Action Figure to Titan: an exercise in frugality

Lots of settings make use of large fighting robots, from the AT-ATs of Star-Wars to the titans of Warhammer 40k. I’ve featured a fair few model kits on this blog that fall into this category, and whilst they are better than some alternatives, they can be quite pricey. besides, perhaps you don’t want to modify a (somewhat) rare model kit for use with your toy soldiers. Well fear not, because an alternative is at hand.

No doubt subliminally influenced by various youtubers taking part in Bill making Stuff’s “Big bot Bash”, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at repainting a cheap action figure for use as a terrain piece in 28mm tabletop games. I didn’t actually do any modification to the figure because I felt that the base design was suitably sci fi. I think a prime candidate for editing would be doing something to cover over the very obvious toy projectile launcher on the shoulder, perhaps by extending the barrels to make some sort of long range artillery unit. For anyone interested, the original figure is of a character called “Rothus the traveller”.

At the time of painting I’m still stuck on the blue/white/brown scheme that I used for my Stargrave crew. Whilst I don’t intend for this to be a part of the crew, I’m sure it’ll turn up on the same table at some point as a terrain piece.

I couldn’t be bothered figuring out the correct places to place white highlights by brush so I instead decided that I would SPARINGLY sponge on brown and black paint for some very light weathering. Within the gunpla/ large model kit world I constantly see people giving (and receiving) harsh (but well meaning, I assume) criticism when they see a model that has been over weathered and so I set out looking to avoid this.

Seeing those stray bits of blue paint on the upper “eyelid” is disappointing. Fortunately it will be easy enough to tidy up and isn’t visible at normal viewing angles.