NEW PRODUCT: HOT TOYS: STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI PRINCESS LEIA 1/6TH SCALE COLLECTIBLE FIGURE

My single Princess Leia arrived yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the head sculpt is, and how it seems tailor made for an eventual Slave Leia version (even if HT were to make one), as very little would actually have to be made to do so (add earrings, and the bun/ornament with braid). So, I immediately set about doing so myself. (Now I have a complete box of unused body, clothes, etc. that I can use when my 2-pack Leia/Wicket shows up to either display Leia in her Endor gear, or her General gear).

I am by no means finished with this conversion, but I thought I'd share the pics anyway (still need to paint the putty filler, and add earrings).

The HT head and removable hair piece before modifications (you've seen how beautiful this sculpt is in desertdragon's photos).







The ACPlay head sculpt after "surgery".  





And the bun/braid piece after hollowing out (this took the longest and required a lot of work with a fine Dremel bit, grinding away until I got it as close as possible) glued onto the back of Leia's head, and before any other modifications were made.





Because I was excited to see how it looked on the Jiaou Doll body already set up in my diorama, I took a few shots that way. (The body, "Wheaten", matches the head sculpt perfectly; however, I'm not happy with the body overall -- I don't like the over-sized boobs, or the odd shoulder/armpit area -- nor do I like the hands; I'll probably use the hands that came with the set to replace the funky Jiaou Doll hands.)
My apologies for how bad all of these photos look as they were taken with my phone, and in no way indicate natural light, or the diorama's far more subdued lighting.












And here is the minor putty modifications that needed to be made to fill in the gap at the bottom of the bun (the others are so small, I don't think I'm going to waste my time trying to jam the tiniest bit of putty into them with the tip of an X-acto blade.

Nice work, Mark. To be honest, it didn't even occur to me at this point, although I was thinking it earlier, with "Bespin Leia." This one is even more suitable for emendations. With the less direct lighting, especially, she is looking very good indeed.

Thanks, Ian. It’s not as perfect as an official S.L., but I think it’s pretty good. Glad to have Carrie’s face, as opposed to her “stunt double”.

Wow, that looks great, excellent job! So glad you could make it work, and looking forward to seeing the even more finished version!

I was impatiently waiting for you to do this mod.
She looks excellent! Jabba is very pleased!
Good thing the HT hairpiece removable and you're right, tailor made for a Slave Leia.
It doesn't look like you repainted the bun so i assume the colors of the HT hair and ACPlay's bun are compatible.

skywalkersaga wrote:Wow, that looks great, excellent job! So glad you could make it work, and looking forward to seeing the even more finished version!

Thanks.

rollotomasi wrote:I was impatiently waiting for you to do this mod.
She looks excellent! Jabba is very pleased!
Good thing the HT hairpiece removable and you're right, tailor made for a Slave Leia.
It doesn't look like you repainted the bun so i assume the colors of the HT hair and ACPlay's bun are compatible.

Thanks. You are correct, I didn’t have to repaint the bun; the color was a perfect match for HT’s usual overly dark color.

I have the filler painted, and I was going to takes pics with my good camera, under natural light — but it’s dark, gloomy and raining today. By the way, as I mentioned, HT’s hair coloring is usually pretty dark, so when I was mixing the paint to get it to match I started with dark brown and added black. And added more, and more, and more, until I discovered her hair is basically black with a touch of brown (not Carrie’s actual hair color at the time).

I’m undecided if I’m going to add earrings; those wisps of hair that hang down are going to make it difficult to attempt to get anything near her ear lobes at the correct angle. I could cut those off, touch up the paint work there, and then add the earrings, or just leave it as is...

I like the hair wisps and wouldn’t cut them off , if it were me. It looks ok and recognisable without the earrings, though I can understand wanting to add them eventually. Maybe heating up the hair wisps could allow a bit more movement when trying to fit some earrings on there.

Well, the forum is back up and running (anyone else have that problem?). It's still gloomy here, so I decided to take some shots with my good camera of the new Leia in the Jabba diorama. You can check out the photos here:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1166p779-jabba-the-hutt-diorama-new-character-added?highlight=Jabba

I had the same issue, Stryker — must have been a technical problem with forumotions.

