I tried to get the proportions right I printed out a pic of Chewie at 14-15" to compare to:
I then slapped some of the Hasbro Chewie fur on:
I liked the way it was going but I ended up even adding more height to get a thinner look, which brought me to this:
And here is where it stands ATM, sewn up in back and semi-groomed (sorry about the flash, this was taken at night):
The extra joints are now glued in place. I've used medical tape to hold the moving joints together so they don't fall apart. The hands and feet still need some paint but the body is pretty much done at this point, so now I'm onto the head!!
I'm really hoping this can start more and more people on the path to making their own Chewie. I've been working with BarryO on this over the last few weeks so he'll be showing his progress off soon as well. If we can get enough people working on this I have no doubt that we as a community can bring this project to the next level.
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I'm sure as hell not a good customizer but you gotta try, right?
