Mike Rayahwk LEGO Playthemes
LEGO Star Wars Mini Sith Infiltrator
Sith Infiltrator (SDCC 2012 exclusive) (detail)
 LEGO Star Wars™ and associated images and characters Copyright LEGO ©2012
As LEGO invested more heavily into licensed IPs, fan conventions became a much bigger part of the marketing efforts. In 2012, we made a custom Star Wars playset for each of three big conventions: A mini Slave I for Star Wars Celebration, a mini Sith Infiltrator for San Diego Comic Con, and a mini Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder for New York Comic Con.

These chibi versions of Star Wars vehicles got such a positive response that they kicked off a whole subtheme of even tinier Star Wars MicroFighters starting a year later.
LEGO Star Wars exclusive illustrations
The sets were assembled and packed (by hand!) into custom round tins with wraparound labels, so the illustrations had to match at both ends. Each tin had a close-up portrait of the minifigure on the lid.

Because we were making these on such a short schedule, there was no time for test prints or corrections. The Land Speeder set ended up having a slight design change due to a parts shortage after the illustration was complete, and as a result this is one of the only LEGO sets where the product doesn't perfectly match the image on the box. (If it were a photograph, we'd have been legally required to recall the set; fortunately, illustrated images aren't regulated as strictly.)
LEGO Star Wars exclusive tins
I ended up giving away my Slave I set to a friend who's a very dedicated Boba Fett collector. But here's what the other two look like, all hand-stickered and taped up by the long-suffering men and women of our model department. If I wasn't barred from selling these by my LEGO contract, I hear they go for a couple hundred bucks on eBay.

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