Sunday, February 9, 2014

UNSC Infinity: Fireteam Badger

My entire family loves playing Halo, so it wasn't unexpected that my penchant for turning my family members into custom figures would eventually spill over into the Halo Universe.  Halo 4 features Spartan Fireteams with names like Crimson, Majestic, Castle, Lancer, Switchback and so on.  I asked my wife, son and daughter what they thought our Fireteam name should be and it was decided that because we are proud residents of Wisconsin, we would be Fireteam Badger.  Our in-game characters all feature armor emblems in the red and white of the University of Wisconsin Badgers (we had to settle for the bear claw emblem as it was the closest thing we could find to an actual badger paw print).














The figure depicting me is the steel/red Warrior.  The base figure was the red Warrior from wave 1 of McFarlane's Halo 4 line.  It is the same one I posted in October of 2013, albeit with a new paint job.














The figure depicting my son Adam is the steel/aqua CIO.  This figure is the same steel/aqua CIO that was released as a Walgreen's Exclusive in wave 2 of McFarlane's Halo 4 line.  When Adam saw the figure, he loved it so much, he set out to earn the CIO armor so that he could wear it in-game.  He hasn't changed armor since.  No significant modification was done to the figure because it was already accurate.  I touched up the factory paint a little bit to remove flaws, and I gave it a plasma pistol.  Adam really loves highjacking vehicles after freezing them with a shot from an overcharged plasma pistol, so it seemed like a no-brainer to set his figure up the same way.














The figure depicting my daughter Kate is the steel/pink Soldier.  The base figure was the blue Soldier from wave 1 of McFarlane's Halo 4 line.  I didn't realize it until I started painting this one, but as far as I could tell, the forearms and lower legs on this figure do not match any in-game armor.  Sort of odd considering how well McFarlane usually manages to match the in-game content.














The figure depicting my wife Jenny is the steel/green Scout.  This figure started out as the rust-colored Scout from wave 2 of McFarlane's Halo 4 line.  This was easily the most difficult of the four figures, because the steel paint was reluctant to stick to the figure as well as it did the previous three.














All four figures were given tiny decals to match our chosen armor emblem.  I made these by saving the emblem image from the Internet, shrinking it down to the proper size and then printing four of them out onto decal paper.  The hardest part was cutting the tiny circles out.  ;)














The base is a simple pre-cut wooden plaque that I picked up at a hobby shop for two dollars.  I painted it and then added some 'terrain'.  The figures are each attached with a tiny dab of hot glue.  The hot glue keeps them in place very nicely, but can be pulled off in seconds if I decide that I want to change the display.














Adam is currently working on a back story for these four characters and I'll post that when he's finished!