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

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.

Na, just this one not the force scene of obi wan.

That one is more doable. I think there are some trash can lids that look a little like that thing by the stormtrooper in the distance.

skywalkersaga wrote:

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!

I have finally located the image file I used. It prints (unless resized) as 37.55 x 21 in (95.38 x 53.34 cm). Does this work for you?

GubernatorFan wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:

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!

I have finally located the image file I used. It prints (unless resized) as 37.55 x 21 in (95.38 x 53.34 cm). Does this work for you?

That should be alright, thanks so much!

skywalkersaga wrote:
That should be alright, thanks so much!

No problem, just sent it by e-mail due to size. Hope it works for you.