Whenever I do customizations/kitbashes on bootleg action
figures, I’m not thinking about it in terms of creating a museum-quality piece
or even something I would deem saleable on a site like Etsy. Rather, I consider
it as a kind of doodling, only instead of a pad and pencil, I’m doodling with
cheap toy parts, bits of plastic and spare model pieces, and my ever-growing
collection of hobby paints.
Though I will say that I'm doodling with a purpose
as I always have some kind of a plan or vision in mind (though some visions
more clear than others) and with each project in my Fireteam X series, I set
out to learn at least something new or try out a different type of paint or
material or technique that I didn’t use for any of the previous builds. That
way, I at least feel like I’m getting marginally better with every successive
project (even if the final product doesn’t always reflect this).
Another
thing I love about working with cheapo bootleg action figure is that it feels
like I’m recycling. Case in point, let’s all take a second to appreciate the original face on the
bootleg toy soldier that would eventually become Recon X. I wasn’t sure how I
could improve on what is already perfection, but I was up for the challenge.
Like the previous Fireteam X builds, I would replace the toy
soldier’s limbs with spare parts from a bag of mix-and-match Iron Man figures
and glue on additional details, but for this figure I decided to try something
a slightly different. Instead of taking the figure apart, slotting in the Iron
Man arms and adding thermoplastic molding to the joints to keep them snug
inside the torso, I would cut the default limb as well as the Iron Man limb in
half and glue it onto the stump to give the cybernetic limb a more organic
half-flesh, half-machine appearance. I figured that this would be a better
approach due to how much smaller and more narrow this figure was compared to
the base body I used for Commando X and Ranger X.
I
also dry-fitted a spare model bit over one of the eyes as sort a tactical visor
(or like a Dragonball Z scouter, I guess). You’ll see in subsequent pictures that I
would gradually trim the piece down and dremel it out more so that it looked
less chunky before I eventually committed to gluing it down.
Not satisfied with just replacing the arm, I also sawed the
leg off at the knee (or near enough) using my hobby saw. Rather than using an
Iron Man leg, I found something I thought would look even more visually dynamic:
a leg from a broken Star Wars Battle Droid figure (you know, the “Roger, roger”
guys from the prequels) that I found buried in my bits bag. I would also reuse
the droid’s backpack for this figure after snipping off the antenna (though I think
I glued it onto Recon X upside down because I thought it fit the figure
better).
At
the time I kitbashed this figure, I was still using E6000 so I had to set the
figure up to where it would dry without the droid leg falling off the stump. It
was a little tricky and in retrospect, I’m glad I decided to take the plunge
and invest just a little bit more into acquiring some proper hobby glue and
accelerator (see my Ninja Commando Kitbash article).
I
added a few more greeblies, taking some leftover parts from my Armored Puppet
Ryuen model kit (and yes, if you’ve been keeping up with my previous articles,
I still have a lot of those despite using several in almost all of my
kitbashing projects) and adding them to the arm and leg to fill in some gaps and change up the figure's silhouette that much more.
Another new thing I wanted to try out with this build was to
make him a hood using Army Painter brand Green Stuff modeling putty. I started
off by making a two-part mold of a hood accessory that went to a GI Joe Zartan
figure using Oyumaru Blue Stuff and stuffed the finished mold with Green Stuff
and let it set for about an hour or two, knowing that it wouldn’t fully harden
inside of the mold. That way, I still would have the general shape of the hood
when I took it out of the mold but still have enough malleability to work with
it and fit the Green Stuff to the contours of the figure. I suppose I could have just skipped the step where I made a Blue Stuff mold of an existing action figure accessory and tried to sculpt a hood from scratch but I'm glad I decided against it since I'm still new to sculpting.
I tried to take a piece of plastic with a cloth texture to
it (a plastic cloak from a Star Wars figure) and press it up against the hood
to make it look like folds and wrinkles in the material, but by then, the Green
Stuff had already begun to solidify a bit too much to make the kind of
impression I’d hoped for. But I was able to texture the surface somewhat.
Still, I think this might be a viable technique going forward with other
projects and will hopefully help me preserve some of my more limited greeblies
(like the action figure hoods) though I will do a few things differently next
time I work with Green Stuff. Namely, I’m going to let it sit out for the
recommended 30 minutes (not that it said to do this on the packaging mind you,
it’s something I picked up watching youtube videos) so that it isn’t as sticky
when I try to shape it. I’m also going to try to add textures to the Green
Stuff while it’s still malleable and not when it’s already halfway cured.
