In 2012 we decided to do something new. A different limited-edition custom Star Wars set, limited to one thousand copies, for each of three big conventions: New York Comic-Con 2012, San Diego Comic-Con 2012, and Star Wars Celebration VI.

Part of our convention strategy every year is to hand out special-edition minifigures, so we had the production resources set aside for a custom Luke Skywalker, Darth Maul, and Boba Fett, but no resources for custom set or package assemblies. We had to get creative and do these entirely in-house, limited to whatever elements we already had available in the Connecticut model shop, picking and packing parts manually and hand-applying printed stickers to thousands of round collector tins.

Under these conditions, we were limited to tiny piece counts, and were forced to build chibi-style vehicles as a matter of necessity. This turned out to be incredibly popular with the fans, unexpectedly, and led to the beginning of the Star Wars Microfighters line in 2014.

Working with a cylindrical canister, an extra trick was making the edges of the package illustration line up so that the image could be continuous all the way around the can.