Today’s unboxing features The Black Series Revenge Of The Jedi Darth Vader 6″ figure. This figure was originally revealed as a Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023 exclusive figure, so we were very keen to add this Hasbro collectible to our collection.

For our very first overseas trip together, which was Star Wars Celebration III in 2005, the Hasbro exclusive figure was a Revenge Of The Sith Darth Vader 3.75″ figure. It feels like a full-circle moment to have another special convention exclusive Darth Vader figure from our most recent Star Wars Celebration convention – we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary during our trip to London for the convention.

At the time of writing, this figure is available to buy from Hasbro Pulse for US$33.99 each.

Check out my unboxing video –

The packaging for this Black Series figure is similar to other convention exclusive 6″ figures from Hasbro, in a large black cardboard box, very different to the regular Black Series boxes. This packaging is part of Hasbro’s recent ‘plastic free packaging’ initiative, which has both positives and negatives. I think most people will be keeping the packaging for this figure, so any plastic used wouldn’t be thrown away.

I would have preferred a little more sturdiness to the packaging, as the cardboard used here is quite thin in places and easily damaged. In our case, the box we opened arrived with a tear in the front cardboard frame – the photos of the box here are of our second figure which thankfully arrived undamaged.

When removing the front poster art card, the figure is revealed behind. There is no plastic window, so you can see the figure clearly, but it is a little ‘tucked away’ – I would have preferred a little bit more of a posed presentation, especially for collectors who will keep this figure boxed. He looks like the figures that come bundled up inside the ‘blind box’ plastic free packaging of the recent Black Series, not like a special figure to display inside the box.

The front of the box is a removable card poster of the original Revenge Of The Jedi artwork by Drew Struzan. The artwork is on both sides of the card, which is helpful, as it forms the front of the box – if one side gets damaged, you can display the other side. Speaking of display, in the back of the box, there is a small little cardboard stand that you can remove, to display the poster card on.

The recessed box housing the figure is made from red cardboard, meant to accentuate the red colour tone of this figure, but I think in some ways it drowns it out. It almost looks ‘too red’ and the figure is a it lost in the strong colour. Once I took the figure out of the box, I personally liked the artistic paint scheme a lot more.

Here we can see the Darth Vader figure out of the box, posed in front of the box with the poster inside the front frame – and it looks really cool!

One of the reasons why I think this Darth Vader figure looks better out of the box – his cape. The cape is all tucked behind the figure in the box, it almost looks like it is missing! Darth Vader just doesn’t look right without that flowing cape – and this figure is no exception. It looks so much better with the cape visible and displayed.

The dark burgundy colour of the figure is accented by artistic red brush strokes. In some places, this almost looks hand applied, like across the top of the helmet, but in other places it is clear this is printed on.

The burgundy/red colour scheme is used throughout the figure, including the lightsaber hilt and fabric components. It’s quite interesting to see a Darth Vader figure without anything in his iconic black.

This Darth Vader figure has no removable components, so he has a fixed helmet and hand poses etc. The right hand is perfect for holding the included lightsaber, while the left hand is good for ‘force choke’ poses.

Here is the Revenge Of The Jedi version next to the Obi-Wan Kenobi series version – you can really see the difference in colour here. The convention exclusive figure is made from a dark burgundy/brown colour plastic, while the standard Obi-Wan Kenobi series figure is a true black colour plastic.

The sculpting for these two figures appears to be mostly the same, with the main differences being the gloves – as the quilting lines on Darth Vader’s gloves changes direction between the A New Hope era and Return Of The Jedi, so this is accurate. The other painted differences in Darth Vader’s costume (like the details on the helmet, chest box, and belt) don’t really apply here as the stylised red colour covers all of that.

