And luckily, the reception's been very positive to it,” Franer says. Like, if we want to do more figures like this, this helped us to do more characters like that. It also helps us to pave way for the future. “It is a ton of fun to be able to put my own little design spin on something that doesn't necessarily follow exactly what might have been done in the past. With the release of these figures, he’s added to the connection between the saga and Halloween, while expanding what Hasbro can do with The Black Series. “I think that was my first big, like, face paint, going-all-out costume that wasn't just a mask.” Just months after the release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the then eight-year-old Franer dressed as Darth Maul for Halloween in October 1999. Yet this isn’t the toy designer's first experience celebrating Star Wars and Halloween together. And then we wanted to make sure that he looked a little bit more monstrous and not just like a human, so we deco’d his face to be that kind of off blue, and added fangs in there for him as well. We deco’d the inside of his wings to be red, to imply the interior of the cape that Dracula has. Having the really aggressive widows peak, the suit, the tie, even his wings. "We had a little Santa porg that we had looked at, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I could maybe make like, a shirt out of this.’ Then I realized that a lot of those details could translate really well to a vampire. “ The porg was definitely my favorite," Franer says. (Two words we never thought would go together, but are now so glad they do.) And lest we forget the trooper’s little friend: a vampire porg. Among several extras is the Wookiee’s Halloween bucket, which is actually a camtono - a portable storage device first seen, very briefly, in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and now something of an in-joke among Star Wars fandom. The accessories, too, capture both the spirit of Halloween and the saga with a wry sense of humor. I was really happy that we got that across because it elevated that figure.” “As soon as I showed that, the team was like, ‘Yeah, that's the one we're doing.’ That was a very pleasant surprise. When it came to the wolf-like ears, Franer wanted to go big. There aren't too many gray Wookiees in the galaxy, so it was a good way for us to go in there.” We wanted to make sure this one looked distinct from all the other ones. We've had brown Wookiees, we've had black Wookiees. “We ended up making him gray to make sure that he stood apart from the other Wookiees. The skull on the trooper’s helmet? It comes straight from some very famous clone armor. The final figures are completely charming, featuring clever details and an eye toward originality that fans of Star Wars and Halloween will no doubt love. “Ultimately, what we landed on were two characters that were immediate, easy gets as Star Wars characters, while also being immediate gets as a Halloween figure.” “ We were really happy with all of them,” Franer says. Eventually, the Phase II-based clone trooper and Wookiee stood out from the petrifying pack. Narrowing the field down to two figures would be difficult, as Hasbro wanted these figures to appeal to both casual fans and the hardcore they couldn’t be too obscure or too obvious. ”įraner did a lot of design exploration for the project, to the tune of close to 30 different characters. It was just the next one that that lent itself really well to Star Wars. We knew we wanted to expand into other holidays,” Franer says. And those were very successful, and we were really happy with how those came out. “We had the original holiday-themed figures - the winter, Christmas holiday figures. According to Franer, mashing up Star Wars and Halloween was a no-brainer, especially following the company’s first foray into holiday-based releases last year.
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