Layered Creations: Moisture Vaporators, Ice Cave, and Imperial Throne

The Star Wars universe is a big place. It has lots of people, places, weapons, and technology, and all of it seems to have a bit of a backstory. When you are a Star Wars action figure collector, that urge to build up the universe can go beyond just having the figures pretty quickly. I mean, the cast is the priority, but I need to have my speeder bikes, TIE Fighters, and anything else that can make the little plastic world more robust. Hasbro is giving us some of this stuff for the Black Series line, but like anything, when in doubt – look to the community. The team at Layered Creations is certainly giving us some new options, and I have a look at some of them.

If you have never checked out the Layered Creations Facebook page, you are missing out. They are quietly building up an entire, ahem, expanded portion of your universe that is certain to make your SWB collection more dynamic. I love getting stuff like large creatures, vehicles, and environments for my toys, but I am absolutely NOT a 1:18 scale collector, so due to cost and space limitations, I am often left in cold in terms of what companies are willing to offer. Layered Creations does a great job of filling in the blank space with the items they offer, and since each piece is made to order via a printed/rapid prototyping process, there are a lot of options.

For my first foray into their wares, I ordered several items, but since I am a very slow (and not especially good) painter, I have about half of them to show off now. I thought it would be fun to bring something from each of the movies of the Original Trilogy first, so I have some moisture vaporators, an ice cave environment, and an Imperial throne up first. These are very diverse offerings, but all are accomplished via the digital sculpting and printing output method. Thus, I would not consider these to be “toys” as it is, but more set pieces, and for that purpose, these are just a ton of fun. Iconography is important when considering what to plant in the landscape of the Star Wars universe, and these three offerings could not be more iconic.

The piece that made me aware of Layered Creations is the moisture evaporator found across the landscape of Tatooine in A New Hope. While they are never a real focus in terms of the camera lens, these were always ubiquitous across deserts of Luke’s home planet, and his responsibility to his Uncle Owen’s moisture farm was the care and maintenance of these gathers of precious water. From a film standpoint, I don’t think there was a universal design for these from ANH, but the design that Layered Creations has used to make these is certainly iconic and how they appear in my mind’s eye. The sculpt is sharp and the size is perfect to display with your farm boy Luke figure. I took some liberties with the paint schemes on these two, but i wanted to dirty them up and show the weathering that the environment of Tatooine would produce.

 

Moving away to the furthest possible extreme, the ice cave environment is home to a particularly vicious Wampa who made Luke a decoration in preparation to make him his next meal. Now, unexpectedly, this actually turned out to be my favorite piece from this set because I find the finishing on this, as well as the interaction the figures can have with it, to be the best. Now, as you can see, I have actually not done any painting on this piece because, really, I do not think I need to. Now, I could add some white highlights here and there, but the ice-like material used in this print is some of the coolest I have ever seen.

 

As you can see in the pictures, it is really dynamic, and I especially love the long icicles that hang at the entrance of each side of the environment. That said, this piece is not without its surprises either, and I LOVE that there are holes in the piece that not only accommodate Luke’s lightsaber being stuck in the snow, but also slots for his feet to hang from the ceiling. That makes this such a phenomenal set piece that I have a new permanent home for my Hoth Luke. The biggest surprise is that the cool material that this piece is made of also glows in the dark. For the sake of its presence in the movie, I am not sure that adds much, but for a collection piece, It is actually really fun, and it makes for a cool and macabre effect.

The final piece considered here is definitely the most recognizable in terms of importance, and the Imperial throne is so much of the Emperor’s character Return of the Jedi. The most important lightsaber duel in the history of Star Wars takes place in front of this iconic chair. The Emperor cackled from this perch as father and son fought for light and dark within the unfinished halls of the second Death Star. This piece is a pretty damned spot-on recreation of the throne, and my Emperor finally has a place to plant his Sithy self. Now, even with new cloth pieces, that SWB Emperor figure doesn’t sit very naturally, but as I said, the sculpt is great and I love the little control details on the side of the chair itself.

Oy, like I needed ANOTHER Star Wars thing to collect, but I am really hooked on these pieces. They make fun shelf decorations, and that leads to a much more robust and fulfilling collection. The details on these pieces are great, but remember that they are PRINTED pieces, so they will have some print lines, or if you are better customizer (and better painter) you will be able to do some work to minimize those even more. Now, I painted these myself, so don’t hold that against them, but Layered Creations does offer painting services, so they can be even more right “out of the box ready” if you take advantage of that. There are a lot of great things being offered from Layered Creations, so check out the page, and see that Luke’s land speeder is up next. We have more to bring you, including some slick Millennium Falcon, so check back soon!