Overall, I actually like this figure more out of the packaging. When it was first revealed, I admit I was a little disappointed, but now that I have actually seen it in person and held it, I like it a lot more now. I’m glad we have two, so we can keep one boxed and open one – personally I think this figure looks better out of the box. A cool artistic addition to our Black Series collection, and a fun memento of our trip to Star Wars Celebration Europe.

May the Force be with you!

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Today’s unboxing features The Black Series HK-86 6″ Figure from The Mandalorian series. We were a little slow to jump into Black Series collecting, but it was The Mandalorian that really hooked us in, so we’re trying to collect as much as we can from the show in the Black Series 6″ range. HK-87 was a fun new droid design from the show, so we’re really happy to add him to our collection.

Check out my unboxing video –

This figure is part of Hasbro’s recent ‘plastic free packaging’ initiative, which means it has a windowless box. You can’t see the specific figure you are buying – which is not an issue if you predominately order online, but we mostly get our figures from local store shelves. Personally I like the opportunity to see the figure I’m choosing, and comparing the details, especially the paint job, with other figures on the shelf.

The windowless box also causes some headaches for collectors who keep their Black Series figures boxed – you can’t ‘display’ the figure anymore, it’s just a picture on the front. For the most part, we open our Black Series figures, but we appreciate the option for those rarer/collectible/exclusive ones we would choose to display sealed in the box.

Apart from the front missing the classic window, the rest of the packaging matches the modern Black Series boxes, with artwork on the right side slanted panel that forms a wider picture when displayed alongside other figures from the same series – in this case, The Mandalorian series. The colour scheme for The Mandalorian series packaging is orange, which we see in the stripe across the front with the series name, and used to accent the side panel artwork.

As the box notes, the packaging is free from plastic, with the exception of tape and glue. Inside, the figure is wrapped in ‘The Black Series’ branded tissue paper, held in place in a brown cardboard insert with some thin cardboard bands taped closed. The accessory (blaster) is stored inside a waxy paper pouch that is sealed closed, so it doesn’t fall out. All in all, this holds the figure well, and is easy to open – similar to how starships are packaged, but of course this only works in boxes without windows.

I was really keen to get my first in-hand look at this HK-87 droid figure – and I’m quite impressed. There is something quite striking about the colours, and that cool fabric half-cloak, it all really comes together in a neat design. Droids in particular often translate really well into action figure form, and this HK-87 is no exception.

This figure has all the standard articulation points you would expect from a Black Series 6″ figure. I was a little surprised to find that the grey shoulder ‘armour’ pieces are actually made from a soft plastic, so they can bend to allow you to pose the arm upwards without limiting movement.

Most of the different colours of this figure come from being made in different plastic colours, so there is very little paint application. The most notable painted details are the silver at the limb joints, the gold belt buckle, beige/grey stripes on the upper right arm, and some small silver details on the face – which are all quite tidy and well done on my figure.

This figure also includes a soft goods component – a dark brown fabric ‘half-coat’ worn on the left side, and held in place with a plastic bandolier-style strap. Some fabric cloaks look a bit awkward when scaled down to toy size, but the fabric used here is a good thickness and folds well when posing the left arm. The neckline edge of the half-coat is painted neatly in red, which helps to keep the fabric straight and tidy.

The hands on this figure are quite rigid for holding an accessory, but once you do get the blaster into place, HK-87 holds it well for poses. There is only one singular blaster accessory for this figure, but it looks good.

Overall, I think this HK-87 is a great figure – and now that I’ve seen it in person, I’ll definitely be on the look out for a second to build a cool Corvus scene with Din Djarin and Ahsoka Tano. Speaking of Ahsoka, I was really excited to see one of these assassin droids in the recent Ahsoka series trailer, so I’m sure we’ll see a variant figure from that show released in the future.

May the Force be with you!

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Today’s unboxing features The Black Series NED-B 6″ Figure from the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. We really enjoyed the series, so we’re keen to build up an Obi-Wan Kenobi series action figure display with both TVC 4″ and Black Series 6″ figures. NED-B was a neat character in the series, and a fun new droid design so we’re really happy to add him to our collection.

