Alright, so I love stormtroopers… They're my favorite bad guy. I've always wanted to make a super articulated 12" stormtrooper. I've messed with the Hasbro figures and tweaked them since I wasn't totally pleased with the VOTC 12" figures, but I still made them no better. THIS TIME… was different.

I bought this vinyl model kit online for $25 shipping included from china. in that time I thought about how I would make this happen. Once It came in I started to dissect all the molded parts into individual armor pieces. I was stoked. The only things I left intact were the entire torso and the hand/forearm pieces. I didn't want to find myself making HUGE mistakes with only one model on hand.

I took a recent GIJoe 12" figure with a totally black body that I picked up at Goodwill. IT had all the articulation i would need. I took my exacto and proceeded to whittle very liberally until all the limbs were skinny enough to slip into the armor but tight enough to stay in place. I shaved the feet into little pegs leaving the articulated ankle. The upper torso had to be completely taken apart. I started to chop out the neckline and ended up just completely separating both shoulders leaving only the small amount of chest and ribs that would show later once attached to the armor.

Arms in place I filled the body with hot glue pellets that I shopped up for filler and then filled the cavity with hot glue. Then I moved on to the lower legs. All armor in place I shaved the lower torso/groin piece to fit into the existing belt area. I made some sprues from chopped down hot glue sticks. glued them in place and then melded them into the cavity of the upper torso now filled with hot glue. I ran it under cold water for a couple minutes to set the glue as plastic and I was ready to start coloring.

I cheaped out on the color since it was only black on the helmet. I used a fine tip Sharpie to do all the main details of the helmet and then came back with a standard tip to the the neck cuff and gloves. The gun is still uncolored since it is a metal (probably lead knowing China) and I'll have to give it an actual paint job. Really past that I just walked around the house with it for like an hour showing it to my wife over and over again as my new prized possession. Then came in to take pictures because its like 1:00am and I feel like a total crackhead for staying on it like this...

Altogether for an investment of $26 and some labor and hot glue I am totally in love with this assembly. I was really worried that I may screw it up but everything came together AWESOMELY… This afternoon I set it next to my Sideshow Stormtrooper I picked up a few years ago and i was REALLY surprised to see how much better I liked this version. I think being that this model as a statue had a figure custom appropriated for its armor as opposed to the other way around it made a HUGE impact visually. I'm just gonna say it, this thing is Bad A$$!!

Thanks for looking!!!