AFTER spending 10 hours a day for a whole year on his replica of a scene from Star Wars, sci-fi fanatic Luke Kaye has finally finished the work of art.
The 46-year-old, who runs fancy dress shop Skywalkers, in Faringdon Road, has used latex, masks and mannequins to create The Cantina, complete with 22 characters.
He had the idea after visiting a Star Wars exhibition where he was unimpressed with their attempt at the scene, and has spent thousands of pounds and hours of his time making his very own.
“Some days I haven’t been sleeping, I have just been making. It has probably been 10 hours a day and it has taken up all my weekends," he said.
“I had this crazy idea in my head just to add to my collection. Once I get these ideas I see them through.”
It takes Luke about two months to make each model, complete with costume.
He creates moulds and uses latex to make the heads of some of the models, others have masks.
The display includes The Cantina Band, and characters including Greedo, Zuckuss, two Snaggletooths, a bar keeper, the spy, Hammerhead, Twilek, Ponda Baba, Doctor Alzban, Squidhead and Salacious Crumb.
“This is the iconic scene of Star Wars. Everybody is having a drink of blue milk,” he said.
“It was a challenge. I saw a scene like this last year when I went to America to the biggest Star Wars convention.
“I had to queue for ages to get a photo taken with their Cantina scene and it only had three characters.
“I said, ‘I can do so much better than that.’ So I did.”
Luke, who has run Skywalkers for nearly 30 years, has been a fan of Star Wars since he was 11.
He is now looking for somewhere to display the scene in Swindon, and is hoping it could be part of an exhibition of his £1m sci-fi collection which he wants to be one of the town’s assets.
“I have got nowhere to put it. I am spending £1,200 a month on storage. It needs to be displayed for people to see,” he said.
“It went to Steam last year and hundreds of people came to see it.”
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