Orktober Project: Bubble Chukka Mek Gun

This project has its origins in the last few days of vacation time, early Orktober 2022. Actually, before that. A few years before. The Orkish answer to artillery, Mek Gunz were a fairly big thing in the 8th edition of 40k, a bandwagon I'd jumped on, only to jump off the game entirely at the next stop. By most accounts, they aren't as desirable now, but still suffer that unfortunate pricing paradox where a unit with a low cost in game has an unreasonably high plastic cost, if only due to its size. These replaced the much smaller and simpler Big Gunz units, incidentally. As it was Orktober, I was running ahead on my blog posts, and I was bored, I decided to revisit the concept. If all went well, I could slide it in the schedule, and if it didn't? Well, I had plenty of stuff to buffer delays. Fortunately, I proved not to need the buffer, and here we are. 

 

So, let's get some context for Mek Gunz then. Crew-served artillery is a pretty fundamental unit type in 40k, with examples present from first edition. Along with bikes and walkers, these were a concept easily implemented with the casting technology of the time, which is why so many disparate factions field them. Artillery is however is much less popular than those other two, and mechanically have been a touch inconsistent and obscure over the decades. Previously, rules variously treated the gun and the crew as separate entities somehow, but the convention used for Mek Gunz presently is to treat the crew as purely decorative, with the gun having a combined profile representation of their efforts. Putting aside the paperwork though, Mek Gunz are interesting mainly for their crew, the humble Gretchin. I.e. small, green, goblin types known for being generally unthreatening until they are entrusted with a suitable weapons platform. Mek Gunz offer effective and inexpensive firepower, while the Orks do the fun bits. 

 

The construction of the gun carriage was broadly similar to my trukks and such, using part of a connect 4 game as the foundation. This was built up with flat packers, scrap plastic, EVA foam and so on. The wheels are off a Transformers Construct-Bots toy, and possibly a touch big, but it works. It's gun was also something a little different, which used a wooden bead for the business end. Here I applied gap filler to roughen the texture of the orb, attempting to approximate the brassy effect of the official model. I didn't really get that, I'd need different materials, but it helped roughen it. I placed the completed gun on a 100mm base even though I didn't need to on the grounds of pragmatism. Its probably simpler all round this way.

The somewhat optional crew meanwhile were largely metal models from the old Big Gunz kit, with the "gunner" being off the dethrolla sprue. Painting was attempted in what I suppose is my signature style now, although this is the first time in years where I've attempted what amounts to infantry and a vehicle at the same time. I tried to optimise the steps so washing & basing happened as a group. One of the grots is a rougher than I'd like, but its fiue in a group

As a project done with minimal preparation, I'd say this worked out pretty well. I'm getting a handle on what I' m good at, and what I enjoy doing. This sorta stuff is very therapeutic for me. But, with Orktober coming to a close, I'm gonna take a brief brake from Orks, and clear some of the aforementioned buffer/backlog for a few weeks. 

 

Work in Progress Pics

 

 

Orktober Project: Mega-Armoured Warboss

Something which happened a lot in the old days was that Games Workshop would present rules for something, but neglect to put out a model for it. A lot of the time this was fairly mundane, like a lesser-known special character or particular weapon option requiring a conversion project. GW was, historically, quite happy for people to do this; they allowed people to order specific bits from them, routinely put conversion advice in the codexes and White Dwarf, with some entire armies like Kroot Mercenaries being heavy duty kitbash affairs. This practice has long since been stopped, it was the Chapter House Studios legal battle I think, and GW seems to be limiting possibilities for customisation that might allow a third party to happily undercut them. This brings us to the modern Mega-Armoured Warboss, the first actual model for this unit ever, it took them decades to actually make one, and while it's undeniably lovely to an extreme, its a fixed pose affair that has none of the usual Meganob weapons. Funny that.

Now, Ork players are a resourceful bunch, many built their own, and when the 3rd edition Ghazghkull Thraka model came that just got easier. A head-swap, a few gubbins, your clan colours, and you're there. That's what I did. I think everyone did that. And their mums. And their dogs. It's not really table legal now though, and I like my stuff be theoretically game worthy. So, there's another modernisation job. After mulling it over for a while, the scale of what I was actually attempting hit me. At the bare minimum, I'd need to do new hands, possibly entire new arms, but hands would the tricky bit. If that new model been equipped with the standard klaw and gun combo it would have been a simple matter of looking at Deff Dread bits. Instead I was looking at a polearm and a little grot on top firing a machine gun. It's an undeniably awesome concept, don't get me wrong, but I was gonna have to step outside my comfort zone just a little. 

 

Eventually what I decided to do was to use arms from non-mega Warbosses and build them up with plating and gubbins. This is an approach attempted by various people more talented than myself, dressing wholly plastic models usually, but I was aware of my limitations. I wanted this done within a week of vacation time, and in a manner befitting the grand celebrations of Orktober. Smaller and more intricate works will come later, but here I took advantage of the sheer size of the metal model and kept it basic. The hammer arm is taken from a 3rd Ed metal Warboss with armour built from foam, cable ties, and the ring from a floss dispenser. Its piston is a bead on a wire, with the hammer being a largely hollow affair built from a clothing tag, bits of old trukk, foam & and water pistol innards. The right arm was off a "black reach" plastic warboss built in the same manner, but given a spare hand from a 30MM kit. This was both expedient and a nod to the previous version of the model, which had a big 1/100 hand to slap fools with. Yes, that works.

The big shoota and gunner grot were a bit more finicky. I visualised this as a turret made from T'au bits, and produced one that was fine but approximately twice the size it should have been. That will get used in another build, so I had a rummage and found the tiny Gretchin co-pilot from the Stormboyz kit. The completed build was then painted in largely the same manner as my meganobz, but with one final flair, a tattered cape made from a bandage. This along with the hammer is a nod to various giant robot shows, and you may recall a previous attempt in the before times. I dyed this over-night in a pot of thinned-down paint, which kinda worked, before being attached via thinned down PVA glue. It worked reasonably well, but drying the thing out took a wee while. I named hime Gorion Da Hamma (& Timmy).

I like how this came together, and I may very well make more Meganobz in future as scratchbuilds.

 

Work in Progress Pics

 

 

Transformers: Studio Series Brawn is Something That Exists

 

Coming out in December 2019, Transformers: Bumblebee is by most metrics the best Transformers film. Yes, including the 1986 one and Bay's first attempt. The reasons for this seem to come in spite of the Hollywood system rather than because of it. Director Travis Knight was much more interested in characters than Bay was, and could still do a quality action scene. Seriously, compare Mikaela Banes and Charlie Watson. Same basic character, just one director clearly isn't leering into the camera. Mind you, reshoots and higher level politics had their influence too. There was a decision made to change the film from a prequel to a soft reboot, prompting the famous sequence on Cybertron. This was pure, targeted, and refined fanservice. Also welcome, to be frank. If the 2007 film had been more like the 2019 one from the start, the franchise might be in a better place. Sadly Travis Knight isn't back for Rise of the Beasts, but let's attempt optimism. Springing fully-formed from those reshoots is today's subject, Brawn, whom is legally distinct from my earlier article, but damn if there wasn't an overlap to work around.

 

The scene in question

 

Let us acknowledge the Big Convoy in the room, it's really really daft that this exists in toy form. This is some Star Wars level barrel-scraping, as opposed to doing almost anything else. This version of Brawn had mere seconds of screen time, and didn't manage to anything cool. He only got shot. It's geewunner pandering in the purest sense, possibly more so than the 86 cast getting the Studio Series label. Granted, there comes a point where you run out of big screen characters, and nobody with a functional brain is in a hurry to see Skids & Mudflap again, but retiring the label until the next movie was finished might have been justified. So, my bias clearly stated, I'm not particularly predisposed to go in for this sort of thing, which is why this toy only entered my hands at a discount on an otherwise mediocre day.

 

The 2010 Revenge of the Fallen Brawn Toy

 

 

 