Check out my unboxing video –

• Affiliate Link – Buy The Black Series NED-B 6″ figure on Amazon.com

This figure is part of Hasbro’s recent ‘plastic free packaging’ initiative, which means it has a windowless box. You can’t see the specific figure you are buying – which is not an issue if you predominately order online, but we mostly get our figures from local store shelves. Personally I like the opportunity to see the figure I’m choosing, and comparing the details, especially the paint job, with other figures on the shelf.

The windowless box also causes some headaches for collectors who keep their Black Series figures boxed – you can’t ‘display’ the figure anymore, it’s just a picture on the front. For the most part, we open our Black Series figures, but we appreciate the option for those rarer/collectible/exclusive ones we would choose to display sealed in the box.

Apart from the front missing the classic window, the rest of the packaging matches the modern Black Series boxes, with artwork on the right side slanted panel that forms a wider picture when displayed alongside other figures from the same series – in this case, the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The colour scheme for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series packaging is a light blue, which we see in the stripe across the front with the series name, and used to accent the side panel artwork.

As the box notes, the packaging is free from plastic, with the exception of tape and glue. Inside, the figure is wrapped in ‘The Black Series’ branded tissue paper, held in place in a brown cardboard insert with some thin cardboard bands taped closed. The accessories are stored inside a waxy paper pouch that is sealed closed, so they can’t fall out. All in all, this holds the figure well, and is easy to open – similar to how starships are packaged, but of course this only works in boxes without windows.

The NED-B figure is primarily made in two colours – grey plastic at the joints and yellow plastic for the main body parts. This colour scheme is accented with dark grey/metallic weathering, and some blue painted details around the neck, left forearm, and backpack.

This figure is quite articulated as we would expect from a Black Series figure. Interestingly, I couldn’t get movement at the waist, instead the figure moves at the mid-torso join instead. Otherwise, it has all the joints and movements needed to pose for display.

It’s a little hard to show in photos, but the circular joints in his elbows, knees, and ankles have a clear plastic center, to give the effect of being hollow. A good option to maintain stability for poses, but still looks accurate to the original droid design. Considering the top-heavy nature of NED-B, he needs good stability in his legs so he doesn’t topple over.

For me, the frustrating part of this figure is the backpack. This was separate to the figure, and needs to be assembled to display. Putting the backpack on was relatively easy, it connects to the back of NED-B with a simple peg-and-slot attachment, but the problem is the small tubes on lower sides.

The tubes are attached to NED-B’s back and insert into the backpack once the backpack is attached in place. Simple in theory, but very tricky to actually do! Honestly, it took the both of us quite a few minutes to get those tubes into place – the dark grey knobs just below the attachment point really get in the way of your fingers. But anyway, once we finally wrestled them into place, it looks good.

NED-B comes with two accessories to hold – a hammer, and battle droid blaster. He holds the hammer really well, and it’s my favourite of the two accessories. His right hand has a finger pointed out like it would fit into the trigger section of the blaster, but his hands are bigger than a standard Black Series figure, and it looks like they used a standard blaster accessory, so he does hold it, but it’s a little awkward.

While there were a few frustrating notes with this figure (the windowless box and hard-to-put-on backpack), I think it looks really cool. The expression in the face captures the character well, he looks great holding his hammer, and the paint job really makes him look like a worn, beaten up old droid. I can’t wait to start building up our Obi-Wan Kenobi display – he is a fine addition to our collection.

May the Force be with you!

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We always have a great time at each Armageddon Expo event, and come home with a fun array of Star Wars finds to add to our collection. We flew down to Armageddon Wellington this past weekend, and while we couldn’t fit too much shopping into our carry-on luggage, we still managed to find some fun and unique items to bring home.

