do you have a character focus? how did it happen?

i stumpled across a loose han hoth a couple of years back for 50p in a box of tat outside one of these cash for gold type shops.

at the same by coincidence i scored a loose moulded legs han hoth from the states.

my han hoth focus started from there i guess

how did yours come about?

It's the forums fault. I started up collecting 4 years ago (almost) and I joined the forums to see what was what to do some research. Came across the limelight section and saw all these really ****ing awesome collections. The one's that stood out for me were ones like Todd's collection room with his falcons and just this vast array of vintage goodies, but then there were the collections that focussed on a particular character or theme.

So I mulled it over for a while, and decided I don't really have a big enough room to do a huge collection so I decided to focus on a particular figure. I chose the Jawa as I had 5 of them when I was a kid and I liked the little fella. I also thought at the time it would be a good one as it's available on almost every card unlike some, and because I thought nobody else would like Jawas (oh how wrong I was!).

Things dried up a bit over time, more collectors popped up - so getting Jawas has become pretty hard. So as it was slow I needed to find something else to collect to feed the habit. I chose the CCP, which has been a fun one. Then Grant suggested I do one for each movie - that turned into 2 from each movie. So now I've ended up with Jawa as the main focus and the mini ones are Sand People, CCP, Ugnaught, Biker Scout and Rebel Commando.

Sometimes I wonder what I would do differently if I could go back 4 years - and to be honest I would probably pick something like Weequay :lol: :lol:

I got a loose Boba Fett at a local antique store a little over a year now and now have myself an army of him. :lol:

I started off wanting a Han Hoth on ESB, ROTJ and tri cards as he was my favourite figure as a kid

It just grew from there.

My die cast TIE and INT 4 runs are also for nostalgia but there is a lot less out there for them

I was (am) a loose collector but hit two stumbling blocks.

1 - running out of room
2 - running out of things to collect

I never wanted to go down the carded route as they don't really interest me that much. I decided on a character focus as something more interesting than just collecting MOCS haphazard. I decided on R5-D4 as I've always liked the colours of the figure and the cardback is neat.

I have attempted two foci, Ben and Bossk, both disasters, probably because of my bull in a China shop approach instead of letting something grow organically. I still think both are right up there as my favourites but currently only own a bossk beater moc, I don't even have them loose

Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, plus R2 and c3po.

I went over all my childhood figures and a few collectors books and thought that these 6 characters really hold most of my childhood memories.
This was confirmed after watching Star Wars get again.

With the help of this forum and a few books I found theany variants.
Last year I bought a solid dome R2, small head Han, and, although strictly part of ESB, a removable limbs c3po. These 3 I don't have in my original toys.
I also decided on the same characters from ESB.

That's my main focus, loose, some beaters.
It's going slowly.
The top row is my original childhood line-up.
Bottom row is my new collection, but have a couple more since, newly small head Han, another Chewie, and a blonde Luke Bespin.

For me it's the mighty Chief Chirpa.
Just because I became interested in focus collecting in common - to see what is possible, when you focus on a special character.
It became the mighty Chief Chirpa, which was my first ever Star Wars Figure as a kid (I still own it).

Later on I realized, that this a very interesting figure to focus on, because of many known card and blister variations - also to find on a couple of foreign cards (LL, TopToy, TolToys, PBP, Meccano, PT).
Till today I got a bulk of lose figures, 15 different MOCs, beautiful CC Art and some random stuff showing the Chief.
Sadfully Mattias Rendahl from sweden is a serious die-hard Chief Chirpa focus collector and owns maybe every known preproduction item about this figure. He told me on CEIII that he owns 57 (!) different MOC-Variations from this cute and cuddly teddybear.

I think I may have every COO variation for loose CC figures, but there is one COO I only have once - and that's my childhood chirpa.
I hopefully will find another one some day ...

Once I finished my loose collection I wanted to focus on a figure. I eventually decided on Zuckuss as he was the first figure I had bought for me when I was a kid.

So far I have a beautiful unpunched on Empire card to replicate that first figure. A revenge proof, Lili Ledy, a few Polish bootlegs and a few rough carded Jedi and a Tri-logo, which I will be looking for more mintier ones soon.

I do have a bit of a Teebo focus going at the moment. It kind of started from having Ewok side focus that my girlfriend and I were doing together a few years back while I was off completing my own thing. After a while it grew on me more and decided to have a go and collect nothing but ewoks, vintage and modern
After a while I thought a figure focus would be a good thing to add and out of all the ewoks Teebo was the coolest in my eyes. He is one of the few that come on Rotj, Potf and Trilogo cards plus a few different foreign cards like UHU and Ledy

As some of you may know I have a soft spot for Leia Hoth.

ESB is my favourite movie and for me she had her best scenes in it. I'm not just collecting vintage items (there isn't too much) so modern stuff is also included.

