STAR WARS Sandtrooper kitbash/custom (updated with Part III, January 2022)

Ovy wrote:I guess those were the troopers you were looking for. As the Stryker mentioned, I also think the helmet could need a little bit of sand, at least. I mean there are sandstorms and grubby trooper hands to look out for. But better don't listen to me when it comes to weathering troopers. Otherwise I think it's perfect.

And it's a real science! I knew there were some differences in scale, but I learned about the different helmet and plate design only when I had the Bandai those 1/12 guys standing beside each other . It's funny how  tiny details like that dislocated rubberband on the forehead became canon/history/therealthing/thetruthandonlythetruth like those background characters in the Cantina or in Jabbas Palace/barge developed a life on their own. Or the mole on Ewan McGregors forehead. One might think this 'Space Wars' or how it is called became quite popular.

Ironic also how old Wehrmacht equipment was reused for Star Wars...AGAIN!

Thank you very much. Perhaps I will revisit the amount of weathering/dusting. Still waiting on the new ammo pouches that need to be repainted/dyed. The dislocated browband is indeed beyond me -- and it is only the case with one sandtrooper, but they decided to apply it to their figure; at least if it were adjustable (Roger would say like the 1/6 Bandai stormtroopers', but they were not really meant to be adjustable and it depends on the fit). What's this about Ewan McGregor's mole?

As for the reuse of real life (and WW2) equipment, I suppose it is the conjunction of Lucas' desire for realistic weaponry and what was available to the costumers at Elstree, etc.

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:Good job.  Nice and subtle weathering of the armor in just the right places

Thank you very much. Glad you liked it!

Part II (update)

Here is the updated sandtrooper, which I was able to complete yesterday. Another HT part -- the correct chest/back armor with smooth connecting straps; swapped out the Marmit plastic pouches for repainted and modified German WW2 ones; added some additional weathering to chest armor and helmet; repainted Marmit pauldron black to make it look smaller (don't think that really worked) and get some variety (see below).



And side views:



I picked up an incomplete loose HT Sandtrooper and completed it a bit more, so here you can see the two together. The pauldrons and helmets are quite different if you look carefully, though in the latter instance, part of the problem is the use of a stunt vs hero helmet (besides the differences between companies and films for the source material) and the curved raised brow on the HT helmet. Comparing both helmets to the film, although HT fixed the spatial proportion above and below the brow for its sandtrooper (it was incorrect on their original ANH stormtrooper and space trooper), the helmet remained a little too wide and too snouty (is that a word?); the HT Rogue One helmet I used on the custom is more correct to its own movie, and, though inexact for ANH sandtroopers (in part because of the relatively low brow and the use of hero-type bulbous lenses that look larger -- the other differences I was able to fix), a bit more accurate as to proportions even for an ANH stormtrooper/sandtrooper.



Here are some images trying to show off the details a little more clearly (the added weathering on the helmet, in particular, is much easier to see in hand than on the photos, for some reason; I based it on the recently released Avonos sandtrooper helmet) :







Hope you liked it.

Looks great. I have to admit the differences between the helmets is really noticeable in your pics, and it’s really the first time I was able to see what people are generally talking about.

Stryker2011 wrote:Looks great. I have to admit the differences between the helmets is really noticeable in your pics, and it’s really the first time I was able to see what people are generally talking about.

Hah yes I feel the same way!

The decent weathering did a lot, I think they can be described as perfect now.

Stryker2011 wrote:Looks great. I have to admit the differences between the helmets is really noticeable in your pics, and it’s really the first time I was able to see what people are generally talking about.

Yes, and especially from this angle (which portrays the brow and nose/mouth areas and the differences between them very clearly). Again, part of the issue is the slight helmet redesign between movies, but also the extent to which HT was actually accurate or not in reproducing what was on screen (it has been improving over time). The helmet discussion, however, has also been about size, proportions, and symmetry. Paul and I did comparisons between the proportions of our sixth-scale helmets and his Shepperton Studios helmet and found the Rogue One sixth-scale helmet to be the closest to both the original trilogy helmets and to its own film. The symmetry issue is common to sixth-scale representations across the board. I recently read that although the helmet was "cleaned up" for Rogue One with computer design, they supposedly left some of the asymmetry in it -- though it is now even less noticeable and, once again, not carried over into sixth-scale.

Ovy wrote:The decent weathering did a lot, I think they can be described as perfect now.

Thank you. I'm glad I dared do it, as I agree -- and it looks even better in hand. It was helpful looking at the Anovos helmet, although I made the weathering more beige/brown to be consistent with the weathering on the armor.

These look even better than before -- great work, I'm impressed!

And the photos are gorgeous...definitely merits being your new avatar.

Thank you very much, on both counts.
Guess what is about to arrive: the HT ROTJ Stormtrooper. So more content along these lines coming up soon.

GubernatorFan wrote:Thank you very much, on both counts.
Guess what is about to arrive: the HT ROTJ Stormtrooper. So more content along these lines coming up soon.