Check our our shopping haul video –

First up, this adorable Star Wars print from the Artist Alley. This IG-11 artwork is by Eeden Artworks – we always love finding new Star Wars art, especially when it features one of our favourite characters!

Of course we had to follow our Armageddon tradition and pick up a few more Funko Pop! Vinyl figures for our collection. We found these two at the PopStop booth – Darth Vader from Return Of The Jedi, and Chewacca with Porg from The Last Jedi.

We love checking out all the fantastic Star Wars items at Cameron Percy Antiques – at this convention, we spotted The Black Series Gaming Greats Zaalbar figure from Knights Of The Old Republic, so that was a must-have.

During our travels home from Celebration Europe earlier this month, my Star Wars luggage tag got ripped off my suitcase somewhere along the journey, so I wanted to replace it. I spotted this Clone Wars Anakin and Obi-Wan luggage tag also at Cameron Percy Antiques, and it was a fun little find to replace my lost tag.

Keeping up with another of our Armageddon Expo traditions, we stopped by the Sweet Rock Candy Artists booth to pick up some sweet treats for our days at the convention. This was the only bag that made it home – the rest of it was enjoyed at the event!

Kyber Forge always has a cool array of lightsabers available at their booth, but they also have smaller items like pins. These two Star Wars logo pins caught my eye – the Rebel Alliance symbol and the Jedi Order symbol, perfect for my Star Wars pin collection.

Lastly, I finally adopted an adorable little dragon from Turtle Creations. Their booth has a huge range of cute 3D printed dragons in varying styles, colours, and sizes. I knew it was inevitable that I would get one, it was just a matter of which one to choose? Well, it turns out this was the Armageddon where one little silvery blue dragon caught my eye, and after holding it for a few minutes, I knew I had found the one. Now I just need to name it!

So there you have it, our fun little shopping haul from Armageddon Expo Wellington April 2023. I was really delighted at the great range of booths this year, with some fun finds – as well as classic favourites like Pop! Vinyl figures and candy! I had so much fun at this convention, and I can’t wait for the next event.

May the Force be with you!

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As long-standing 3.75″ action figure collectors, we historically only tended to pick up selected characters from Hasbro’s 6″ Black Series line. That changed when Disney+ launched and the hype of season one of The Mandalorian hit… it didn’t take long for us to find ourselves falling down the Black Series rabbit hole, chasing all of the characters from that hit show. This may have been in part due to the lack of 3.75″ Mandalorian representation early on. Either way,

During the early days of The Mandalorian series in NZ, the main characters were, on the whole, fairly easy to source, including the Carbonized versions. In fact, briefly, it was easier to grab hold of a Carbonized Mandalorian than a regular release version.

Following on from grabbing key characters like Din Djarin and IG-11, we made sure we got hold of Carasynthia “Cara” Dune, the Rebel Alliance shocktrooper from Alderaan.

As many will know, the Black Series 6″ Cara Dune is now a little harder to find, and it looks like that will be the case moving forward. Nevertheless, she’s a great representation of the on-screen character, complete with heave assault blaster, blaster pistol, and vibro-knife, and we’re very glad to have all the main heroes from season one all locked in to our collection. Coming soon to our Villa Varykino YouTube channel we’ll be doing a bit of an unboxing of more season one and season two characters as we fill out our Black Series Mandalorian line-up.

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Today’s Star Wars collectible is the Hasbro The Force Awakens Princess Leia Organa action figure from ‘The Black Series’ 3.75″ line. This particular line was never stocked locally, and was later abandoned in favour of the more popular ‘The Vintage Collection’ carded series. So, I had to source this figure from ebay to add her to my Leia collection.

It is interesting that Hasbro labeled this figure as “Princess Leia Organa” rather than General Leia Organa as she is referred to in the sequel trilogy. She is also a fairly unique Star Wars action figure in that she comes with zero accessories. Years ago, Kenner/Hasbro would give just about every figure something to hold for kids to play with, but The Black Series line is designed for collectors, who don’t need random accessories that don’t match up to on-screen scenes.

