Hasbro expanded the Black Series six-inch scale line last year to medium sized vehicles with Rey and Luke’s landspeeders. This expansion continues this year with a classic Dewback lizard. The Dewback is an interesting creature in the lore of Star Wars. It was barely visible in Star Wars and the subject of somewhat controversial CGI makeover in the Special Editions. My main memory of this creature is, of course, through the older toys that I had a lot of love for, so I was very much looking forward to this release. Let’s take a closer look at the Black Series Dewback!
The Dewback comes with a gray-pauldron Sandtrooper, a removeable saddle, the trooper’s pack, the DLT-19 blaster rifle, and a spear. The trooper and rifle we have seen before and this one is pretty similar to previous releases except the plastic is a slightly different quality and the dirty deco is different.
The white plastic seems a little less shiny and the deco seems less like a wash of brown and more airbrushed. The spear is hard plastic, but it’s so long and thin it warps a little.
The saddle is a big chunk of plastic that plugs into a hole in the back of the lizard.
It’s really nicely detailed with leather textures.
The straps are part of the body sculpt and the reigns are a separate piece of plastic that don’t detach. I was kind of hoping they could come off so I could make a “wild” dewback, but it’s not a deal-breaker for me.
The sculpt is pretty fantastic. It’s a bit of an interesting hybrid of the Special Edition design and the original on set prop. It reminds me of the recent Sideshow statue in that the legs are thicker than the CG Dewback. I think it’s a great mix and thickening the legs probably makes for a much more solid toy.
The sculpt is beautifully detailed with fur, scales and pebbly dinosaur skin textures. They gave a nice overall bulk and powerful build to this creature. He looks and feels solid and has a nice heft to him.
As you probably know, the jaw and tongue are both articulated. This works great and the tongue is extremely detailed. From certain angles you can almost make him look like he’s smiling!
The articulation is pretty great. The head and tail are both on ball and socket joints that have a decent range of motion, but it’s not spectacular. He can’t look to the side like the illustration on the front of the box. The front legs have swivel/hinges where they attach to the body, at the knee and the ankle. The back legs just swivel where they attach at the body, but have the swivel/hinges at the knee and ankle. The toes are all hinged which is helpful when posing the Dewback on uneven surfaces. I really love the articulation, my only complaint is that the knee hinges seem really heavily ratcheted and are a little tough to move while the swivels move a little too easily.
Robo goes over the articulation and everything else in his video. Check it out:
The paint is also nice with a two shades of green on the body. I think the darker green areas are a wash because the sculpt details pop a little more there. One more wash in black would have been great to bring out some more detail, but it’s good as is.
Overall, this is a great toy and tons of fun. I think the scale reads just a smidge small, but it’s really close to perfect.