When I was satisfied with the kitbashing stage, I primed it
in Rustoleum flat gray primer and after allowing it a day or two to dry, I
dunked the figure in baking soda to reduce stickiness from the primer reacting
with the cheap plastic and dusted it off with compressed air. Again, nothing we
haven’t seen in previous builds but still, an important step nonetheless. I
will say this about the priming stage with these bootleg action figure
projects. Not only is it gratifying to see how priming it in a single color
ties all the disparate bits and bobs glued to the figure into one cohesive
vision, but it also reveals some nice details that were already molded into the
figure and were otherwise hidden by the sweatshop paint job.
Going forward, I do think I’m going to use some acetone/nail polish remover and
manually strip the paint from the faces prior to priming. Like with all these
bootleg toy soldiers, the paint on the face just keeps flaking off along with
the plastic throughout the painting stages (stopping only after I apply a
protective clear coat over the final piece). I think that would help a lot in
making the finished faces look better.
The
basecoat would come next. Since I had just gotten a pot of Citadel Death World
Green in the mail and was eager to try it out, I decided that I would make it
the primary color in the deco. But here’s my truncated list of paints used
here:
- Uniform and hood - Citadel Death World Green
- Straps, boots, bandanna, and other small details – Citadel Abbadon Black
- Backpack – Citadel Dryad Bark
- Knee joint and shoulder piece (as well as the ammo shells on his chest) - Citadel Runelord Brass
- Cybernetic arm and leg – Citadel Runefang Steel
- Visor/Eyepiece – Citadel Mephiston Red
- Skin - Citadel Kislev Flesh
I did have to stop the basecoating process before I was completely finished since the primer
kept rubbing off the cybernetic arm and leg as well as the backpack due to them
being made from a softer plastic than the rest of the figure. Like with the
soft rubber parts in my Ninja Commando kitbash, I needed to prime the arm, leg,
and backpack with Angelus acrylic leather primer and come back to it in a few
days. But once the Angelus cured, the cybernetic arm, leg, and droid backpack were
able to be painted without any further issues.
Before
adding any washes, I wanted to add a few more details to the basecoat. Initially,
I wanted to go with a kind of Vietnam-era tiger stripe camo pattern for the
uniform and hood but I didn’t get too detailed with it. I mostly just stuck to
my overlapping standard camo pattern consisting of lines, lines with another
line through it, blobs and dots with considerably fewer blobs and dots and more
angular lines. I also wanted to give warpaint a shot, aiming for a kind of “claw
mark” pattern reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando (I have a John Matrix
NECA figure for reference).
After
that layer was done, it was time to add my washes and there were a few new ones
that I wanted to try out on this figure. Namely the Vallejo Flesh Wash I would
use on the skin and the Citadel Athonian Camoshade for the camouflage. It's hard to tell from the pictures (and while I was applying the wash) but the Camoshade really made the camouflage pop like never before. And since camouflague seems to work its way into almost all of my builds so far, it's a safe bet that I'll definitely be using it again.
Here’s
the list of paints and washes I used for this layer:
- Lighter camo pattern - Citadel
Death World Green and possibly Tesseract Glow (can’t quite remember).
- Darker
camo pattern – Citadel Abbadon Black mixed with a drop of Death World Green.
- Facepaint
– Citadel Dryad Bark
- Skin
- Vallejo Flesh Wash
- Uniform and hood - Athonian Camoshade
I
did some dry brushing and touch-ups on the non-camouflage areas (mostly dry
brushing over the limbs , backpack, and the details on the straps with Runefang
Steel and Runelord Brass), trying to tidy up the face and gloves/boots as best
I could. Unsatisfied with how the E6000 glue seemed to clump up and give the
area where the arm and leg meet their respective stumps a melty look, I figured
I would try to pass it off as rust and used some Vallejo Dark Rust wash over
the areas to hopefully blend them in a little bit more.
Afterwards,
I sprayed the figure with a protective clear coat (still using the glossy
Krylon Crystal Clear) and let it dry.
And
now, with the third member of Fireteam X in the bag, I posed him side-by-side
with my previous two projects in the series.
This was another fun project where
I got to try out several new techniques and materials, making each new entry in
this series a valuable learning experience. There is so much to learn with
action figure customization and miniature painting and if you’re just starting
out like I am, there’s a lot that can be said for not trying to figure out
everything at once. Instead, I recommend trying just one or two new things with
each successive project so that the knowledge you pick up in the process will
keep compounding over time as you keep building on top of what you already
know.
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