Sunday, June 27, 2010

Wild Boar (Iron Grenadier Vehicle Driver)

In the late 1980's, Hasbro introduced Wild Boar as the driver of the Razorback. I decided to expand a bit on the character and designate Wild Boars as the elite vehicle operators of the Iron Grenadiers. They operate, service and repair everything from Razorbacks to Dominators to Red Caps.

Parts: Head (Comic Pack Battle Armor Cobra Leader), Helmet (bbi Elite Force Soldier), Body (Comic Pack Battle Armor Cobra Leader), Gloved hands (bbi Elite Force Soldier), Belt (RoC Jungle Assault Ripcord).
Supplies: X-acto knife, paintbrushes, Testors paints and Testors Dull-Cote.
Reference: Photos of the vintage Wild Boar figure. Also refer to the reference section in the post for Voltar.
This was one of the simplest customs I've done in a long time! The only things removed from the original figure were the helmet, the hands and the belt. The helmet was replaced with one that I got in a trade. I'm pretty sure it came from a bbi Special Forces trooper. The gloved hands also came from a bbi Soldier. They are sculpted to simulate the nomex flight gloves favored by so many operators for the soft, thin leather used in the palms which allows for excellent dexterity. I repainted the gloves i
n a color more suitable for the character and was very happy with the way the turned out. I could have kept the same belt and modified it as I did for some of my other IG figures, but I liked the simplicity of the one I used. sporting a high-ride pistol holster, a radio and one hand grenade, it was perfect for a vehicle driver. One thging that doesn't really show up in the photos is the scar on his face. I used my X-acto knife to cut a shallow groove from his forehead down to the corner of his mouth, where it changes direction just slightly and continues to his chin. I then painted over the groove with pink paint, wiping away the excess so that all that remained was the pink paint inside the groove. It looks really good, in my opinion, but I just could not get it to show up in the photos. When I was done, I gave him a light application of Testors Dull-Cote.

Ferret (Iron Grenadier D.E.M.O.N. Driver)

The original Ferret was the driver of the D.E.M.O.N. tank. There were three stations inside the vehicle, so two additional troopers had to be assigned to man all of the vehicle's systems. I decided to elaborate upon the character a bit and create specialty Ferrets (Driver, Crewman and Commander)for all three of the vehicle's stations. This is the Driver variant.

Parts: Head (RoC Deep Six), Helmet (Hunter Artworks), Entire Body (25th Anniversary Battle Armor Cobra Commander).

Supplies: X-acto knife, paintbrushes, Testors paints and Testors Dull-Cote.

Reference: Photos of the vintage Ferret figure. Also refer to the reference section in the post for Voltar.

The original head was replaced with one that looked more like a guy under a helmet, in my opinion. The belt was modified with the X-acto knife, removing the holster and shaving away the Cobra insignia on the belt buckle. Once that was done, the rest of this was just painting. I tried to stay faithful to the color scheme of the original figure as much as possible. Once finished, he was given a light application of Testors Dull-Cote.

Voltar (Iron Grenadier General)

This is the first in a whole series of Iron Grenadier customs I'm working on. As a kid, I always thought Voltar was pretty cool, despite his silly fuscia uniform. This is the way I think he should have looked in the first place.

Parts: Head (Tri-Gate Creations), Entire Body (SRO Iron Grenadier Officer), Pistol & Holster (UBP Steeler), Sword & Scabbard (SRO Destro), Submachinegun & Backpack (ARAH Voltar).

Supplies: Dremel, X-acto knife, Super glue, paintbrushes, Testors paints and Testors Dull-Cote.

Reference: I took Voltar's vintage look and tweeked it to my own liking. (Note: As I said, this is the first in a series of Iron Grenadier customs. Unlike the vintage ARAH Iron Grenadiers, all of mine will utilize the same body style. There are two reasons for this. First, I like the uniformity it brings. It never made sense to me to have an entirely new uniform, body armor and equipment for each job function. Most militaries run on uniformity. Second, around the time I was starting to work on these guys, large numbers of 25th Anniversary figures started showing up at Family Dollar stores for three bucks each. While there were no single carded IG Troops in that line, there was a Battle Armor Cobra Commander which used the same exact body, except for the lower legs which were more armored than the IG legs.)

For Voltar, I wanted him to look very similar to the Iron Grenadier Officer from the Toys R Us exclusive Senior Ranking Officers 3-pack, but a bit more grandiose. So I started out with that figure as the base and removed the shoulder strap. I replaced the head with the new one, which was ordered from Tri-Gate Creations. The head was painted to match the vintage figure as closely as possible. I then painted the holster black and superglued it to his chest, in a similar manner to the way the vintage figure had it. I replaced the existing sword scabbard with the one from the SRO Destro figure only because I liked the purple for Voltar. The shoulder armor, chest armor and the codpiece were all painted gold to match the helmet and wrist armor. After all the paint was dry, I gave him a light application of Testors Dull-Cote.