| Head Prototypes for '90s Luke Skywalker Doll | |
| In the '90s Hasbro prototyped a child-sized Luke Skywalker doll, which consisted of a cloth body and a rubber, rotocast head. The head prototypes you see on this page are believed to relate to that never-released toy. They comprise a clay rough, a more finished wax sculpt, and a rough hardcopy.
First up is the clay rough, which you see above. Like a lot of toy sculpts of this type, it's done in a brown, oil-based clay, which is prone to drying out over time. This would have been the sculptor's first whack at rendering the head in three dimensions. As you can probably tell from the marks on the clay's surface, it was created through a combination of tool and hand manipulation.
The clay having been brought to a suitable level of finish, it would be used to make a silicon mold. Molten sculpting wax would then be poured into that mold and allowed to cool, and the sculptor would use that wax cast to create his final wax sculpt. Above you see that wax sculpt. You can probably tell that it's much more finished than its clay counterpart. Also, certain details differ among the two pieces. Note, for instance, the curl on the forehead of the clay, which isn't present on the wax. As nicely detailed as this wax is, I don't think it's necessarily final. Tool marks and the like are still evident on its surface. These would have been polished out on a genuine final sculpt. Keep in mind that this particular product never went into production. It exists only as a prototype, and prototypes are naturally not as finished as actual commercial products.
Next up is an interesting type of hardcopy: a slush casting. This was created by taking a mold of the clay or an early version of the wax, pouring a mixed urethane material into it, and rotating it quickly so that the material cured on the surface details only, leaving the interior hollow.
The folks who made this particular item probably chose to slush-cast it because the final product was to have a hollow rotocast head, and the slush casting, being hollow, allowed for a close approximation of a rotocast part.
Also, the size of the head meant that a solid urethane casting would have been prohibitively heavy, particularly when attached to a cloth body.
It sort of reminds me of those hollow buckethead things in which kids collect Halloween candy. |
 | |
| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Ron Salvatore |
| From the collection of: | Ron Salvatore |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | A New Hope |
| Licensee: | Hasbro |
| Year: | 1977 |
| Category: | Prototypes / Miscellaneous Toys |
