Sunday, December 20, 2009

It figures: Flashback!

Flashback JanewaywhiteFlashbackJaneway

This exclusive Playmates action figure was the result of a 1999 online competition, held by NewForce Comics mail order firm, for members of Playtrek listserv to suggest a popular character that could be assembled/customized from existing Playmates' sculpts. I was the creator of the winning figure: "Captain Kathryn Janeway as seen in the 'Star Trek: Voyager' episode, 'Flashback'".

This figure was made from a regular Janeway head on a repainted ST II Saavik body. Playmates agreed to resculpt the rank insignia on the epaulet and cuff - instead of painting flat gold ones, as originally suggested. Both of these figures were originally shortpacks in their original release and quite highly coveted by collectors.

Flashback Janeway promo banner

3 comments:

new force said...

ah, brings back memories!.

Anonymous said...

I remember tallying up the poll results. It was a close one and Janeway won by only 2 votes, second place was a Spock variant.

Benb61

Therin of Andor said...

My US penpal is a huge Janeway fan and couldn't believe that my design idea won!

My reasoning was that Janeway was the only captain figure that had only had one version prior to this; she had been in seemingly short supply in the first "Voyager" wave; it gave customisers another source of the relatively rare Saavik torso; and met all the criteria of using existing parts. Luckily, "Flashback" was before Janeway changed her hairstyle! At first, Playmates rejected this design, supposedly "because Janeway didn't wear this outfit in the TV series", and we had to back it up with photos of Captain Janeway in Janice Rand's jacket.

I recall Mara of Playmates saying that, despite the original contest rules that no resculpting would happen, Playmates did carve off Saavik's rank insignias and add new ones, so that Rand's didn't have to be painted on.