I collect Han original with a preference for the Big 'ol ballon head as a focus.

Its been an odd journey that started off with me collecting Fett items very briefly first, then R2 before settling on Han. I remember looking at my MOCs when they were all wall hung and seeing an SW, ESB, ROTJ and Tri-Logo Han all in a vertical line (films were horizontal) and thinking how good they looked together. It made me think more about how much love I had for his character in the films and more importantly how much I felt it was one of, if not the best card back in the entire run.

I was also happy to have a focus that crossed all film cardbacks, though no POTF there is a Trilogo and there are numerous loose variants too. Its also a bonus that he appears on loads of oddball items too.

Over time the costs have become prohibitive and I've picked up a shelf or two of modern items at much friendlier prices which has been fun, even managing some pre-production modern too.

I do now have a side focus too for a second character... that's another story though

I don't think I'm much different to many others here. Started collecting all 93 on card, then one day realised that I had about five different Vaders - four on regular Kenner cardbacks and one from Spain. Then I got offered a Top Toys one from a fellow Aussie. He was a character that came on almost every variation of cardback, from almost every country and the obsession grew from those six MOCs. I have pretty much sold off all of my other stuff to fund the Vader focus and despite having over 120 cardbacks from all over the world, there are so many more to find. He has been a great character to collect, but if I had my time again and knew what I was going to do, I probably wouldn't choose Vader as he is just TOO popular amongst focus collectors!

I do not recommend him - that may sound self serving (and it is a little bit) but in all honesty he has become a seriously hard fellow to collect lately. I was lucky in that I got most of my rare ones when focus collecting was not common (and much cheaper!).

Cheers,
Pat

I wanted to collect a little bit of everything back in the day and a character focus is the perfect way of doing that. 2-1b was one of a couple of charecters that had no existing focus collectors on the rebelscum focus collectors list at that time and I didn't want to be following in anyone's footsteps.



Jason

Well when I began to focus on Palitoy in 2009 all I ever wanted was a 12 back Luke. Skipping a few chapters I ended up managing to a full set of 12s, 20s, almost a full set of Empire 30s and the debut 45a's. I had sometime b4 put a set of last 17 too plus a few Jedi MOC. So Ended up with all debut carded Lukes 8)
I have since picked up a couple more Lukes so am sort of becoming a Luke man :!:

palitoyjunky said:

Well when I began to focus on Palitoy in 2009 all I ever wanted was a 12 back Luke. Skipping a few chapters I ended up managing to a full set of 12s, 20s, almost a full set of Empire 30s and the debut 45a's. I had sometime b4 put a set of last 17 too plus a few Jedi MOC. So Ended up with all debut carded Lukes 8)
I have since picked up a couple more Lukes so am sort of becoming a Luke man :!:

Click to expand...

You do know that you can get MOC Luke's from other toy manufacturers other than Palitoy don't you??? :lol:

Well I never :!:

:lol:

SAVORY100 said:

I collect Han original with a preference for the Big 'ol ballon head as a focus.

Its been an odd journey that started off with me collecting Fett items very briefly first, then R2 before settling on Han. I remember looking at my MOCs when they were all wall hung and seeing an SW, ESB, ROTJ and Tri-Logo Han all in a vertical line (films were horizontal) and thinking how good they looked together. It made me think more about how much love I had for his character in the films and more importantly how much I felt it was one of, if not the best card back in the entire run.

I was also happy to have a focus that crossed all film cardbacks, though no POTF there is a Trilogo and there are numerous loose variants too. Its also a bonus that he appears on loads of oddball items too.

Over time the costs have become prohibitive and I've picked up a shelf or two of modern items at much friendlier prices which has been fun, even managing some pre-production modern too.

I do now have a side focus too for a second character... that's another story though

Click to expand...

Interesting to see how it happened for you, Stephen. Cool stuff.

I also collect Han original when it comes to production items. When I first started collecting, I was just buying anything I found interesting. After a year or so, I realized I had a few really interesting and rare Han items (small head Han on ESB 31 back being one of the primary ones). I always thought the character was a bad ass, found it interesting that it didn't appear any other collectors were collecting him (at the time and to my knowledge - although perhaps Stephen was already doing so? This was in 2013 and I was really just on Rebelscum at the time - no Facebook and no SWFUK) even though he was a major character and first 12 figure, and I loved the cardback image and the green colors in the figure box and name plate. Four years later, I am pretty proud of the collection.

I also collect preproduction items as well, and after a while I found focusing on Han original was going to be difficult as most of the card back proofs are with one collector and there is very little 3D stuff out there for Han. So I decided to branch out and collect preproduction items for any of the Han variations - Han original, Hoth, Bespin, trench coat, carbonite. Still hard to acquire items for those variations, but it's a little easier than focusing on just Han original.

I have a focus on all character and I do not know how did it happen I must have been seduced by the dark side :lol: