Action Figure Customization – Desert Planet Mercenaries (Final Faction Customs)

Dollar Tree’s Final Faction action figures are only a dollar (or $1.25 or whatever they raise their prices to if you're reading this in the future) and make for excellent customization fodder, so it stands to reason that I still have quite a few of them in my bits bin. This project is a follow-up to my previous action figure customization project involving Final Faction figures, this time going for a military science fiction theme involving mercenaries on a desert planet. Hence the name.

This project is one that I was originally going to post as individual entries, but I ultimately held off on doing the write-up for the first figure until I finished the second one. So lucky you, here’s a Final Faction customs two-in-one. The first one, who I’m tentatively calling the Desert Planet Mercenary Contractor, was already made from parts leftover from my Corporate Security Android build.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s Steel’s head, torso, and right arm, Steadfast’s left arm, and Ruck’s legs. The helmet and mask are from Marauder Inc, who I bought a bunch of random 3/4” weapons and accessories from a while back. I glued the mask part to the helmet and filled in the attachment hole with Milliput before gluing it to the head.

After a light sanding and a soak in some warm water and dish soap, I dried the figure off and primed it with Bulldog adhesion promoter. Up next was the basecoat and unfortunately, I painted this figure all the way back in November and I’m struggling to remember exactly what paints I used in the early stages (and once again, the idea of taking down any notes slipped my mind). But I’m going to take a guess:

• Uniform and helmet - Vallejo Old Wood possibly mixed with Citadel Krieg Khaki and/or Vallejo White.
• Everything else – Vallejo Flat Earth

Taking inspiration from a youtube video, I tried out a new way of applying camouflage. Instead of painting my usual overlapping blob shapes, I used the bristles of an old beater brush to dab or stipple on the different camo layers and hopefully create a quick and dirty digital camouflage effect. This was also my first time taking a stab at a desert camouflage color scheme, so there was quite a bit of experimentation going on with this build. Whenever I paint on camouflage, I always try to start with the lightest layer since again, camo layers need to overlap and it’s often a pain to get lighter layer to cover the darker one. The paints I used here:

• First camo layer – Reaper Desert Sand (again, possibly mixed with a little Krieg Khaki).
• Second layer – Citadel Dryad Bark

Though I had my doubts about the stippling method at first, I thought the end results came out looking really cool.

After starting with the figure’s legs, I worked my way up to the arms and then the helmet, keeping the camouflage contained to the cloth-looking parts of the figure’s uniform while leaving the armored parts alone for the time being. I also added some intermittent dabs of Vallejo black and white paint to add some more contrast and create the “chocolate chips” effect that was commonly seen on a lot of Gulf War-era desert camouflage uniforms.

Once the camouflage was in place, I gave the figure a top-to-bottom wash using Citadel Agrax Earthshade to blend in the different camouflage layers add shading to all the recesses. I thought it was especially cool how it pooled between the armor plates and that grille-like texture on the mask.

Using my Army Painter brand dry brush and mostly Krieg Khaki (though I might have also brushed on some Reaper Desert Sand in some of the lighter areas), I went over the raised armor pieces to bring those out more and lightly brushed the tops of the various belts and pouches. I thought this gave the piece a more weather-beaten look, as if the Contractor had trudged his way through his fair share of howling sandstorms.

When I was all done dry-brushing, I sprayed the figure with a matte finish protective clearcoat and set it aside until I was ready to make him a teammate.

I eventually decided to give the Contractor a robot partner using a Final Faction A.C.R.M. (that’s Augmented Combat Rescue Mech) figure as a base. I’d already started fully up the accessory ports with leftover Green Stuff and Milliput when I snapped the picture.

When all the prep-work was complete and the hole-fillers had fully cured and been sanded down, I started kitbashing the figure. I do so by gluing on all manner of weapons and other random bits from various Star Wars and Final Faction figures that I had set aside for just such an occasion. I also cut up some plastic cable-ties for additional “vents” to cover up some of the holes, added some scrap wire for cables, and gave him a backpack that had originally come attached to a generic toy APC as one of those saddle-bags you sometimes see hanging off the sides (I still plan on customizing that APC at some point). In my head-canon, the Contractor travels light when he’s traversing the dunes because he makes this big robot carry all of his stuff for him like a heavily weaponized pack-mule.

