Wicket W. Warrick (Star Wars Animated) - Maquettes

If you’re an Ewok hater, well first shame on you, and second, you’ll likely even have less tolerance for the more interpretive collectible versions of these fuzz balls. Take for instance the Wicket W. Warrick Maquette from Gentle Giant Ltd.. We absolutely adore it and think it’s cute beyond belief, but if you can’t even bare to watch them in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi, there is no way you’ll remotely care about a caricaturized version of the first Ewok to encounter the Rebel Alliance during their mission on Endor. The Wicket W. Warrick Maquette is officially the smallest in Gentle Giant’s entire line. The great thing is that its totally in scale with all the other pieces in the Maquettes line. Despite its tinier size, Gentle Giant didn’t seem to reduce the retail proportionally.

Wicket W. Warrick is at the ready with his trustworthy spear. He’ll likely poke whatever he encounters with it to see if it will harm or help him. Too bad a knocked out Princess Leia in her combat poncho gear wasn't included as part of this piece. He is affixed to a very simple yet colorful base that is complete with sprouting grass and at the base of his feet is a piece of kindling wood to help reinforce to the collector that his planet is a forest moon. It's simple, but colorful and wildly reminiscent of the Ewoks cartoon from the 80s. In the film, Wicket was primarily solid brown with a light tan encircled face. Gentle Giant took some liberties with Wicket and gave him streaking highlights in equidistant layers all the way up his entire body. It doesn’t look bad, but it may initially distract your eyes as you wonder why they decided to go this route with his paint job.

The animated Maquettes line has really been designed to interest a very small but loyal fan base of collectors. But they are garnering interest to collectors who didn't consider the line when it focused solely on the Clone Wars line. Animated Star Wars characters are not intended for the mainstream, so it’s going to take a niche audience to appreciate the obscure. And we’re definitely part of that subset. We don’t expect the animated Maquette line to last forever, but Gentle Giant has not showed any signs of slowing down. Every year one, two or three new animated Maquettes based on characters from the Original Trilogy are shown at various conventions throughout the year. If Gentle Giant can focus on only the main Star Wars characters, we believe they can keep the line going strong despite having very small production numbers. We hope they continue for a while.