Leektar &Nippet

Leektar looks to be exactly what he is, a background character.   He's a rather plain looking Ewok with various bit of forest bling, or as the Ewoks would say, "Fling."  (I'm writing a review of an Ewok figure, cut me some slack for not being serious.)

The most noticeable piece of fling is the skull on top of his head piece.    It appears to be precariously perched up there instead of fully integrated like Logray's or Paploo's chapeaus.  For the most part the weathering is good, giving an impression of a natural piece of bone.  However, the eye sockets and nostrils are showing through as a whitish color.  Black or gray would have helped here. 

The hood itself has a bit of a wash to it.  The wash gives a reasonable appearance of unwashed forest leather.  There's a red shop rag hanging down by his left ear, that could have used just a slight bit more contrast to make it stick out a bit more.  The ears of the figure pop through the hood on the top, and his face is set back from the oval of the hood a just slightly.

Leektar's body is one of the newer scale and styles of Ewoks.  He's got articulated wrists and ankles that show as definite breaks in the sculpt.  Just under the cut waist is a belt that sculpted on.  Overall, I have yet to see an Ewok figure that has completely sold me on the furry critter aspect of the race.  I'm not saying they haven't gotten better, but I think more strides have taken place with Chewbacca from the vintage line until now than with the Ewoks.  Painted fingers and toes are nice, but they still don't look furry.

Underneath the hood is the requisite teddy bear head that's fully sculpted.  The ears on hoodless 'woks always look goofy to me, but they are meant to have the hood on, so that's okay.  Leektar's eye's are glossy, his nose is pink and his teeth are white.  White?  Yep.  I'd guess this was done in the film to make them stand out a bit.  Under the white teeth, is a thin pink lip that is expertly painted.  Points to the plus side for the head paint.  What little there is was done well. 

On the down side is his separate belt piece.  The sheath for the knife is done it two colors and looks good.  There's a large pouch next to it, that, even with it's tan paint, looks like a big blob.  A little weathering or paint on the braids would have jazzed it up quite a bit.  The remainder of the belt has a sculpted bow and a tiny pouch on it.  These details are so bland, they look like they could be vintage line pieces.  A little paint especially on the bow, would have cut that plasitcy look.

One thing I realized as I was typing this, was the ankle articulation was more than I thought.  He actually doesn't have a straight cut joint for ankles and can bend them up and down.  Why?  I don't know how you would use that on figure that doesn't have knees to go with them.  I guess he could be on his tippy toes looking over the counter of the Kwikee Mart to see the Squishee machine.  Just like Ak-Rev, this just doesn't make sense.  In addition, the articulation is a bit limited from the fur of the ankles on the leg.  Why add the extra stuff in when a cut joint would have worked just as well?

Leektar comes with two weapons as well.  A stone knife and a club ax thingee.  Both are well done for accessories, with paint for leather handles and gray for the stone parts they are a far cry from the vintage single color accessories.  The knife fits neatly in the sheath.  I actually didn't realize it came out at first.

Leektar's other accessory is part figure and part accessory.  It's Nippet.  Who?  No clue, but he's obviously the baby Ewok that is prominently shown in the village scenes.  The baby Ewok is one of those set pieces that drives me to buy some of the new figures. On his own, I may have bought Leektar; throw in a baby in a basket and they had me.

Looking like the love child of the Wolfman and a Wookie,  Nippet is a fully sculpted separate unarticulated piece.  I was actually surprised he didn't have an action feature to make him go up and down in the basket.   A cut joint for the head would have been nice, as well.

Like most accessories, Nippet turned out a little light on detail.  The gray dry brushing on his head is the only place there is any weathering and his rest of his paint is of a lesser quality than Leektars.  Either the basket is too small or Nippet is too big, but these two pieces together don't say Ewok baby to me.  They say little guy that is too old to still be in a basket.

Leektar is part of the Build-A-Droid series.  Mine came with a black Imperial style astro-mech body (See bottom picture.)