Well I'm late to the party but here's my Wasteland Gladiator. In general the figure has been a disappointment. Beyond all the inaccuracies and the small head with doubtful likeness, my shotgun is one of those that keeps popping open on its own, one of the leg brace straps broke just by touching it, the magnet of one of the belt bags suddenly released, and if you're not careful when unzipping your jacket, the zipper can come off completely. For a moment it can seem like the figure is going to collapse in your hands, and it's exasperating. However, I think that the body swapping is the key to start working with it and try to achieve something passable.
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So some things I've done are:
- Swap the body for a JX Toys S01 which offers a good overall result, as @Asta has shown. Out of curiosity I've also tried the ZC Toys S005 body. In case someone has wondered if it could work as an alternative to the Ganghood 2.0 or the JX Toys S01, I would say no. This body is nice and also cheaper than these two, but I've discarded it because the neck is wider and, together with the tiny head, it makes a horrible "bull's neck" effect. In addition, the skin tone doesn't math the headsculpt at all. Before swapping the body I would recommend to remove the leg brace. It may sound a bit risky, but it's not difficult and, once it's done, it will allow you to work more comfortably and quickly with the pants and boots. Basically, the leg brace is attached to the top of the boot with a strip of glue. I've heated the area with a hair dryer, and then I've gently pushed up along the glued area with the tip of a cutter, until the piece separated from the boot. A little metallic paint remained on the boot when the piece came off, but this can be easily fixed by cleaning or painting over it. I've left it like this, because you don't need to glue it down to pose the figure, and the piece can be manually snapped into place and holds up pretty well. In any case, it can be re-attached with superglue or, even better, with non-definitive adhesives such as double-sided tape or gluedots.
- Dye the shotgun holster, its straps and the knife sheath with "TRG Penetrating Dye". I've applied several layers until I get an acceptable result, but now the color is darker than the other straps and belts, although depending on the light it does not look totally black either. I'll probably apply some drybrushing to it at some point.
- Peel off and repositioning the holster straps. I've made a silly miscalculation that forced me to peel them off again, so now I have a holster with "battle damaged straps".
- Use a touched up padding shorts to try to make the pants fit better in the hip and thigh areas. Since the velcro on the pants barely stayed closed even before adding the padding, I've reinforced this closure on the inside with a horizontal strip of duct tape along the entire front.
- Add metallic mini-buttons on the belt bags, on top of the painted buttons.
Other pending things that I will do at some point are:
- Shape the lapels of the jacket.
- Change hands.
- Add all the accessories.
- Apply weathering in general.
- etc.
Thank you
@Asta for all the very helpful tests you have done with this figure, and the questions you've answered me.