• Year: 1994
• Size: 6 inches long.
• Product Line: ALIENS, Series 3. Produced by Kenner (Hasbro).

The Wild Boar Alien is a quadruped figure with a special and unique action feature.  Manipulating the head and pushing it forward will result in the 5 saber like spikes present along its length to stand upright and they will lay back to the head when it is returned to its original default position.

Both of these prototype items appearing here are remarkable of themselves but of particular note is the blueprint that accompanies these 2 figures.  Such orthogonal drawings represent an advanced stage of the design of the figure and this particular set of technical images would have been used to aid in sculpting, engineering and progressing the project to Wild Boar action figure to its final stages.

Such engineering drawings as these which typically feature side, front and top elevations of the figure would have been hand drawn and generated from an earlier sculpt or maquette not present here. The half drawn top and front elevations indicate these views are to be mirrored. A standard of such technical drawings.

The blueprint itself has parts whited out with minor design changes and was redrawn to accommodate these requisite revisions. The blueprint’s amendments have been made to the back spines and side where it has been whited out and redrawn with edits by the Designer.  These edits are observable where more white is present on the image.

A similar set of such drawings would also have been required for the internal mechanism inside the head and neck of the figure. A separate engineering prototype as indicated in the drawings text was constructed to annalyse, test and verify the functionality of the retractable spines feature and any changes deemed necessary prior to full production run manufacturing.

Note that changes still made its way into the figure’s final sculpting; for example, the sharp barbed spines present on the head design would have been deemed unsafe for children and made blunt.  The Wild Boar Alien, like all items in this range of figures, had its age appropriate minimum set at ‘AGES 4 AND UP’.

Images courtesy of Steve Dwyer.