New York City, NY
February 12, 2006
Story and Photos by Chris Spice (Darth Spice)

DAY 2: IT'S LIKE HOTH OUTSIDE!
There has been a whiteout and the entire city of New York is blanketed in one of the worst blizzards I’ve ever seen in my life. No matter, I threw myself in front of the taxicab and made way to the American International Toy Fair for day number two. We spent a part of the morning at Master Replicas viewing the new Darth Maul F/X saber that is soon to be released. I’m sure if you have never bought an F/X in the past you will be interested in this one. Detachable, eloquent and everything we remembered in Episode I. There is also going to be an Obi-Wan Kenobi F/X that will come later in 2006. I was immediately taken back by the Y-Wing Fighter Studio Scale model, while initially I wasn’t really interested but seeing is believing. The pictures just do not do any justice to the close to finished product. We also got to look at the Millennium Falcon scale model that will be put in to production in the near future and will most certainly compliment the previous AT-AT and Snowspeeder combination. Master Replicas will also venture out into a poker set and umbrellas later this year as well, so at least if you go broke you still won’t get soaked. The scaled replica sabers will feature Qui-Gon Jinn but now will offer a different style case for collector and limited editions. This makes for an interesting way to display your most valued possessions. I was pretty impressed with an area that Master Replicas is debating about going into with the costumes of Anakin Skywalker and Cyclops from the X-Men. All I can say is if it happens I can’t wait. The scale replica helmets were simply breathtaking. Boba Fett and Darth Vader were most impressive indeed and I’m quite sure any edition will be a solid success. Overall Master Replicas will do a good job in delivering what the fans want in 2006.

Our next stop was Sideshow Collectibles where we were completely blown away. I just can’t believe how great the 12-inch figures were in person! I must now say I am hooked and will probably be enjoying picking these up in the future vs. some of the other things you could spend your money on. We also got a first look at Mace Windu and you could almost think they shrunk Samuel L, Jackson! I was simply jaw-dropped by the amount of detail, but that took nothing away from the Premium Format Princess Leia. I was told the finished product will have “eye lashes” to further the realistic effect. General Grievous is also quite the hot item and has the people at Sideshow implementing an entire new packaging scheme just to get it out the door! The Darth Vader and Obi-Wan feature electronics and your choice of battery or wall power. I was told they would look to do this in more premium scale figures, when character appropriate. Perhaps the bombshell of the exhibition could have been the 1:1 scale busts of Greedo and Darth Maul. It is a no wonder they are selling out quickly. The detail is beyond incredible and I’ll wager they will sell in giant proportions! Lastly, the deformed Darth Vader and stormtroopers that are produced by Medicom will be distributed by Sideshow sometime in the second quarter of this year. The entire line of Sideshow products is an entire new can of worms and while most do not venture outside of Star Wars, but if you do look for something special to add to your entertainment room, I’d advise taking a look at the other lines Sideshow has to offer. The team at Sideshow was very generous and courteous with their time and Sandtroopers.com would like to say a special thanks to them! Stay tuned as we look to cover Gentle Giant, Darkhorse Comics and much more as the white weekend continues!

DAY 2 WRAP UP: OPERATION WHITEOUT
The afternoon was spent with LEGO and touring the Javits Center Showroom floor. Since I was tentative about going, I didn’t make as many appointments as I should have for Sunday. The LEGO room was quite an interesting tour, although most of the items were already in the market, the two that were not yet released were offering LEGO Collectors a whole new magnitude of colleting, as well as building for hours and hours.

The Jabba the Hutt Skiff playset was quite a sight. The amount of possibilities to recreate the Battle of Sarlacc is almost endless and they supply you with just about everything that was in the scene. From R2-D2 serving drinks all the way to a Lego Slave Leia! If the size of this massive creation wasn’t enough, the Lego Star Destroyer will keep a collector busy for weeks and perhaps a child until adolescence busy. With everything from Darth Vader to a Mouse Droid, the sky is the limit as far as adding something like this to your collection. The show was near end and after spending the entire day working on getting to the show, and covering Sideshow and Master Replicas it was time to head back to our temporary bunker. After winning the Toy of the Year award for Best Activity toy, you could say Star Wars and Lego have a good combination. Our guide described the event at the Mariott in New York on February 11th as an incredible honor to win the award that was presented by the Toy Industry of America.

Overall, we had a great time covering the showroom floor and managed to capture a couple other vendors that had some creativity and items of interest such as Shocker Toys who produce a figure very similar to the Stikfas line. The Shockinis were an interesting figure, for the simple fact there were a ton of custom figures that their forum member created to exhibit. You just don’t see enough creativity in the world and we encourage it in all our readers, therefore I decided to snap a few shots of their booth as well. We could only look forward to what Gentle Giant, Kotobukiya and Darkhorse had to offer at the Diamond Show room at the alternate showroom over on Broadway. The fact there was a record setting three inches of snow an hour hitting the ground it was quite a day seeing the mighty city crippled and at the mercy of mother nature.

PHOTO GALLERIES
To see the different photo galleries click on one of the links below.