29 August 2011

Plasticine Tatooine - Every Dodonna has its Day

Most people can name at least three characters’ names from the Star Wars movies, right? Some can name five to ten. Yet after that, how many of you out there could name twenty, thirty or even forty names from that galaxy far far away?  OK, but what about those momentary bit parts, the walk ons who were on screen for seconds? Ever wondered about them?

Elliot Quince does. A lot. So much so in fact that he has created his own homage to these lesser known characters. What is more he has created them through the medium of that matériel splendide of our childhood - that putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids we called plasticine.  Somehow, it just seems so right.

Born in the year that Episode 4 was released, Quince wanted to ‘imagine how bitter they must have been at not making it big, how badly they were treated on set or how cruelly their lives have panned out since the movies were released.’

So, here we have the like of Bib Fortuna, Jan Dodonna, Nien Nunb, Max Rebo and the horribly underused R5-D4 who can now all have their own moment in the sun away from the scene stealing antics of Solo, Chewie and the various Skywalkers. Well, perhaps not in the sun as such: we all know what happens to plasticine there. Take it as a metaphor.

Quince has created and collected all these characters and made them in to a wholly unofficial but lovely book, about which you can discover more (and buy perhaps) at his website, Plasticine Tatooine. Just click any pic to get there.


Pictures by kind permission of Elliot Quince.