Action Figure Customization: Bootleg Transformer (Stepper/Ricochet Redeco)

I had a lot of fun kitbashing my own custom GI Joe-style action figure so I thought myself ready to try my hand at a more straightforward repaint of a bootleg Transformer that’s been a fixture in my junk drawer for at least two years now. After all, I have a few miniatures and a custom action figure under my belt and I have a lot more patience for this kind of project now that I did when I bought it for less then $3 from Aliexpress. What could possibly go wrong?

Strap in, kids. This article is going to be a long one.

But let’s walk it back a little bit. The basis of this this project is an oversized bootleg version of a Legends class Jazz from the Transformers Universe line from 2008. And not only is he about twice the size of any Legends class figure of that era, he came in a questionable Barbie-esque bright pink/pale green color scheme. That simply would not do.

As you can probably tell, these pics were taken after I started sanding him and I just had to stop and take a picture of his default paintjob because it simply had to be seen to be believed. Since this figure is a bootleg of Jazz, the idea came to me to repaint it in a deco inspired by another Jazz repaint…the Autobot Targetmaster Stepper (aka Ricochet) from the Headmasters series! Though to my knowledge, he never actually appeared in the glorious mess that was the Headmasters anime. All the same, I really dug his black, white, and gold color scheme and thought it would be a simple enough paint job. Simple, yes but easy? Not by a long shot (no pun intended…b-because he’s a marksman, get it? Yuck).

After I started sanding, I decided it would be easier if I disassembled all the pieces. Anything that wasn’t held together with basic ball joints was held together with screws, which I removed using a screwdriver from an eyeglass repair kit and set them aside in little plastic container so I wouldn’t lose them. I initially thought the wheels might give me a little trouble (I was mostly worried about snapping the pegs they were mounted on) but I removed them easily enough with just a poke from a pair of hobby tweezers.

So far so good. After I sanded the pieces, scrubbed them with some isopropyl alcohol on an old toothbrush, and gave them what I thought was a good rinse, I was ready to prime. I primed the main pieces in my usual Rustoleum flat gray acrylic primer but the wheels I sprayed separately with a Rustoleum gloss black paint/primer since I knew I wanted them to be black and didn’t see the point in individually painting them. After everything dried enough to handle, I flipped the pieces around and sprayed the other side because letting them cure for 24 hours (though possibly longer since I’ve been working 12+ hour days for the past three weeks and have set my various crafting projects aside for days at a time).

I know I’ve been alluding to some major headache (building up to it even) but it was simply this: the paint just had a really hard time covering, the blue, the white, and especially the metallic gold. I kind of expected as much for the gold parts as the only metallic golds I had on hand were some glossy Testors paints (and not from their Model Masters line either, which are the only Testors paints I see recommended for action figure customs) and a tube of dollar store gold acrylic craft paint. The gold craft paint covered much better than the Testors stuff (which I painted on first and thought it looked way too dark) though I kept having to add drops of thinner medium to flatten it out and not make it so grainy. But it still came out looking like toothpaste in true dollar store craft paint fashion.

What really surprised me was that the Reaper Dragon Blue on the windows/windshield and the Reaper Dragon White needed a ton of coats applied as well, which I dutifully kept thinning down with proportional drops of Vallejo brand thinner and a damp brush. I used both of these on my other custom paintjobs of a similar scale (namely the Starscream Gundam) with the same type of primer and I didn’t have these issues. But at least I didn’t have to worry about the paints drying out in the hours I spent plugging away at this, thanks to having recently purchased a wet palette.

After I threw in the towel on my disappointing basecoat, I did a light Nuln Oil wash on the gold areas to try get some shading into the recesses.

I also made a little visor to put over the eyes to better match the character that inspired this project, cutting it out of a piece of plasticard that I painted gold ahead of time. After supergluing it on, I was ready to call it quits with this project and spray it with a clearcoat. Could I have done more touching up? Oh yeah. But I was just curious to see it reassembled and, after applying said clearcoat, if any of the paint would rub off when I transformed it from robot mode to car mode and back.

Some paint rubbed off in tiny areas, mostly at one corner of the assembly with the windshield where it made an especially tight fit with the hood/main chest area. Also a little on the feet and legs but it wasn’t quite the disaster I was expecting. I should probably note here that the spoiler in the back doesn’t tab together because I broke the little peg thing that connects the two sides during one of the times I was transforming it between coats. It’s a cheap bootleg, what do you expect?

Still I looked at the “finished” product and I just really wasn’t happy with how sloppy it looked. I got a little frustrated with how poorly everything except the black was covering and got careless with the brush. Granted, I’m never too neat when it comes to basecoats on any of my projects (be they miniatures, models, or custom action figures) since I usually set the piece aside, sleep on it, touch it up and then carry on with the wash and dry-brushing (and during said dry-brushing, I try to touch up anything else I missed).

But that wasn’t the case here, since I knew there would be no dry-brushing or highlights since I was going for a kind of retro action figure type of deco. Plus, given how the figure is mostly black, I wasn’t entirely sure what I could or would highlight and I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of adding yet more paint. So I let the project sit for a day or two and once I found a little bit of hobby time, I decided I would try to salvage this project the best I could.

Once again using the glossy black paint/primer that I used for the wheels, I did something I told myself I would never do and used a spray paint as an actual coat in an effort to make the black look more cohesive and make the lines of separation between the colors straighter and cleaner looking. So I disassembled the figure once again, used blue painters tape to mask off the white and gold sections (as well as the blue windshield, since it was the only one of the windows that kind of turned out) and hit it with the Rustoleum glossy black. After the black paint fully cured (I wasn’t about to make the mistake of peeling off the tape white it was still even slightly sticky), I went back over the white and gold parts to make them brighter. I also pried off the plasticard gold visor I made and made a different one that didn’t suck as much as the first one. I put sticky tack over the headlights to try and easily mask them off while also cleaning up the brush strokes that went outside the lines, but unfortunately the black spray paint still got underneath it somehow. Awesome. Still, I was immediately starting to feel better about this project that I was and I’m glad I didn’t tap out after the first ,

I also brushed some of that high-quality gold dollar store craft paint onto the wheel hubs, once again in an effort to emulate the original G1 Stepper figure. It actually covered better than I thought it would and wasn’t a total nightmare. I would have probably attempted to give him those ridiculous flames on the hood and sides if I had a printer that could make decals, but I don’t so I ain’t. And I wasn’t about to attempt to paint those myself, especially on a glossy black primer surface.

Before I added clearcoat number two, I did give in and gave painting the side windows another shot. They came out…the way they came out. I also repainted the headlights and didn’t bother with the gold bumper that I didn’t bother masking off. I was well and truly over this project at that point and after adding yet another protective layer, I was happy enough with what I had and was content to move on to the next thing. But not before taking some final pictures.

For a final bonus, here is my custom bootleg Stepper/Ricochet side-by-side with the official release figure, the Generations Selects Richochet from 2019. I’m so glad Hasbro/Takara made a newish toy of this guy, even if it isn’t a proper Targetmaster like his original G1 figure. I like this weird, obscure character too much to care that the gun he came with doesn’t transform into a tiny Nebulon.