Show Us Your Troops (Sideshow/Marmit/Medicom/etc.)!

[OutLander]

Less is definitely more.

Give me your address and I can make it happen.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

I don't have enough to get rid of mate.

 

[OutLander]

I don't have enough to get rid of mate.

Guess I'll just have to wait for your HT to come in then.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Put it this way, I'll be enjoying the pics for a.. while.

 

[ZE_501]

With Hot Toys releases looming in the future, it almost feels like this kind of customizing is becoming obsolete, but that remains to be seen.

I had some time this afternoon (first time in days) and re-visited Marmit Sandtrooper weathering.

In my opinion, the following steps are critical to achieve a good result:

1. Stippling. A dry or slightly damp sponge with pigment powders. Washes or brushing look too "muddy" when you actually want "grit".

2. Multiple layers. I've been working these on and off for months. Some layers were removed, others blended or added. It serves to age the armour, which has a cheap "waxy" look out of the box.

3. Texture. See above. Through use of Scotch Brite pads and very fine grit emery paper, the pigment has been ground in to a network of very fine scratches, all very, *very* fine, to the point where portions of the armour appear matte. This is a to-scale "sand-blasted" effect. It removes the "waxy" look and adds depth and the illusion of weight to the armour.

4. Belts and shoes: the shoes look too waxy and plastic. They could do with heavy abrasion and matte-ification via fine emery; but I didn't spend too much time as I will swap out the boots with parts from the incoming Hot Toys release. The belts are one-piece moulded with the torso armour. While the option is coming to switch out these portions, I found to sell the illusion of separation it helped to work pigment into the seam between the top of the belt and torso armour to separate the regions visually.

5. The eyes...not sculpted sharp enough. Makes them pop more to add weathering beneath the lower borders and also screen accurate.

6. Finally, don't forget to get the pauldrons dirty. Especially the bright orange of a squad leader; looks too "toy-like" if left untouched.

As usual, here are bad iPhone pictures to illustrate. I think those of you who've seen these before may notice the weathering has progressed, hard to say on-screen, but suffice to say they look more "heavy" and high-end with further care and attention. What hurt them the most previously was the look of paint merely sitting on waxy plastic; now in-hand the look and feel is closer to 1:1.

At some point I'll shoot them with the real camera and that may bring out the details better.

(For those of you waiting on snowtrooper mask patterns/instructions, I'm creating a correctly sized digital pattern for you today).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pixelpiper]

With Hot Toys releases looming in the future, it almost feels like this kind of customizing is becoming obsolete, but that remains to be seen.

Remains to be seen indeed. If we see Sandtroopers from HT, I'm not confident their weathering is going to be as good as some of the excellent work we've already seen here, yours included.

 

[Kodiak3d]

Those look great, ZE. It will be hard for any sort of mass-produced figure to match the kind of careful detail that goes in to many custom, one-of-a-kind figures.

 

[qbomb71]

Your sandies look great. Great weathering man.

 

[ZE_501]

Freshly swapped on to a Soldier Story S2 body.

As previously noted elsewhere, the SSC body is fine for crouch-and fire poses, cradling the weapon at certain angles....but the arms don't hang right and the shoulders are wide.

I *just* finished the swap so still making adjustments and tweaking, but the snowtrooper is greatly improved.

Required raising/padding the Soldier Story neck pin, swapping in Soldier Story wrist pins, and drilling the ankles/lower legs to accommodate the SSC ankle pins.

Also detached the shoulder armour from the shoulder straps to mount it directly on the sleeves.

I love the result, but I find it annoying that I pay the prices I do and get a poorly designed body/armature when the technology is well-developed and affordable enough to do much better.

It takes time and money to bring these figures to where they need to be. Maybe too much. As much as I derive some satisfaction from this, I have limited time and would rather they come out better right outta the box.

Anyway, end rant. The change is subtle but improves it by an order of magnitude, I think. Besides mobility it imparts the lanky look evident in promo photos and screen shots.

Stock body on left (should be obvious).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Chakaman]

Really nice upgrades, especially to the Snowtroopers. Good stuff my friend.

 

[Kodiak3d]

Looks awesome

 

[ZE_501]

Really nice upgrades, especially to the Snowtroopers. Good stuff my friend.

Thanks man! Now I have to body swap my other two. Not looking forward to that session. I'm too lazy for this hobby.

The new body looks badass just standing there. This mod is a must, IMO.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ZE_501]

Remains to be seen indeed. If we see Sandtroopers from HT, I'm not confident their weathering is going to be as good as some of the excellent work we've already seen here, yours included.

Those look great, ZE. It will be hard for any sort of mass-produced figure to match the kind of careful detail that goes in to many custom, one-of-a-kind figures.

Your sandies look great. Great weathering man.

Thanks, guys! I have more clean-up and detail work to do on these, but that's enough for today. Not 100% sure they'll stay in the permanent collection* but may as well get them to look their best in the meantime. Obsessive hand-crafted weathering will always have certain advantages, but that being said, I haven't seen what HT can do yet. They're hit or miss in general, but when they hit... ... whatever happens should be interesting.

*There are only a handful of items I know I'll keep for years.

 

[Chakaman]

Yes. The body swap with the shoulder bell mod really makes them look natural when they are just standing there. Nicely done.

 

[Pixelpiper]

I wouldn't swap all of them, the differing proportions and heights with the different bodies look really great together. Love the variety. But I suppose you could modify one of the other bodies to achieve the height difference and then futz differently as well.

 

[ZE_501]

I wouldn't swap all of them, the differing proportions and heights with the different bodies look really great together. Love the variety. But I suppose you could modify one of the other bodies to achieve the height difference and then futz differently as well.

I like the height and proportional differences too, but my main issue with the stock body is the inability of those arms to hang naturally. That being said, I'm staring at the stock body now and think cutting some material out of the torso should fix that.

Edit: On second thought, cutting through all that plastic looks like a major pain. Height modding a Soldier Story body is probably easier.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Your Snowies look great ZE_!

Did you trim the bottom of the face shields? Looks that way.

 

[ZE_501]

Your Snowies look great ZE_!

Did you trim the bottom of the face shields? Looks that way.

Thanks...had some free hours and the lady's away for the day.

The face shields are the same as when I first put them on. The only change I made was step back the weathering a touch, so they're whiter (although not pure white, they're still "dirty"). May be the camera angle or lens distortion.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

So.. you mean you modded them previously.. or not?

I LOVE the Snowies, but half the reason why I passed on these SSC versions, was the wonky headgear - i.e; bulbous crown, squinty eye lenses, & that wildly draping face cloth. All the stock ones I've seen don't look like yours.. am I missing something??

 

[qbomb71]

Looks like ZE replaced the face shields completely. The mod for this I remember being way back in the thread shortly after release.