So, then, Brawn. Blank slate and apparent shelfwarmer. Not the first movieverse Brawn either. There was a toy-first version from 2010, a shellformer with some clever touches and twin pistols. That’s something that happened a few times actually, where a character gets a toy for one film, but not a screen appearance, only for a later film to override it with a quite radically different take. See Arcee and Lockdown for good examples. This newer Brawn is more of a modernisation and reinterpretation of the G1 version, hitting iconic design elements like the colours, but still having movie verse complexity and mechanical details. He's a tough, stocky little guy in green, mustard and brown. You can see why this guy's name is synonym for physical strength. New elements are however present, like the much-commented-upon Juggernaut helmet and general resemblance to The Doom Slayer. I was personally put in mind of something Gimli Son of Gloin might pilot in The Lord of the Rings, alternate universe, mecha fan fiction you are now imagining. There's some good paint applied too, subtly complimenting the plastic colours. I can't really fault it, although I might spend some time weathering it. Articulation and play value are similarly pleasing; he's got a lot of well-placed joints, a rather big gun, and a drill bit to turn it into a drill spear. These notably use a 3mm peg for storage on the back, a feature that is nice to have, if not super secure. There’s also 5mm ports on the feet, in what seems to be vestigial weaponizer compatibility. So, while I question the reasoning behind this item, if that reasoning was "let's just make a good robot mode, dammit" I'd say they went and did it.

 

Brawn's vehicle mode is where things get interesting. The vast majority of the reshoot characters didn't have a vehicle mode, which probably presented a challenge to the toy designers, until you remember that Cybertronian altforms generally don't look like anything. In all fairness though, they did a good job. The transformation spins around his back to become a cockpit bubble, inverting the lower legs so the kneecaps wrap around some newly revealed front wheels. There is a fair whack of creativity at play here, so while we must apply a qualifier for it being Cybertronian, honestly? Fair play to 'em. The resulting vehicle looks somewhere between one of those new League of Voltann models and a hypothetical Among Us vehicle expansion. It looks vaguely cute and fast, maybe? It doesn't say "space landrover" and it's not really disguising robot bits either, with the head and feet noticeable. But it has character, as much as the robot mode does. It also has the option to mount the gun up top, and the drill up front as a ramming spike, the latter being a nod towards a scene from the G1 cartoon. With these applied, it looks a bit more Brawny, so the overall effect works. And possibly pierces heaven... 

 

My point? Only that Studio Series Brawn is something that exists. He's probably a lot better than he needed to be, which is odd when you consider he might not have needed to be, full stop. While I knew it would be good blog fodder, I didn't expect to like it as much as I do in person. We’re not talking S rank here, but they didn’t half-arse this, as they so easily could have.

Orktober Project: Live, Larf, Loot

 Have you ever finished something and said to yourself: "This is either the best idea I ever had, or the worst. And I can't tell which."?

 

Explanation? Well, I had some time off, I usually do in the winter, and wanted to do something special for Orktober. That's the annual holiday for Ork players/modellers, if you are unfamiliar. I ended up doing two projects, this being a relatively quick one while the other was drying. The inspiration was an Ork meme, a spin on the motto "Live. Laugh. Love." A spin by the Deathskulls clan, whom like to steal things. And then the nails that were holding those things down.

I was kinda doing this in secret, so there's no in-progress pictures, but the construction went something like this. It's mainly a foam sheet that had been roughed up, and then backed with a brochure & scrap plastic. If you are doing something similar, I'd recommend choosing a more solid material, like an old placemat, as warping was an issue. The letters are wooden ones from a hobby shop, the most expensive part of the build by far. These were given plastic rivets, and a rough application of wall filler for texture. The glyph and secondary panel were cut from a thinner foam sheet. Finally, it was painted with drybrushing, stippling, and washing techniques.

I'm not gonna say this was a particularly deep project, but that's to its benefit. If you're a parent whom wants a project to do with your young child/yoof, I can imagine you having a good time. Foam, card & PVA glue are probably OK on a rainy day...

Hello Carbot: Hyper Buildion is Something That Exists

It is tradition for me that I must buy something big & stupid in the TFNation dealers room. What's the point of being at convention if you're not gonna buy something you wouldn't on any other day? I was nominally aware of this set through video reviews and Internet chatter, but I wasn’t really drawn to it when I saw it in person. Such things generally don't make it to these shores in any number. And then had to find a place to put it. What follows is a surface level discussion of the toy, with lots of comparisons to Transformers and mecha shows.

What is Hello Carbot?

Hello Carbot is an annual Korean toy franchise produced by Sokokong. On first impression, it sits in the super robot genre, invoking comparisons to the Power Rangers and the Brave Saga, which is in no way a bad thing. Today's examples are from 2018, season 5, which has an English dub, apparently. I'm hesitant to comment with any authority on this, I'm reduced to sourcing names from a Fandom wiki page.