Quick question.... does anyone know how the s25b body compares in height to this HT Leia body? I picked up this HT sculpt and want to use it for a custom, but I'm trying to figure out if I need to also get the loose body or if the s25b would suffice.

skywalkersaga wrote:Quick question.... does anyone know how the s25b body compares in height to this HT Leia body? I picked up this HT sculpt and want to use it for a custom, but I'm trying to figure out if I need to also get the loose body or if the s25b would suffice.

I did not pick the original body that came with this set, but I compared to the other HT Leia bodies (ANH, Hoth, and Bespin) and S25B is a very close match indeed. You can see it in the photo stories (I think you saw the first one) and in the discussion of action figure height --

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3178-star-wars-a-silver-linings-story-original-trilogy-updated-with-extra-photos

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3240-star-wars-a-happy-endings-story-original-trilogy-updated

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3227-action-figure-height-updated-with-part-ii

Hope these help.

bloody hell! That mod on leia's headsculpt is sweeeeet! And those shots are like movie stills or on set photos, that's just fascinating! When do you start selling tickets to visit that glorious Jabba's palace?

many thanks for sharing all this Mark!

GubernatorFan wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:Quick question.... does anyone know how the s25b body compares in height to this HT Leia body? I picked up this HT sculpt and want to use it for a custom, but I'm trying to figure out if I need to also get the loose body or if the s25b would suffice.

I did not pick the original body that came with this set, but I compared to the other HT Leia bodies (ANH, Hoth, and Bespin) and S25B is a very close match indeed. You can see it in the photo stories (I think you saw the first one) and in the discussion of action figure height --

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3178-star-wars-a-silver-linings-story-original-trilogy-updated-with-extra-photos

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3240-star-wars-a-happy-endings-story-original-trilogy-updated

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t3227-action-figure-height-updated-with-part-ii

Hope these help.

Oh, thanks! Sorry for my forgetfulness, I've had a lot on my mind recently. Appreciate the reminder! That does indeed help a great deal, as it may save me having to purchase the overpriced HT body. Thank you. <3

[quote="skywalkersaga"]

GubernatorFan wrote:Oh, thanks! Sorry for my forgetfulness, I've had a lot on my mind recently. Appreciate the reminder! That does indeed help a great deal, as it may save me having to purchase the overpriced HT body. Thank you. <3

No problem, happy to help.

The headsculpt is great, and Stryker2011's and other pics above look terrific.  But on the figure itself -- what were they thinking, with those elbows?

It’s tough to shake the feeling that this is probably a figure HT designed four years ago, and then left it on the shelf while they prioritized releasing figures of current movies, and thought a vintage Leia could wait.  And now it’s like, “We are HT, you’ll take what we give you and you’ll like it.”  It just brings home how far we’ve come, where jointed elbows stick out like a sore thumb (and even more so, though it may be sexist, on a female figure).  To be fair, Leia’s short sleeves are probably a unique case – elbow joints only visible in some of the pics.  If she had long sleeves we wouldn’t care, and if she had no sleeves at all HT wouldn’t have tried this as she could easily have had Wonder Woman seamless arms.  But the elbows seem totally out of touch with where figure production is at is 2020.

Moonbase -- I love the sculpt as well, but totally agree about the elbows. It's so ridiculous, and makes the entire figure look super cheap. I passed on it for that reason, as well as the fact that it's not one of the outfits I wanted for a Leia figure. I suppose if someone was really bothered by it, they could swap it for a tbleague body or perhaps for one of the upgraded PopToys Xing bodies (which, irrc, are based on HT bodies, so probably would work).

With regards to alternative RotJ outfits...no doubt lots of people would have preferred Slave Leia, but given HT's reluctance to use seamless bodies (with some rare exceptions), I can't image how well that would have turned out. And as a female collector, my personal preference for an RotJ Leia would have been either Boushh Leia (my top fave look for her!) or the Endor 'Ewok Village' dress. I'm still holding out hope they'll make a Boushh version at some point, and I already have plans to make my own custom with her in the Ewok village dress using this HT sculpt. : )

skywalkersaga wrote:Moonbase -- I love the sculpt as well, but totally agree about the elbows. It's so ridiculous, and makes the entire figure look super cheap. I passed on it for that reason, as well as the fact that it's not one of the outfits I wanted for a Leia figure. I suppose if someone was really bothered by it, they could swap it for a tbleague body or perhaps for one of the upgraded PopToys Xing bodies (which, irrc, are based on HT bodies, so probably would work).

We can say a lot of critical things about HT but not (usually) that they are super cheap or sub-industry-standard; so something's out of wack about those elbows -- surely they must have known how they'd stand out.  I really think this is probably an @2017 designed figure that was held back until now.

Moonbase Alpha Male wrote:We can say a lot of critical things about HT but not (usually) that they are super cheap or sub-industry-standard; so something's out of wack about those elbows -- surely they must have known how they'd stand out.  I really think this is probably an @2017 designed figure that was held back until now.

It could be that it is an outdated design, but of late, HT HAS actually been cutting more corners than usual with quite a few of their items. (Take for example the Dark Knight Rises Batman that I put up a couple of weeks ago, that many have complained didn't actually address the issues from the 2012 release.)

Moonbase Alpha Male wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:Moonbase -- I love the sculpt as well, but totally agree about the elbows. It's so ridiculous, and makes the entire figure look super cheap. I passed on it for that reason, as well as the fact that it's not one of the outfits I wanted for a Leia figure. I suppose if someone was really bothered by it, they could swap it for a tbleague body or perhaps for one of the upgraded PopToys Xing bodies (which, irrc, are based on HT bodies, so probably would work).

We can say a lot of critical things about HT but not (usually) that they are super cheap or sub-industry-standard; so something's out of wack about those elbows -- surely they must have known how they'd stand out.  I really think this is probably an @2017 designed figure that was held back until now.

Yes, you are right -- I recall the prototype being displayed at SDCC 2017 (you can see the HT Anakin in the background, also from that year):

skywalkersaga wrote:
Yes, you are right -- I recall the prototype being displayed at SDCC 2017 (you can see the HT Anakin in the background, also from that year): ]

Wow, I was just guessing, but I even got the year right.  Thanks.

I'm with you guys with the elbow. So far Hoth Leia is still the best one to me, plus I had more nostalgia tied to ESB than Return of the Jedi.

Hey guys. I'm new here. I just ordered Leia and I'm super excited about it. She'll be my first HT figure.

Stryker I'm so impressed with your Lei custom. She's amazing!

HelloBirdie wrote:Hey guys. I'm new here. I just ordered Leia and I'm super excited about it. She'll be my first HT figure.

Stryker I'm so impressed with your Lei custom. She's amazing!

Welcome and congrats on the figure! The headsculpt is amazing on this piece.

[/quote]

Welcome and congrats on the figure! The headsculpt is amazing on this piece.[/quote]

Thanks so much.

HelloBirdie, and welcome. I think you’ll be happy with her when she arrives, and thanks for the compliment — but most of the work was done before my little mod.

Stryker2011 wrote:HelloBirdie, and welcome. I think you’ll be happy with her when she arrives, and thanks for the compliment — but most of the work was done before my little mod.

Regardless it was a brilliant mod.

HelloBirdie wrote:Hey guys. I'm new here. I just ordered Leia and I'm super excited about it. She'll be my first HT figure.

Stryker I'm so impressed with your Lei custom. She's amazing!

Congrats and welcome, HelloBirdie! The sculpt on this Leia is really gorgeous, I think you will love it.

Agree on Stryker's custom, and his entire Jabba's Palace diorama. If you haven't seen it already, check it out here:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1166-jabba-the-hutt-diorama-cabinet-build-wip?highlight=jabba+s+palace

skywalkersaga wrote:

HelloBirdie wrote:Hey guys. I'm new here. I just ordered Leia and I'm super excited about it. She'll be my first HT figure.

Stryker I'm so impressed with your Lei custom. She's amazing!

Congrats and welcome, HelloBirdie! The sculpt on this Leia is really gorgeous, I think you will love it.

Agree on Stryker's custom, and his entire Jabba's Palace diorama. If you haven't seen it already, check it out here:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1166-jabba-the-hutt-diorama-cabinet-build-wip?highlight=jabba+s+palace

Thanks. I agree about the sculpt on Leia. It looks amazing.

Stryker your diorama is incredible!!! I'm impressed. I also make dioramas, and am building one for Endor Leia and Wicket.

HelloBirdie wrote:Stryker your diorama is incredible!!! I'm impressed. I also make dioramas, and am building one for Endor Leia and Wicket.

Thank you. And be sure to share your Endor diorama when you can.