Here's the full picture from which I grabbed my new avatar:



It's my gay ass on a trip to Provincetown MA last summer. Still a bit of mystery there for Matt...

I think Wally World usually means...

I've heard Wal*Mart called a "retail black hole," but I never knew they actually sold them there!

You know it. I sort of consider it "Phase II" of the playset...think of it as if Hasbro released the first three levels one year, then came out with the duel area the next, to continue the playsets. I'll probably be taking a nice little break from Bespin between the two parts, to work on a couple smaller projects I want to get to.

There will be a drop-off on the back of the Carbon Freezing Chamber that will lead to the gantry, so that the duel can flow as it did in the movie. The gantry itself I'm basically going to copy off the Micro sets from the 80s, at least as close as I can get, with the small addition of the aforementioned drop-off area, and a little "slide" tunnel leading to the control room proper.

I've been working on some fun junk droid parts for the junk/smelting room:



My favorite playset of all time was the Droid Factory from the vintage days, and I've been sitting on some spare old yellowed pieces for quite a while. This week I dusted 'em off (literally) and went to town. I also tossed in some other spare junk, most notably the burned-out IG wreck.





I painted them in two coats. The undercoat is a graphite grey, and on top of that I dry-brushed some metallic steel details. I think they look pretty nicely weathered.

Most important to me was keeping the fun of the Droid Factory alive with weirdo interchangable droid parts:



(and let me tell ya, I got a raised eyebrow when I told my fiance' that I was going to go post pictures of my junk on the internet.)

“God willing, we will behead him if our female and male prisoners are not released from U.S. prisons within the maximum period of 72 hours from the time this statement has been released,” the statement from the “Mujahedeen Brigades” said.

Now, does this make them terrorists, or merely customizers?

Stumbled upon these myself this afternoon at a Target...honestly I wasn't even looking for 'em (but once I'd heard the April figures had started to leak, I had to at least look...) I was really impressed with the looks of them, and picked up a Wookiee and R4.

R4 can be the standard for astromechs now...just sculpt up an R5-D4 head and get that thing on the shelves already! I'm really impressed with all of the features included:a retractable third leg that wont get loose, wheels that don't make the two-footed pose awkward, an unobtrusive place to plug in a hologram (which could easily become a standard astromech accessory), the extra detail on the foot wires (without paying ten bucks) clicking dome, light-up eyeport (though possibly they could've made that correct like R2-R9's, but that's just nitpickin'). I was fairly sure I'd buy this guy just for variety's sake--I love the astromechs--but this is "an extremely well-put together little droid."

And now the Wookiee. First off, I'd seen the size comparison pictures here, but I was still impressed when I pulled him out of the package. I think that was by design--he actually stands pretty low in the bubble, almost to disguise his height on the card, but when you pull him out, you can see his feet go all the way to the bottom of the package--outside the insert plastic, in fact. It makes for an impressive removal from the package.

His face reminds me of Chewie's wife, his gun looks goofy, his helmet won't stay on. I like his bandolier/armor--especially the fact that it is removable. I may wind up repainting his arms a more even shade. That's the one big gripe I have about this guy--VOTC Chewie's multicolored fur worked well because of the joints used. If the back of this guy's arms are black and front are brown, then how are we supposed to use the angle joints correctly?

As for the packaging, I liked the looks of it to begin with, but in person the lava is a little busy for the eyes. Vader pretty much disappears when the figure is in there. I'm impressed with the cardboard inserts...I had no idea there were two separate pieces in there, they work well, and the big picture cards may make nice little side-collectibles to save alongside those Force Files and Commtech Chips. I can fully see this package being used for non-ROTS figures soon enough--all they need to do is swap out the "Revenge of the Sith" title on the bottom, and it would work.

I may yet pick up Grievous--he looked good. Just didn't feel him at the 6.99 pricepoint. I may even get another Wook, if/when I see them at Wal*Mart's cheaper price. I had not planned on getting more than the droid, so Hasbro has succeeded in reeling me in, anyway. That's a feat.

Muftak playing with his toys in the Cloud City Playset:



Okay, so my avatar is a lie...