Bondo Painted Hardcopy
Maybe some terminology would help here. A hardcopy , is a figure made directly from the original silicone molds cast from the original sculpting, of the figure. They're called hardcopies because they are cast in a heavy polyurethane that is hard and weighs quite a bit more than the normal plastic used on production versions. All hard copies are hand cast, hand painted, and hand assembled by the artists. The limbs and head are all held on with metal pins and can be taken apart as you can see here. Hard copies do not have holes in the feet or copyright markings on the legs. They are used as approval samples and, more importantly, as tooling aids for creating the production molds. These tooling aids are not painted. Painted hardcopies generally serve as paint masters, so the production folks will know what gets painted a certain color, or what plastic base color to use. Because there is no shrinkage involved in casting a hardcopy it is dimensionally identical to the original wax sculpting. Vendors use a stylus, coupled to a cutter, to trace the hard copy and produce the steel molds. Each part of the figure requires a two-part steel mold to be made so it can be injection-molded. Many molds can be made in order to increase production yields.

Ewoks Bondo Unproduced Figure Hard Copy (unassembled)

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Description by: Chris Georgoulias, James Gallo
Photo: Gus Lopez, Chris Georgoulias
From the collection of: Gus Lopez
Country:United States
Film:Ewoks Cartoon
Licensee:Kenner
Year:1986
Category:Prototypes / Action Figure Related


  


Checklist by Duncan Jenkins, Gus Lopez, and the Star Wars collecting community
Software by Chris Nichols

All information © 2014 Star Wars Collectors Archive