4-LOM - Mini Busts

4-LOM, a highly-intelligent protocol droid who reprogrammed himself as a master thief and mercinary, was one of the six bounty hunters who answered the call put out by Darth Vader to capture the Millennium Falcon. While attending a briefing on board the Imperial Executor, 4-LOM and the bounty hunters received specific instructions to bring Han Solo back alive. With his insect-like face and battle-damaged armor, 4-LOM carries a DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle.

There are definitely benefits to being a multifaceted Star Wars collector. If you branch out beyond the Hasbro stuff, it makes sense that you will have the ability to appreciate a lot more detail (amongst other things) than what the limitations of the 3.75” line offers to you and see more closely the fine details needed to make our favorite characters come to life (and look exactly the way they did in the films). After all, there are just some things that plastic action figures just cannot capture. The 4-LOM mini bust is an excellent example of this. And after more than 30 years of loving the swift bounty hunter 4-LOM (which means "for love or money" for all you late bloomers out there), Gentle Giant Ltd. has crafted a magnificent mini bust that has frozen in time details even we have never seen before on this favorite Star Wars character. While Hasbro made the pretty awesome 2007 TAC 4-LOM (30 41) figure in the 30 (77-07) line, but the coloring was off (which is ironic since they got the coloring much closer with the 1997 POTF2 figure) and the limbs were a little (a lot) too thick. All that and more has been rectified with the mini bust and we can saw without a doubt that this is the definitive 4-LOM collectible now. We think we figured out what makes a Gentle Giant Ltd. mini bust much better than another. And 4-LOM is a great example for which to build our case. And our case is that in order for mini busts to have the mastery of the finest artistic brilliance, they need to be of a low edition size as possible. 4-LOM is a mini bust with an edition size below 2500 pieces and the sample we received is absolutely beyond our expectations. It is perfect and since there weren't 5000+ pieces to paint, it seems that the people who make these had extra time to get this one just right.

When mini bust madness reached a fever pitch in 2006-2007, Gentle Giant Ltd. also went off the wall with their edition sizes. And as a result, the paint jobs on the mini busts were severely suffering. Some example of mass-produced mini busts that were horribly painted include the Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight), all three of the Episode III Clone Troopers and many others. Starting in 2008 and especially 2009 and 2010, Gentle Giant Ltd. (in conjunction with about every other Star Wars license) has scaled back the edition sizes of the mini busts. As a result, the painters must have more time to get the products perfectly assembled and painted. The paint jobs haven’t been better and 4-LOM is perhaps the best yet. The armor of 4-LOM is flawlessly exact to the film. And instead of being covered in orange rust, it is instead very discretely and evenly spread in the crevices of the droid’s body plates. In other words, it looks completely natural as how metal would oxidize and rust in the real word. This “lived in look” is spectacularly wonderful and sets 4-LOM apart from nearly every mini bust to date. As a bounty hunter, 4-LOM is popular, but he doesn’t have the same level of popularity of Boba Fett and IG-88 and perhaps even Bossk. And as a point of humor, Gentle Giant has decidedly given 4-LOM “Zuckuss” status indirectly since it was the last bounty hunter attempted. (For those of you who collect the Hasbro figures, you know that Zuckuss was always the last bounty hunter attempted and the last updated or revisited.)

But with the excellence executed in this 4-LOM mini bust, Gentle Giant Ltd. may be solely responsible for igniting not only a rekindled interest in the mini bust line, but for the character of 4-LOM also. 2010 appears to be the year of 4-LOM, just like 2007 was the year of Bossk. Collectors of mini busts have a lot to look forward to with 4-LOM. Hands down the best bounty hunter mini bust yet to date, it is simply amazing what Gentle Giant has incorporated into this figure. The connective joints on the arms are thin and delicate and the rifle is exactly identical to the weapon in the film. And as a bonus, 4-LOM is one solid mini bust. There are no removable hands or guns and this is a benefit for those afraid of pieces falling out when they are moved throughout their collections. Limited to only 2000 pieces, only 2000 collectors will be able to display all six bounty hunter in a line. While the other bounty hunter mini busts have significantly larger editions sizes than 4-LOM, we hope that Gentle Giant Ltd. does their best to ensure lower edition sizes going forward. We suggest finding a way to get 4-LOM into your collections. He is visually much more stunning than the AT-AT Driver mini bust and more exciting than the Snowtrooper mini bust. We have a lot of Episode V themed busts coming to us in 2010. But we think that 4-LOM has already stolen the show. Now if we can only get Hasbro to make an action figure with this much authenticity then we would be extremely happier collectors than we already are!