Clay and Wax Sculpts for Rancor Keeper Figure: Here you see several sculptings for the parts of the Rancor Keeper action figure. The first photos show a very rare thing indeed-- a rough clay sculpt of one of the figure's legs. The earliest three-dimensional work that a sculptor does on a figure is generally done in an oil-based clay. This allows him to rough out the details of the figure using a very malleable material, which is much more forgiving than wax. A silicone mold is then made of the clay roughs, and this is used to create a wax copy which can be more extensively detailed.

This shot shows the clay rough beside its wax counterpart. You can probably see how one developed into the other. This single clay Rancor Keeper leg is the only clay rough of an action figure part that I've heard of.

Next up are some shots of the finished wax legs, the sames ones which served as the masters from which hardcopies and, eventually, production-quality examples of the figure were made.

Next we have the wax arms, one of which is broken on the hand portion. You can see the plastic discs at the shoulder joints (you can see these on the photos of the legs as well). Also note the pencil-drawn parting lines which bisect each part.

The above two photos show the wax limbs, as well as the sculpt for the head of this figure, attached to a hardcopy Rancor Keeper torso. It's too bad I don't have the wax torso. But you somtimes have to satisfy yourself with parts. The torso sculpt for this figure might no longer exist.

Now, here we have three views of the wax sculpt for the detachable hood that came with the figure. As you can see, in making this hood, the Kenner sculptor merely took hardcopies of the arms and torso of this figure and sculpted the hood over them in wax. In the side view, you can just make out the parting line, drawn in pencil vertically down the center of the wax. Also note that the voids between the figure's arms and its torso have been plugged up with a combination of wax and clay. This was done in order to make a silicone mold of the piece, a mold from which the torso/hood combination hardcopy seen here was made.

Lastly we have a photo of a series of Rancor Keeper pieces, which includes examples of several stages in the process used to create the figure. Shown are several clay and wax sculpts, a silicone mold, a complete hardcopy, dynacast and silicone castings of the hardcopy for the figure's hood, an internal first shot, and an orange-and-tan first shot.