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Sideshow Collectibles
Boba Fett Life-size Bust

 

To coincide with the 30th year anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, Sideshow has just announced its producing a 1:1 scale (life-size) Boba Fett bust, due for release summer 2012 - retailing at $800. The edition size was high at 1,000 so it shouldn't be a problem picking up one of these second-hand.

As with all of Sideshow's life-size busts, it looks like a really nice collectible - although we have to caveat this by saying that this preview is only based on what you're seeing in front of you now - i.e. Sideshow's own press photographs of their prototype - rather than our own hands-on review. Unfortunately Sideshow prefers to not support independent reviews from sites such as this so we can only go on the PR stuff we receive.

So it looks like this will be a Polystone base with fiberglass/resin armor and helmet - with fabric mini-cloak and Wookiee braids. As you can see from these photos, the grey tunic and collar is made from the Polystone (rather than material) - with the armor detailing and resin braids applied on top. There's no rocket or jet-pack detailing, with SSC presumably deciding to omit on cost/weight grounds.

If we take a good look at the helmet we can see that it sufferers from the same fault that was present on the Master Replicas Boba Fett Helmet, namely the tapering of the visor (i.e. the visor narrows towards the bottom of the helmet- its very clear on the front-on shots) . We think this is strange and may indicate that either SSC has based too much of its design on the MR helmet, (or for the prototype at least) perhaps this could be a reworked MR lid?

According to the blurb, "no parts of this bust are wearable as costume parts" so from that we're assuming that the helmet, though movable is NOT wearable. Certainly when looking at this prototype it appears that the visor has been painted black - so you wouldn't see a whole lot assuming you could put it on anyway. Aside from that its good to see the antenna is articulated.

It has a slightly odd look from the rear since it highlights the lack of Jet-Pack/Rocket - and already on the forums there have been concerns raised over this being missed. However to be fair to SSC, it probably presented too big a problem to them and would most certainly have significantly increased the weight and probably the cost too.

The final shot side-on shows the helmet detailing (although we believe this prototype was a hand-painted one-off), Polystone tunic, armor parts and fabric cloak. At 35lkbs in weight its another monster collectible so we're expecting shipping to be expensive - most especially for those living outside the US.

The big challenge for anyone producing a Boba Fett display is always the painting and detailing. SSC seems to have done a decent, although not mind-blowing job on this hand-painted prototype piece - although whether this will translate to the actual production pieces is anyone's guess. Given the amount of work (and cost) Master Replicas went through on their helmet, we somehow doubt whether SSC will have the funds to follow-suit. SSC tend to do a good job on their 1:1 stuff, however the battle-worn damage and detailing of Boba Fett is a different challenge so we guess we'll have to wait and see the production pieces to find out how accurate this finally ends up. The hard-core Fett fans have already  raised concerns already over its accuracy, but we think for most collectors this will probably be "close enough".

Following on from the Darth Vader Life-Size Bust, this is another iconic character from Sideshow - and quite a departure from their initial proposition of providing the lesser-known characters. Perhaps this has signalled a change in direction from Sideshow and we can come to expect more of the traditional characters Like Stormtrooper's, TIE Pilots and Biker Scouts? If so then there's the danger we're getting something we already have access to (and unlike Sideshow in wearable form) - so we hope that isn't the case. If they're reading this then our advice to SSC would be to go for a C-3PO bust next!

So in summary its a decent likeness of our favourite Mandalorian - and for those already collecting the SSC busts, we imagine this is going to be a very tempting piece indeed!

Return to the Main Boba Fett Page here

or More Sideshow Collectible 1:1's here