Jestle & Proud (Hummer & Dump Truck)

The lead robot of the combiner is an orange hummer, whom has a RID2015 warrior class feel to him. Jestle is simple as these things go, doesn't have any accessories, but has a quite effective transformation. He's quite a serious looking chap in robot with a respectable 11 points of articulation, but due to how he combines, there's nowt in the waist and some oddly positioned hips. Scale him down a bit, and he'd be a great core class, whereas an increased parts count would put him in deluxe. Proud meanwhile is an absolutely massive vehicle with a Brave meets-Armada-Overload vibe going on. The dump truck mode is big and sentai-styled, which is quite a contrast with Jestle. Perfectly fine, but its not aiming for disguise in anyway. Proud doesn't have his own robot mode, rather that Jestle provides the upper chest and head, forming Proud Jet. It's definitely got a lot of presence, wings, and some seriously hefty ratchet joints. Articulation comes in at a pragmatic fifteen points; he's mainly gonna stand there imposingly, but we're gonna be glad of that robustness later on. Think megazord, think an entire Combiner Wars team, just made from two things. That said, keep an eye on Jestle’s wing mirrors, and Proud’s shoulder wheels, I see stress and wear in those areas. 

 

Crane & Duke (a, well, Crane and Excavator)

These two little guys are about the same size and complexity as Jestle, and are basically mirrored twins. I'm reminded of the circa 1999/2000 Landfill combiner, but that's probably a coincidence. Crane looks like Bumblebee if he worked in construction, whereas Duke could probably be in the Constructicon's second eleven. Articulation is probably the best overall in the team, as due to combination they get a waist swivel, although there are kibble issues and they aren’t exactly the same. Duke has 15 joints, with a good shovel arm, but would have benefited from a heel spur, while Crane has 17 due to a different foot design. Fun little guys, these, I like how the jibs become the robot arms, its nice asymmetry.

Starby & Blaster (Bulldozer and Drilltank)

Well, it's not proper super robot unless there's drills involved, is it? This is an interesting one, as the basic play pattern is similar to the hummer/truck combo above, but Blaster breaks into segments for the combined form Starblaster. It's got more going on, and the first instance of an actual weapon, while being pleasingly robust once you've got it together. Starby is possibly the weakest member of the team, and notable for being a rare female Carbot. She's got 11 points of articulation, a faint resemblance to Wedge, and is doing quite a lot for the combination, but has various kibble issues as a result. She's doing better than Arcee has of late, don't get me wrong, but she's more reliant on the whole combination gimmick for appeal. My example also suffers from some misapplied paint, and stress marks on the dozer blade, although fortunately this isn’t obvious when combined. As a drill tank, Blaster's appeal is very straightforward, and notable has both chromed parts and silver paint, if having that old "obviously fictional, marmite, sci-fi vehicle" issue. Starblaster is basically awesome, better than the sum of its parts with 15 joints, but a bicep swivel would have been nice.

Buildion (Proud Jet & Starblaster)

Well, we're in some proper Brave Saga, late-G1-Victory territory now. We're talking platform shoes, and forearm drills. It's huge, edging into titan class in Transformers terms, and it gets bigger in a moment. The blue components contrast nicely with the red, there's a fancy head dress, with articulation being basically unchanged. Proud Jet wasn't a ninja by any metric, but the build quality takes the
increased weight without issue. Its unavoidably less clean a look than either pair separately, although Starby does help with an otherwise ignored gap.

Hyper Buildion (Everybody)

Yes, EVEN BIGGER FUCKING PLATFORM SHOES! GIANT ROBOT STOMPY TIME!

Ahem. So, the twins spilt in half in vehicle mode, their wheelbases becoming heels, and the upper cabs bolting onto the shoulders. Its peak combiner silliness. I mean, you can technically claim the vehicle bits on the shoulders adds articulation, but its more accessorizing to an extreme. In my limited understanding, this is one of those “all your powers combined” sort of arrangements, its not really about practicality so much as being really really big. Too big for my usual (crappy) photography set-up. Mind you, there is one thing it does do. It rolls. It has construction vehicles for heelys. And, if that does not appeal to you, I don’t know what more I can say.

My point? Only the Hello Carbot Hyper Buldion is something that exists. And I now have to find a place to put it.

 

 

Kitbash Experiment: Ork Mek

As my 40K relapse continues, I relearn old skills as much as learn new ones, and take on challenges I largely wouldn't have before. At the moment, this mainly involves the actual ork, rather than the machines they build/bodge/loot/weld-together. Its a different skillset, if only because everybody has a body and therefore notices when something is wrong. Finding and perfecting methods of doing orky bits was looking to be a necessary prerequisite of a couple of ideas I had, so an interim project was called for. Something on theme. An Ork Mek. 

 

As the name implies, Meks are the ones responsible for the creation of Ork machines and weapons. In terms of personality, Meks usually sit somewhere between Jeremy Clarkson & Adam Savage. While just as fond of casual violence as the next ork, but their exuberance is focused more on making things bigger, better, faster and probably explosive. Everything they do is on some level a custom job, and a brute force solution only one step away from a critical failure. Duct tape may very well be involved. Meks come in a variety of sizes and influence l, the one I have built here is the unpopular regular Mek. This unit hasn't done much to differentiate itself from the other versions, offering a minor character with an overclocked energy weapon, and not much else. I built this mainly for the practice, and with a suspicion that the Deathskull bonuses might suit him.

The main components of this kitbash come from the recently retired mrk2 boyz kit, and the spanner pieces from the compatible loota/burnaboyz kit.I dismantled a kustom mega blaster and combined it with the large two-barrelled slugga, to make the Kustom Mega Slugga. This ended up a little bit oversized and TBH rough, but there's no mistaking what it is. The tool was taken from the Battlewagon upgrade sprue and attached to a basic boy arm, while the spanner backpack was given a new icon. I also attempted to sculpt a basic mechanics apron from green stuff. I've dabbled in sculpting before, I have several orks with funny hats, but its been a long time. The head meanwhile was off an old metal Burnaboyz, and the model was painted alongside some Boyz, so there was some delay before completion.

 

 

Overall, I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. The kitbashing is on point, but I feel I need more practice with sculpting. Also, mass painting Boyz remains a chore. Mind you, an experiment is an experiment, and it was useful practice.

 

Oh, and, HAPPY ORKTOBER!

Work in Progress Pic

 

 

Transformers: Legends of Cybertron Starscream is Something that Exists

The last Segment of the Unicron Trilogy, Cybertron aka Galaxy Force, was a high point in the history of the Transformers brand. Its conceit of Transformers that had adapted to different worlds allowed for much variety in design and a return of beast modes. The ratio of articulation to gimmick had largely reversed from what is was during Armada, thus pleasing collectors, but minicons were back too. Lots of good stuff; I think there's only one bad toy in all of it, and he's just an interesting idea that didn't come together. Cybertron's weakness however was probably the underwhelming Cyber Key gimmick, which could easily have been replaced with a button, and mainly featured pop-out guns. The Cybertron toys would be much reused and redecoed, but the key business didn't catch on. What did catch on? The pocket money, stocking filler items called Legends of Cybertron, with offered inexpensive and simplified versions of larger toys. This pricepoint ran in some form or another from 2005-18, with this size of toy seemingly being phased out by Hasbro the year prior to the pandemic. Maybe it's gonna be back for Rise of the Beasts? Regardless, Legends of Cybertron normalised the idea of a character having several toys in different size classes, as well as creating a whole sub-market of tiny toys. It wasn't the first Transformers line to do something like that, but twelve years and change is a hell of a run.

The 2004 Galaxy Force Starscream toy, voyager class

OK, so that was a big whack of context where I talked about the origins of a play pattern. Shouldn't I be talking about the character? Well, this is Starscream. Odds are if you are reading this, you know who the fuck he is. The second-in-command of the Decepticons, with eyes on the top job, whom is also a jet? Chronic back stabbing disorder? Yes, that Starscream. Cybertron put its own spin on the archetype of course, but that's the gist. The reason why size classes are do important to this article, besides padding the word count, is that Starscream ended up in three of them, and with not all versions initially being available everywhere. The original version, for a time a Japanese exclusive until repaints happened, was a voyager, whereas the Western version was enlarged to the supreme class in a manner like those upscale knock-offs you occasionally see in Facebook posts. Yes, you too could have a Starscream you could hug like a toddler, because… nobody seems to know. Starscream did grow really really big in the cartoon, but that was towards the tail end of things.

The 2005 Cybertron Starscream toy, supreme class

Actually, given the number of women buying them off the Toy-Fu stall, Hasbro may have been onto something. I just wanted to mention that...