Mine should be shipping out tomorrow. Ordered thru Timewalker; received an email earlier asking if I cared that the HT shipper and box art had been damaged (seems the brain-dead idiots at Sideshow sent them a handful of figures separately and all of the boxes were damaged — since those cheap dicks don’t double box — and they normally send them in a large box altogether). TW had to go through all the boxes to make sure the contents were undamaged. Since I’m not a box collector, I told them it was okay to send. I hope, however, they are able to get replacements for any of the others — that’s just bad form. Whoever’s in charge of that at Sideshow should be fired.

Stryker2011 wrote:Mine should be shipping out tomorrow. Ordered thru Timewalker; received an email earlier asking if I cared that the HT shipper and box art had been damaged (seems the brain-dead idiots at Sideshow sent them a handful of figures separately and all of the boxes were damaged — since those cheap dicks don’t double box — and they normally send them in a large box altogether). TW had to go through all the boxes to make sure the contents were undamaged. Since I’m not a box collector, I told them it was okay to send. I hope, however, they are able to get replacements for any of the others — that’s just bad form. Whoever’s in charge of that at Sideshow should be fired.

Hmmm, that is unfortunate, although like you I'm not too worried about the boxes themselves, as long as the figures are ok. I ordered through Timewalker too, but haven't received this notice or a shipment notification. Do all US stores get them via Sideshow?

GubernatorFan wrote:

Stryker2011 wrote:Mine should be shipping out tomorrow. Ordered thru Timewalker; received an email earlier asking if I cared that the HT shipper and box art had been damaged (seems the brain-dead idiots at Sideshow sent them a handful of figures separately and all of the boxes were damaged — since those cheap dicks don’t double box — and they normally send them in a large box altogether). TW had to go through all the boxes to make sure the contents were undamaged. Since I’m not a box collector, I told them it was okay to send. I hope, however, they are able to get replacements for any of the others — that’s just bad form. Whoever’s in charge of that at Sideshow should be fired.

Hmmm, that is unfortunate, although like you I'm not too worried about the boxes themselves, as long as the figures are ok. I ordered through Timewalker too, but haven't received this notice or a shipment notification. Do all US stores get them via Sideshow?

Yep. They are the N. America distributor.

Stryker2011 wrote:Yep. They are the N. America distributor.

I thought that might be the case, although I don't see why companies would not get them directly from China the way we do sometimes. Toy Anxiety and Monkey Depot have already parted out the sets, so of course I picked up a couple of pieces here and there, but still waiting for the actual sets. While I prefer the classic ANH look, this might be the second time HT actually got the Stormtroopers right (the first time was the Rogue One version) -- unless you also count Sandtroopers (as above) -- though not quite (I keep looking at the proportions).

Part III "New Friends"













Famed for their professional, yet personable behavior, the guys encounter a stranger. After some good-natured fraternizing and due caution diffusing a potentially fatal misunderstanding, they have made friends, while respecting cultural boundaries on both sides!

Cool figs!
Glad to see the Sand Troopers not slaughtering on sight for a change! I always figured that, under the imposing armor, a lot of 'em were pretty decent guys.

Years ago I was considering attempting a photo-story using 3-3/4 inch sand troopers. I thought the Storm Troopers didn't get a fair shake in pop culture, what with all the jokes about their lousy shooting and general incompetence. Remember, Obi Wan, in the original movie, held them in fairly high regard for their professionalism and competence, commenting on it in regard to the way they disabled the Jawa's sand crawler. I thought a storyline following the perils faced by sand troopers and storm troopers in which they were not treated like throwaway cannon fodder would be kind of interesting.

The small-scale story never happened. It would be much more interesting to attempt something with highly detailed 1/6 figures - but I know you have put a lot of time and effort and research in to customizing your trooper figs to get them to look this good.

So I appreciate you showing us these "day in the life of an Empire trooper" vignettes. They're pretty fun!

Nice bashes! Two leaders is going to cause problems... that poor enlisted guy is going to be confused as hell! ;-)

davidd wrote:Cool figs!
Glad to see the Sand Troopers not slaughtering on sight for a change! I always figured that, under the imposing armor, a lot of 'em were pretty decent guys.

Years ago I was considering attempting a photo-story using 3-3/4 inch sand troopers. I thought the Storm Troopers didn't get a fair shake in pop culture, what with all the jokes about their lousy shooting and general incompetence. Remember, Obi Wan, in the original movie, held them in fairly high regard for their professionalism and competence, commenting on it in regard to the way they disabled the Jawa's sand crawler. I thought a storyline following the perils faced by sand troopers and storm troopers in which they were not treated like throwaway cannon fodder would be kind of interesting.

The small-scale story never happened. It would be much more interesting to attempt something with highly detailed 1/6 figures - but I know you have put a lot of time and effort and research in to customizing your trooper figs to get them to look this good.

So I appreciate you showing us these "day in the life of an Empire trooper" vignettes. They're pretty fun!

