2012... this year should be fun

Like last year I started the year with a State of the Wampa address. So this year should be no different. First of all I would like to recap last year as one hell of a year. We started the year launching the new Disney Dream cruise ship. Took the Wampa to two conventions including Megacon and Motor City Comic Con up in Michigan. Then the Wampa was chosen to be part of the Star Wars Adidas Campaign! So to say 2011 was the year of the Wampa is an understatement in my opinion. But it wasn't all the Wampa, 2011 also brought in a pair of Stormtroopers.Genna and I both built ANH Stormtroopers, a Stunt and a Hero build. I got to participate in my first Star Wars Weekends at Disney. I also was able to be part of a Kelby Training video with Doug Sonders with the Stormtrooper and Daisy Duke with the General Lee.

Also for 2011 our Squad with the 501st grew and met some really great new friends that are begging to help work on the Wampa. We established Wampa Workshops with Brian, Tim, Genna and Mark and it feels good to have some extra help and opinions when it comes to the suit. Along with the Wampa Workshops comes the Sith Lord Workshops. Tim finished up his Darth Maul in the last few weeks, and now I am finally working on Palpatine. As for the 2012 plans for the Wampa, don't expect retirement anytime soon. I will be taking it out for the opening Weekend for Phantom Menace in 3D, but it will be back to the workshop after that. With all that travel in 2011 comes wear and tear and 2012 will bring much needed repair & improvement time. So this year, I am skipping Megacon to ensure a fully working Wampa at Star Wars Celebration VI, which is returning to Orlando Florida August 23-26. I plan on bringing the Wampa out again, have it on display some of the days, and wear it on Saturday. I will be repairing the arms and making them more articulated, as well as possibly a new head sculpt! So, there is a short set of plans for 2012... and I leave you with one more little hint on a costume. Expect a big surprise with this costume at C6!

Star Wars Blu-Ray Wampa Review

When I heard they were putting in the cut wampa scenes on the Blu-Ray I was excited. These scenes are from the attack on Echo base, which was a sub-plot that was eventually cut from the movie, well to be kind, the wampa looked bad! It is not easy to pull off realism when walking in stilts with arm extensions... yeah I speak from experience. My suit is not too far off of the original full size costume built and I see a lot of similarities in these clips, which makes me paranoid a bit on how mine! I have been pondering a re-work of the arms for a while now to get a more fluid and realistic movement. After watching this video, I am going to start up again on working on the prototype arm that is in the works. While this was a noble attempt, I agree with cutting the scenes. Personally I would have liked to seen footage of the "Bug Eyed" wampa, Story has it that this was their first attempt at building the Wampa, and the body doesn't look too far off from the footage seen above. Which makes me wonder if they swapped the head. This is the only wampa made that didn't make into the original movie, but at least we have stills. 

Also, so many people cringe when the mere mention of replacing original footage with CG, but if there is ever a scene I would be an advocate for it, it would be the Wampa scene. Lucasfilm did tweak the swatting arm scene a little bit when you can see the puppeteers red jacket, but there is still 3 different wampas seen in the actual film. Sure they look great in High Definition and I have noticed a few more things about the suit that I didn't notice before, but it would have been nice to see one consistent wampa. Their best chance was to reshoot everything as one costume during the "special edition" but it is too late for that. They could have taken the approach that they did with the Yoda in Phantom Menace and replaced all of these wampas with the one consistant CG wampa, it's ILM in 2011, I am sure they could pull it off seamless by now.

 

Lego Star Wars - Wampa!

The Wampa visits Lucasfilm... sorta

Well, some call it Mecca (according to an AP article) though I would argue that an invite to Skywalker Ranch would be Mecca.. so this is the Medina for Star Wars fans? So on with the story, enough silly muslim comparisons... thanks AP. So while Genna and I were in San Francisco we got the chance to visit Lucasfilm Ltd. in San Francisco. Some of the props on loan for the Wampa Adidas photo shoot were on loan from Lucasfilm and we got to tag along when returning them.

Unfortunately we just missed our contact and we didn't make it further than the lobby, this was still really cool. We got to see the famous Yoda bronze statue which has a twin over at the ranch and inside the lobby is a pair of familiar characters, Boba Fett and Darth Vader, along with shelves of statues and awards won by Lucasfilm over the years. Believe me, once you have been there you want to head back. It was an unfair tease but we did make it closer than many people have done, so I am happy with that.

For the rest of our trip we got to wander around Downtown San Francisco. It is an amazing city, and there is so much to do. I have been to SanFran once before 23 years ago. As a kid it was fun, but I really wanted to re-experience things as an adult. I am amazed on how much we squeezed into a 3 day trip. We found a full size Starkiller in a GameStop and we had to snag a pic. We rode just about every type of public transportation which is lacking back in Florida. If they had a system like this in Tampa Bay, I would use it all the time. Street Cars, Cable Cars, The Bart, Muni Metro, any visitor can get anywhere they want using these. Here in Tampa there is such a whiny attitude between sports teams because of the Bay in between, public transportation like this would squash that argument, but that is a story for another blog...

Oh and food, there is some amazing food around town. For some odd reason we like to hit up Mall food courts when traveling, maybe it's the variety and fimiliar food. While wandering the streets outside our hotel was San Francisco Centre, a 9-floor mall, which had an AMAZING food court. With the Asian and health concious community in San Francisco, there were so many options. We settled on a Thai place that gave us so much food we couldn't finish.

Yep, we did play the tourist and ride the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf. I was after one thing, nope not the seafood that the Wharf is famous for, I wanted In-N-Out. On the east coast this is what we hear about all the time the Double-Double Animal Style. Freaking delicious.

In closing... Lucasfilm or not, I want to go back to San Francisco as soon as I can.

Adidas Star Wars Fall/Winter 2011 collection featuring the WAMPA!

The Wampa is featured in the latest promotions for the Adidas Star Wars Fall/Winter collection. We were invited to San Francisco to take part in the 2 day photo shoot that also included a Vader, Hoth Han and a Hoth Luke (seen in the background). When the idea was pitched to Lucasfilm to have a wampa in the photos they originally responded, well there isn't any realistic wampas out there anymore, then the folks at Juice Design presented them my wampa. Lucasfilm loved it and approved the shoot. There is no higher honor for a costumer which many think is an impossible costume to pull off than that right there. Also included in the photo shoot is my handler Genna's Hoth Luke costume and lightsaber. 

So why a wampa in the campaign? Well there is a new Wampa shoe coming out! Here is the official description of the wampa shoes:

CAMPUS 80S WAMPA
Inspired the snow beast from the planet Hoth that almost made Luke Skywalker into a meal. The adidas Campus 80s Wampa dresses up these retro shoes with wampa fur uppers made from horsehair, contrast red stitching, a wampa tongue badge, and a laser cut wampa logo.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/07/dress-like-darth-and-han-with-adidas-star-wars-collection/?pid=2150&pageid=69886

I will continue tomorrow with a post about our trip and visiting Lucasfilm!