Action Figure Customization – Blade Sisters (Final Faction Repaints)

Readers be warned, the pictures here are a little inconsistent for this one. I try to take at least one photo throughout each major stage in my customization process but I either accidentally deleted a several from my phone or they didn’t turn out and I forgot to take new ones. This was another one of those projects that was supposed to be a series of quick repaint that ended up being shuffled down my list of works-in-progress in favor of other projects until I got around to finishing it a few days ago, so I’m piecing this write-up together from memories that aren’t exactly fresh in my head.

But I digress. This project came about because I had three identical Final Faction Shift figures from the Dollar Tree in my bits bin and decided to give them a kunoichi/female ninja theme. I primed all three with Bulldog adhesion promoter before I fully mapped out what individual paint decos I wanted to give the figures. The first of the three Blade Sisters I decided on a night camouflage color scheme.

Here’s a pic of the starting figure side-by-side with the initial basecoat. I just used Citadel Abbadon Black and Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue.

I wanted to keep the kitbashing/scratching building to a minimum here so I gave each figure a mask I made from worbla scraps. For the Night Sister, I took a night vision goggles helmet from a Final Faction accessories pack (the Covert Ops one), trimmed off the helmet part, and superglued it to the top of her head. I dabbed some Citadel Mephiston Red onto the lenses.

After applying the two overlapping layers of camouflage, I blended it in with an all-over Nuln Oil wash. Here’s the overall list of paints I used on the Night Sister:

• Suit (main color) – Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue
• Hair/gloves/boots/mask/darkest camouflauge layer – Citadel Abbadon Black
• Light camoflauge layer – Vallejo Blue Green
• Belt details – Citadel Runefang Steel

After the wash dried and all the messy areas that I could see were touched up, I sprayed the figure with a protective clearcoat (matte finish) and set it aside to work on the other two.

I painted the second Blade Sister like Strider Hiryu (see the basecoat shot below). I want to note here that unlike the first figure, the second and third I fully primed in Rustoleum flat gray since I knew I would be working with lighter colors that would cover better over gray than it would the default black. Here’s the list of paints used for the Strider Sister:

• Hair: Citadel Dryad Bark
• Skin: Vallejo Flesh tone
• Suit (blue areas): Citadel Macragge Blue
• Mask, suit (red areas), dagger and leg straps: Citadel Mephiston Red
• Gloves and boots: Vallejo White
• Belt: Citadel Runefang Steel

At this stage, I was willing to try my hand at painting human eyes for the first time (instead of my usual approach to just painting them completely red or completely yellow). After taking some hints from this youtube tutorial, I painted the eyes/socket black to give the impression of eyelashes, then painted the white of the eyes over that.

Oh and I also painted the third figure to look like Wolverine. If I took any pics during that whole process, then I unfortunately can’t find them anywhere. But we'll get back to her...

To finish off the eyes, I drew the pupils with a fine-tipped Prismacolor illustration marker and a slightly thicker marker from that same set to draw the eyebrows. That was so much easier than actually trying to paint them in. That’s an incredibly useful hack for someone like me who is still very much working on his brush control. I wasn’t on easy street quite yet, however, and ultimately decided to sculpt the Strider Sister some bangs out of Green Stuff to cover up her left eye. I just couldn’t get that one to come out right.

Once the eyes were out of the way, I cleaned up all the messy lines, gave the figures another coat where necessary, and sprayed them with a matte finish protective clearcoat. Before I forget, here’s the paints I used for the Wolverine Sister:

• Yellows: Reaper Candlelight Yellow and Citadel Yriel Yellow (50/50 mix)
• Blues: Citadel Macragge Blue
• Belt: Citadel Mephiston Red
• Straps, mask, hair: Citadel Abbadon Black
• Skin: Vallejo Fleshtone (first layer) and Citadel Kislev Flesh (second layer)

With all three Blade Sisters now painted, all I needed to do now was to figure out a plan for what weapons to include. I know I wanted to give each of them their own unique bladed weapons. For the Night Sister, I took two oversized Final Faction knives (again taken from the various accessory packs sold alongside the figures) and painted their handles Abbadon Black. The blades themselves I painted first with a coat of Leadbelcher and then Runefang Steel before spraying them with a glossy clearcoat.

For the Strider Sister, I wanted to make something reminiscent of Strider Hiryu’s iconic Cypher weapon even though it would probably look awkward in the figure’s hand due to the limited articulation and the way the hands are sculpted. Still, I took one of the swords that came with the Shift figure and glued it to a pistol grip that I trimmed off another Final Faction weapon and glued it to sword’s handle.

I originally wanted to give the Wolverine Sister wrist-mounted katar blades but had second thoughts since it would be too involved for what is just supposed to be a quickie practice project. Instead I opted for an energy sword that I made by pouring fluorescent green epoxy resin left over from a recent crafting experiment (more on that in a future article) into a Blue Stuff mold I had already made in an attempt to copy a pair of Snake Eyes swords.

Once the energy sword was ready to come out of the mold, I trimmed off the flashing and primed both accessories with Bulldog. For the guards and handles, I applied some Vallejo Gunmetal and dry brushed on a little Citadel Dryad Bark. For the Cypher’s blade, I gave it a first pass with Gunmetal and then a light coat of Runefang Steel. To make the energy sword’s resin blade a touch more vibrant, I went over it was some Citadel Tesseract Glow technical paint. For the protective clearcoat, I went with another glossy finish like I did with the Night Sister's knives.

With their blades in hand, I can finally declare the Blade Sisters complete. My aim here was to play around with different paint schemes and get some extra practice, not just with the brush but dealing with filling in eyes as well. Since I don’t have any reference photos for a proper before and after, I will instead leave you with a group shot of the finished product.