Thank you very much Dave. I feel the same way, in fact (in part because I'm a bit of a contrarian) I suspect a lot of this is a combination of Rebel propaganda and somewhat sloppy (Bad guys are so ominous, yet bad guys can't shoot) narrative development. Perhaps we have talked about this already (sorry, my memory is not what it was), but have you seen the Star Wars Cops spoof? I consider it canon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HO70-Rk3jE

Would have been great to see your planned classic scale figures story; I suppose it's never too late, right? For the longest time all my Star Wars collection was in that scale, and only relatively recently did I venture into sixth and then twelfth scale. Never did much in the way of stories with them (apart from play when I was a kid), though I did put together some movie scene reenactments from the Death Star. A little bit of that came in handy for my old Tarkin review on the old site: https://www.onesixthwarriors.com/threads/new-hot-toys-star-wars-tarkin-mini-review.859508/

shovelchop81 wrote:Nice bashes! Two leaders is going to cause problems... that poor enlisted guy is going to be confused as hell! ;-)

Thank you very much (though in most cases bashing was minimal)! Yes, actually I was wondering about that (pecking order). To be totally honest, at this point I've forgotten what color pauldron stands for what rank. That, and I have actually picked up a white and I think red pauldron too, and one of them is going to replace one of the orange ones; just haven't gotten around to it. Can you remind me the pecking order in terms of pauldron colors (Original Trilogy only, please)?

Can you remind me the pecking order in terms of pauldron colors (Original Trilogy only, please)? wrote:

Sure! Orange is captain/leader, white is sergeant, black is enlisted, red is scorch/flametrooper, yellow is artillery. I think there's a grey one too that might be lieutenant?

shovelchop81 wrote:Sure! Orange is captain/leader, white is sergeant, black is enlisted, red is scorch/flametrooper, yellow is artillery. I think there's a grey one too that might be lieutenant?

Thank you. So, for my purposes, I'm going to leave the Hot Toys sandtrooper (raised brow -- hate that, but I suppose it was an effort to be movie accurate) with the orange pauldron on, and give the other orange-pauldroned trooper a white pauldron instead. Poor guy in black pauldron, lowest on the totem pole...

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:Sure! Orange is captain/leader, white is sergeant, black is enlisted, red is scorch/flametrooper, yellow is artillery. I think there's a grey one too that might be lieutenant?

Thank you. So, for my purposes, I'm going to leave the Hot Toys sandtrooper (raised brow -- hate that, but I suppose it was an effort to be movie accurate) with the orange pauldron on, and give the other orange-pauldroned trooper a white pauldron instead. Poor guy in black pauldron, lowest on the totem pole...

Some useless information for you: often the bottom head on a totem pole is the most venerated god as it is the largest...read that somewhere lol.

shovelchop81 wrote:Some useless information for you: often the bottom head on a totem pole is the most venerated god as it is the largest...read that somewhere lol.

Interesting. I either didn't know it or forgot. Although it won't change the saying, I suspect...

Those guys look great and look, they made a new friend!

Theboo-bomb wrote:Those guys look great and look, they made a new friend!

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked them. With so few creatures on that planet, I'm sure glad they didn't escalate.

Pretty cool. Knowing your affinity for the Empire, it doesn’t surprise me to see them being decent and having a peaceful camaraderie with what most consider “bad guys” — at least until the Mandalorian show gave us a different perspective.

Stryker2011 wrote:Pretty cool. Knowing your affinity for the Empire, it doesn’t surprise me to see them being decent and having a peaceful camaraderie with what most consider “bad guys” — at least until the Mandalorian show gave us a different perspective.

Glad you liked it. Well, as has been established, the Tusken Raiders are just misunderstood. Or, more likely, as with any group, there are exceptional individuals. As for the Imperials, you know the usual thing is just Rebel propaganda.

Totally random question, but where did you get that sand backdrop? Or did you print it out yourself?

skywalkersaga wrote:Totally random question, but where did you get that sand backdrop? Or did you print it out yourself?

I think it is an image I found on the internet and had it printed out on matte-poly paper (to have less glare). Ideally, there should be more space at the bottom so you can have your figures tread over that, but there either wasn't or I had cropped it away. So in the last photos I'm using some sand sheets for model builders.

If you like it, I can try to find the digital file and send it to you.

GubernatorFan wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:Totally random question, but where did you get that sand backdrop? Or did you print it out yourself?

If you like it, I can try to find the digital file and send it to you.

Oh, that would be great, thank you!

skywalkersaga wrote:Oh, that would be great, thank you!

Haven't found it yet, but will let you know as soon as I do.

Great Scene and Troopers. Funny little story. . They looks like very good with the weathering. Where´s the Droids ! Scene ?

Ephiane wrote:Great Scene and Troopers. Funny little story. . They looks like very good with the weathering. Where´s the Droids ! Scene ?  

Thank you very much, Ephiane, and nice to see you back. Glad you liked them.
For a proper Droids Scene, we'd need a whole speeder. I think someone (Jazz Inc?) might have made one in this scale, but I'm not buying it.