| Nien Nunb Painted Hardcopy | |
| Is Nien Nunb the most disappointing sidekick understudy in the history of movies? While the star sidekick of the franchise, Chewbacca, had personality and charm, Nien Nunb had labia on his face. That unusual trait, which may have caused him to sympathize with the plight of Walrusman, is about the only thing he brought to the Falcon's cockpit. Billy Dee Williams is said to have complained when he was left off the first poster for The Empire Strikes Back. Well, he should have complained a second time -- about being given this guy as a partner.
But though, as a character, Nien is rather lame, toy collectors will agree that this painted hardcopy of his Kenner action figure is pretty darn awesome. It was assembled by hand by either the folks at Kenner or one of their contractors, and then painstakingly painted to jibe with the intended look of the final product.
As is typical of hardcopies, the parts of the figure can be disassembled. They're attached to the torso by steel pins. You can probably tell from this photo that the figure's gun is simply the gray weapon of the Cloud Car Pilot. It's been painted black to represent the final Nien Nunb weapon, which was produced using the tooling for the CCP blaster.
Here are some close-ups of that torso. The green you see at the joints is the underlying material -- the stuff from which the hardcopy was cast. It's a urethane material known as Dynacast.
This hardcopy is extra cool because it differs substantially from the production figure. Above you see a first shot of NN. If you look closely you'll see that the legs differ from those on the hardcopy. This is because the legs were resculpted in wax sometime after the creation of the hardcopy. |
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| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Broc Walker |
| From the collection of: | Broc Walker |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | Return of the Jedi |
| Licensee: | Kenner |
| Year: | 1983 |
| Category: | Prototypes / Action Figure Related |
