Search found 2 matches for sandtrooper

Part I
For Part II (updated and modified figure), please see Post 18 below.
For Part III ("New Friends"), please see Post 28 below.

I'm very late to the sandtrooper party. For one thing, I prefer my stormtroopers clean and ship shape for the parade ground (who was it that said wars just mess up armies?). For another, I've always had a suspicion that sandtroopers were a combination of accident and post-fact rationalization: they were the first stormtroopers used and filmed for Star Wars (Episode IV/A New Hope), and the minor differences in their armor (not just equipment) may have been the result of changing design rather than pre-thought-out purpose (to wit, spacetroopers in the same film don't differ from regular troopers except when it comes to their equipment to breathe in space).

It didn't help that Marmit, Medicom, and Sideshow messed up the helmet in different ways (Marmit and Sideshow got the facial proportions wrong, Medicom used a regular stormtrooper's helmet of the hero variety). And all this was (mostly) before I was collecting high-end sixth-scale figures anyway. When Hot Toys released their sandtrooper, I was very tempted (apart from the most convincing weathering, they had finally gotten the helmet pretty much right -- improving on their standard ANH stormtrooper design which had perpetuated the same error as Marmit and Sideshow). But I was put off by their choice to depict what was definitely a costuming error, the upward arched brow band of one sandtrooper ("these are not the droids we are looking for"). Since then, I have come across photos of the various sandtroopers in all their glory, and have also come to realize that at least the finished HT product's helmet looked acceptable for my delicate sensibilities after all. Of course, by then these collectibles, which had been pricey (for their time) to begin with, were becoming rarer and grossly overpriced. So I kept putting it off or talking myself out of it.

But one by one I picked up pieces from broken down sets (still eschewing the HT helmet until it was too late) until I was gradually able to put together a makeshift complete sandtrooper with the purchase of the last few rare and overpriced pieces. You can see it below, both by itself and also compared with the Rogue One version of essentially the same thing (though less elaborately equipped), the "heavily weathered Jeddha Patrol."  My ANH sandtrooper kitbash/custom consists mostly of different parts from Hot Toys (sandtrooper lower body armor, stormtrooper long blaster rifle, Jeddha patrol upper body armor and helmet) and Marmit (undersuit, pouches, pauldron); I did some custom fitting, greeblies, and repainting.













Hope you liked it.

For Part II (updated and modified figure), please see Post 18 below.
For Part III ("New Friends"), please see Post 28 below.

#starwars #anewhope #sandtrooper #stormtrooper #rogueone #jeddha #patrol #custom #kitbash

Hello again, and here is another one of those sort of catch up posts on my collection.

This time it is the 3 Sand Trooper figures I own.

I love stormtroopers!!! there I said it, I love all things Stormtrooper, and perhaps nothing more so than the Sand Troopers from ANH.  I really like their weathered look, the pauldrons and the extra equipment they carry.  So it should be no surprise that I own 3 of these characters.

I have the Hot Toys Sand Trooper Squad Leader, the Sideshow Sergeant and the SideShow Desert Sands Detachment.  The Sideshow figures are from the Militaries of Star Wars series from a number of years ago, and are now becoming harder to find, also meaning that sadly they demand an increasing premium price wise.  The Hot Toys figure is newer and fairly readily available, but of course at Hot Toys prices

Stormtroopers will, it seems often draw a lot of discussion about how accurate they are, but I will not be touching on the minutia of how these measure up to their on screen counter parts or really to each other here.  This is more a chance for you to see some of what is available out of the box if you are looking for a Sand Trooper figure.

First up is the Hot Toys Squad Leader.  A very nice figure that comes with a sand textured base, and a surveillance droid.  All the equipment is there that you would expect with a Sand Trooper.  He has T21 light repeating Blaster seen in the pics, an E-11 blaster, a DLT 19 blaster rifle and the binoculars also pictured.  Quite posable as are the other two troopers seen here also, even if the armour is a bit restrictive.  The base has a lovely sand finish but sadly Hot Toys put two foot prints in it which are quite visible if the figures lower half is not posed as per the box art.












The SideShow Sand Trooper Sergeant is another nice figure.  This one has all the usual Sand Trooper bits, and comes with the pictured RT-97c blaster rifle and an E-11 as well.  Of course being a Sergeant he has the white pauldron.  Aside from different hands (which all these figures have by the way) that is pretty much it for this one.  The base on this one does no come with the sand cover interestingly, but I was able to find one elsewhere.











Last of the 3 that I have is the SideShow Desert Sands Detachment figure.  This one has a real arsenal included comprising of E-11, DLT-19, RT-97c and T-21 blasters.  He also comes with they grey pauldron shown and an additional white one.  The stand for this one does come with the sand cover this time and there are long and short options for the vertical pipe shaped object on the back pack.  I would say the is the best equipped of the 3 and gives the most options for achieving different looks.









And here are all 3 together



I hope as always this was helpful, and I welcome any comments you may have.

Paul

#starwars #sandtrooper #stormtrooper #ANH #scifi #movie