To be honest, the sculpt on this figure doesn’t really stand up well next to the other General Leia figure I have. I appreciate Hasbro creating a Leia figure that was only in a brief non-action scene (there are still heaps of Padme’ Amidala figures I wish they would make to represent all her outfits…) but it’s not their best work. I do like the soft goods fabric dress, but her articulated legs underneath fight against the back of the plastic overcoat and make her hard to pose well. She stands a little better with a stand, but not as well as the other General Leia figure seen here.

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I had a wonderful Star Wars-themed family day for Father’s Day today, starting with surprise gifts from our daughter, who drew this cute Baby Yoda/The Child sketch card and managed to purchase gifts including a Black Series The Mandalorian stormtrooper as well as flowers, without me knowing.

The day was fully allocated to relaxation, watching a few movies together and catching up on some Star Wars gaming (Star Wars: The Old Republic).

Happy Father’s Day to the other dads out there!

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Historically we’ve been big collectors of 3.75″ scale figures, but the characters from The Mandalorian have been an impetus to shift up to 6″ scale, at least for the subset of action figures from this series. It was inevitable then that we’d grab the Black Series 6″ scale figure of The Child aka “Baby Yoda”.

The packaging for this figure is obviously smaller than standard TBS6 boxing. In fact, it was notably smaller to see this in person when I finally had it in hand (we preordered via The Warehouse, and got it at the great price of NZ$19). Some collectors have commented that the figure itself is a little under scaled … this is perhaps correct, although it is worth considering that we very infrequently see The Child standing on the ground next to other adult human characters in any episodes of The Mandalorian. In the few reference photos that exist out there, he only just comes up to Din Djarin’s knee when both are standing together.

The figure itself is nicely done for its scale. It has 7 points of articulation in total (head, wrists, shoulders, and both feet, despite being hidden under his sculpted cloak). Most of the joints are ball-articulation, giving multiple axes of movement (but his limbs do have a tendency to pop off if pushed to the limits of their range of movement).

The Child comes with a froggy snack, soup bowl, and Razor Crest lever knob. They are very small. Fortunately, these tiny accessories come in a little acrylic storage box, and they will more likely live there than try and display them in The Child’s hands, as he will probably just drop them. It would have been nice if he had come with an anti-grav pram/bed. Still, given the short-falls of figure scale and likely-to-get-lost accessories, it’s cool to have Baby Yoda along with the other characters in this range so far, and we’re looking forward to getting more 6″ scale The Mandalorian figures in the future.

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This Black Series 6″ IG-88, from Hasbro’s bubble-carded Archive line, was a recent birthday present, and is a very welcomed addition to my IG-88 focus mini-collection.

Although some might argue that he is a little short compared to other 6″ scale figures, I really like this guy (I’m biased towards the character though). He’s got great articulation, and crazy level of detail with his various canisters, hoses, pipes and overall scary mechanical visage. The paint apps are simple but nice, and the shiny silver effects of his paint-work photographs really well.

With the level of exposure that IG-11 has given to this series of droids in The Mandalorian, my appreciation for the original assassin/bounty hunter has increased even more.

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This was a real pleasant surprise… the Carbonized Graphite version of The Mandalorian, which is a retailer exclusive in the US and UK, has made its way to NZ in pretty reasonable numbers. It is available at Farmers, where many branches are getting between one and three solid cases of 6 figures. The packaging is splendid, and the metallic finish variation of the paint work on the toy works really well. I couldn’t resist.

He comes with a blaster and rifle, both of which can be stowed in his holster and rear shoulder strap respectively. The glean from his metallic helmet and armour components means he photographs very nicely (IMHO).

We don’t collect Black Series 6″ figure a whole lot – just key favourite characters – but I can see myself getting a core set of figures from The Mandalorian series.

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