The head took a little bit more effort to trick out because I didn’t like the look of the default head and wanted to make it something radically different. So, prior to attaching the backpack (which blocked the holes for the screws that held the figure together), I removed the head and sawed off the top of it. I glued on part of a completely different head, one that I should probably explain a bit more about. A while back (for a completely different project), I made some Oyumaru/Blue Stuff molds of various action figure heads culled from my personal collection, one of which was that of an Ex-NEVEC Trooper from Toyark’s line of figures based on the Lost Planet games. I still had that mold handy when I had some epoxy resin left over from a crafting experiment, so I poured some of it into the mold and that’s where the other half of this robot’s head came from. Not that you could tell even if you’re a big Lost Planet fan, because I glued a bunch of rhinestone stickers to it (as well as the clasp from that aforementioned cable tie).

I would later pry the rhinestones off the left side of the head because I wanted to go for a more asymmetrical (and less insectoid) appearance. But for all intents and purposes, the kitbashing stage for the desert planet Combat Mech was complete.

While I wanted the Desert Planet Mercenaries color schemes to more or less match, I’d forgotten what color I originally basecoated the Contractor and opted to try out the new bottle of Vallejo English Uniform I’d just received in the mail since it seemed like a good enough candidate for a desert camouflage midtone though in retrospect, it was a bit too dark and brown. I should have either mixed it with some white or Desert Sand or khaki). I also tried out the stippling method I used for the backpack, confirming my suspicion that that technique wouldn’t really work on a larger figure (or at least not in this instance).

Here’s what I used for the basecoat:

• Main color – Vallejo English Uniform
• Metallic surfaces – Vallejo Gunmetal Grey, Vallejo Black
• Main optical sensor/camera lens – Citadel Averland Sunset (which I would later paint over in favor of Citadel Mephiston Red with a Citadel Runefang Steel outline)

Aside from the colors, I was kind of at a loss for what to do for the camouflage pattern and where I should put it. So I decided just to paint it in blob shapes and put it everywhere, starting with the light layer (Reaper Desert Sand) then overlapping it with the darker layer (Citadel Dryad Bark). It turned out a lot better than I’d expected, considering I’d just free-balled the entire thing. But I suppose that’s the key to making decent-looking camouflage: don’t overthink it and you’ll be fine.

This isn’t pictured below, but I applied an all-over wash using Citadel Athonian Camoshade to tie it all together. I’d initially used Agrax Earthshade like I did with the previous figure, but it completely overpowered the lighter layer. So I gave the Desert Sand camo blobs another coat to bring them back to the surface and went back over the camouflaged areas with my Athonian Camoshade wash. This gave me the effect I’d wanted and brought out the automatic highlights that a good camouflage pattern lends to a model.

It’s difficult to tell in the final piece, but some Vallejo Dark Rust wash was brushed over the metallic bits, particularly the vents, hands, and the mechanical surfaces between the elbows and knees.

During the dry-brushing stage, I decided to give the Combat Mech an anime-style antenna as a kind of throwback to Patlabor or SDF Macross. I found a tiny Star Wars blaster, cut off the handle and trigger guard, painted it with black Vallejo brush-on primer, and superglued it to the side of his head where I’d taken off the rhinestones. I dry brushed it and the tops/sides of the metallic surfaces with a small amount of Citadel Runefang Steel and did likewise with the other raised surfaces using Krieg Khaki. It was here that I also touched up the wires on his arms, painting them a solid black.

After a few more weathering passes with my dry brush, alternating between Krieg Khaki and various metallics, I deemed the Desert Planet Mercenaries Combat Mech ready for its protective clearcoat. Like his human partner, I used a matte finish acrylic sealant but for some reason, it still gave off a shiny, glossy effect. I don’t think it’s bad or anything, just a bit odd.

Before wrapping up the Desert Planet Mercenaries project (or at least this initial wave), I decided that the Contractor needed a gun. Since it’s a 5-POA figure and all of my rifles would look weird in his hands, I selected this futuristic handgun which (like most of the parts for this build) came in a Final Faction accessories pack. I painted it with a black brush-on primer, painted the handle Dryad Bark, and tried to give it the same digital camostippling that I used for the Contactor. Ultimately, it made the pistol look beat-up and rusty rather than camouflaged but in a way, that worked out just as well.

With that done, I was finally ready to declare the project complete. Here are both Desert Planet Mercenaries side-by-side:

And lest we forget the before and after pictures: