Action Figure Customization – Corporate Security Android

 You could probably consider this one another quickie since it was a relatively simple kitbash with an even simpler paint job. The objective here was to take three one dollar Final Faction action figures from the Dollar Tree and Frankenstein them together into what I hope is at least a $3.50 action figure. I wanted to go for a cyberpunk concept here and figured that I had all the pieces I needed to make what I imagined (halfway through the build) to be like a kind of security android for some oppressive mega-corporation.

Here’s what I started with: Final Faction’s Steadfast, Steel, and Ruck. I knew I wanted to keep Steadfast’s torso/vest and robot arm, but how I would arrange the other pieces would take a bit of experimentation.

One of the things that make the Dollar Tree’s Final Faction line a dream for beginner customizers like me is not only their $1 price point, but also the fact that they come apart incredibly easy. All you have to do is remove a screw or two from the back. If only all the figures I want to kitbash could be disassembled with this little effort.

I ultimately went with the aforementioned Steadfast torso and robot arm with Ruck’s head and Steel’s legs and left arm. Only problem was, Steadfast’s head peg was a good sight longer than Ruck’s and Ruck wouldn’t quite fit in Steadfast’s neck hole. At first I sawed Steadfast’s head off his peg and did likewise for Ruck, placing Ruck’s head on Steadfast’s neck peg. But that didn’t quite work either so I made the tough choice to sacrifice the head rotation articulation and just glued Ruck’s head to the torso and kept the ball rolling.

Here he is all assembled. Everything else fit in the torso piece without too much trouble, though I did have to dremel down the crotch because it stuck out too far beyond the legs. And just for fun, I took the excess parts that would fit into Steel’s torso (Steel’s head and right arm with Ruck’s legs and Steadfast’s left arm) and put them together before dumping everything else into the bits bin from whence it came. Not sure what, if anything, I’ll do with the “bonus” Final Faction kitbash figure but I’m sure something will come to mind eventually.

But for now, the star of the show needed to be prepped for painting. So I gave it a light sanding, scrubbed it with warm water and dish soap, and primed it with Bulldog Adhesion Promoter.

Halfway through the basecoating process, I noticed that I forgot about the screw holes and accessory ports on the figure’s back and arm. I filled those in with Milliput and continued painting the first layer. Oops.

Speaking of the basecoat, here are the paints I used:

• Vest/torso, boots, glove, and the band on his head-gear: Citadel Abbadon Black
• Robot arm and face bionics, belt buckle: Citadel Runefang Steel
• Shirt sleeve (left arm): Citadel Mechanicus Standard Gray with a touch of Abbadon Black
• Hair: Citadel Dryad Bark
• Skin tone (left arm and in certain areas of the face): Citadel Reikland Flesh Shade
• Pants: Citadel Macragge Blue mixed first with Averland Sunset, then mixed with Vallejo White.

For the pants, I attempted to mix my own khaki color by first mixing Citadel Macragge Blue with Averland Sunset (Orange) to make a brown and then mixed in some Vallejo White and while the end result doesn’t really look like any pair of khaki pants that I own (it’s more of an olive drab in my opinion, but I’m admittedly not the best judge of these things), I went with it regardless.

After the basecoat, I applied a Citadel Nuln oil wash, targeting the bionic arm and the silver parts on the face in particular. I also added an Agrax Earthshade wash to the pants and boots as well as a Vallejo Flesh wash to the skin.

Once the wash was dry, I touched up the figure and dry brushed on some more Runefang Steel over the headgear and the robot arm. I also did a light dry-brushing of Reikland Flesh shade over the skin to try to blend those in just a bit more. I went a bit lighter on his hair too, but I can’t quite remember what I used. It was either Vallejo Flat Earth or Vallejo Chocolate Brown or maybe I just mixed some Dryad Bark (the base color) with a couple drops of Vallejo White. I’m sure any one of these would yield similar enough results.

After that, I picked out a hefty hand-cannon for him to carry (I believe it came in one of the Final Faction accessory packs, maybe the Special Ops one). Since the gun was already black, I dry brushed on some silver (Citadel Leadbelcher, I think) and painted the handle Dryad Bark. The figure was now ready for its protective clear coat and like my last two projects, I decided to go with the acrylic flat matte sealant rather than the Krylon Crystal Clear seen in previous customs.

And just like that, there’s another customization project under my belt. This was a quick one but still a lot of fun to make. I will say that working with more articulated figures for my more ambitious action figure customs, I have a newfound appreciation for the simple five POA figures like Final Faction. No ball joints to perform microsurgery on and no ever-present fear of paint rub. I definitely plan to do more with limited articulation, retro-style figures.