Feast your eye's on an incredible achievement. This set of GOLD Knickerbocker figures are a nearly year long project to pay homage to the first ever Lord of the Rings figures ever produced. Every piece in these pics are made from my REAL 1979 Knickerbocker figures! They are cast in gold resin, with a hint of reflective sparkle.
Initially early last year, I saw a post in one of my favorite Facebook Groups The Bakshi Lord of the Rings Collectible Archive & Museum. A member and friend had posted a custom Ringwraith figure that he had commissioned to a well know artist. His was clear or red if I recall. I contacted the artist Retrogimmick on Instagram to see if he would also work with me on a project. That conversation started a nearly year of work towards bringing a full set of LOTR Knickerbocker customs to life!
I have to preface in saying, that the real Knickerbocker figures sell for thousands of dollars, so using them to create molds was a HUGE risk that I'm willing to bet no one on the planet has attempted. Any of them could be destroyed in the process. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened. Sadly, a Ringwraith Steed was damaged, and is sadly buried in the depths of Mordor.
Knowing the risk, I went ahead and started the project with Daniel of Retrogimmick. I decided on GOLD because I want to make these a showcase set of the museum. We experiments with different resin shade and mixtures, until we had the perfect shade. Then each piece of the figures were disassembled and mold made to create a negative rubber piece that in turn resin is poured into for the test casts. This process is tedious and can take many tries for each part of the figures. This was repeated and the same process was done with the weapons and horse saddle/bridals.
There was a point that we weren't sure if this project could be accomplished. So many issues arise when working with rare 40+ year old action figures. Thankfully, we powered threw, and Retrogimmick came through with an astounding set of figures that will grace our museum forever.
Fantastic. Sorry to read about the Ringwraith steed - but you can't make an omelet with out breaking some eggs as they say.