 

Anyway. So, the basic design went up and down the size classes in way that I don't think any other Transformer ever had before. Granted later and modern do this sort of thing a lot more often, but not with such major regional differences. The Legends mould obviously omits stuff, but it's come out much better than most of its stable-mates. How much of this is a reflection of the design teams efforts versus the simplicity of the original? " I 'll let you decide. 

 

Let's start with the jet mode. As befitted the cosmopolitan design philosophy Cybertron had, this toy was, well, cybertronian, but inspired by the War Within comics series of a few years earlier. This makes it in effect one of the earliest toys to attempt a “pre-earth" mode based on G1 concepts, although not the last. The overall shape is inspired by the tetrajet, but its a more feasible in that somebody, maybe Don "awesome" Figueroa, gave some thought as to how it would work in plastic. As such, you've got a sci-fi plane that looks like a greebled arrowhead. And it's perfectly nice for what it is, I dodn't feel that we'd lost much during the micron process, which has its upsides and downsides. On the pros, its got a very clean undercarriage, but on the cons, we've still got the exposed head, plus the shoulder joints break up the lines in this form.

 

 

Transformation follows the same beats as the larger versions, the main difference being how the nosecone and tail-fins are simplified. Again, fidelity to the source is both a strength and weakness. The basic design in all its forms suffers in that it has concealed weapons in the upper arms which hurt proportions and articulation. This legends toy was seemingly too small to attempt all of the articulation that was there, and so omits all joints below the shoulder. Not unexpected by the standards of such things, but as the shoulders are balljointed now, along with the legs, a case could be made that this tiny version does better with basic posing than the others. Now, that's a bold, almost contrarian take, I know, but look at those first two images again. Do an image search or check out a video review or something. They aren’t really that agile, are they? This legends mould is making the best of a very top-heavy design. This is a lot bulkier than Starscream usually is, looking like someone whom could match Megatron for strength rather than just back tab, and because so much is invested in those shoulders, these toys suffer for articulation. This legends mould, seemingly through a quirk of price point, ends up that little bit more dynamic and above average in its class. However you feel about that, this Starscream also retains his swing-out sword and blaster, such things being in no way guaranteed at the time. He’s good.

 

My point? Only that Legends of Cybertron Starscream is something that exists. Its a low cost toy that does basically all you'd want such a thing to do, and it got repainted a lot, so if this one isn't your thing, there are alternatives. I'm faintly bewildered at how well this turned out.

Plamo: The 30 Minutes Missions Extended Armament Vehicle (Mass Produced Sub Machine Ver.)

Something which 30 Minutes Missions has been doing on the side, but I've largely missed, is the idea of an Extended Armament Vehicle.These are mech-adjacent things that can operate as a self-contained unit, but also offer modular parts for use a thematically similar kit. There is for example a tank that matches colours and vibe with an Alto variant released at the same time. The Mass Produced Sub Machine, in addition to having an unwieldy and decidedly uncool name, is a little bit of a change. It's largely humanoid you see, if not entirely. If anything, its like the Rifleman from Battletech, a pair of autocannons on legs. I wonder if this also has a reputation in universe? 

 

 

 

"Little Mac" as I choose to call it, has a few interesting things going on, both visually and internally. It uses the Spinatio joint runner, but in its own way, placing the hip joints in the shoulders, with what would otherwise be arm joints in the legs. This helps give the mecha its kinda metal-gear look, and means that it is not merely a simplified EXMACS mecha. The arms have a quirky sub-arm thing going on too. It's meant to use the built-in guns most of the time, but you can flip out a forearm with a limited grip to hold regular weapons. The legs are also a set of spare hands away from being credible spare arms, which you will have, as there are 5 black plastic hands included in box. That's a major mark in the kits favour, aiding customisation of older 30MM releases which often omitted such things, although I’m not overly fond of the hip armour. Sweetening the deal further is an internal cockpit, and a frankly adorable option to mount a regular head atop it. While the spread of dates stamped on the runners suggest I'm late to the party, I was impressed with all this. I then proceeded to apply some basic weathering techniques to finish it off, and drilled out the gun barrels.

Is Little Mac good enough to stand on its own as a release? If its not, it's damn close. The visual style is possibly a marmite, as it's mainly a neutral gunmetal grey, which is useful for kitbashing but rather dull to look at. Differences in the joint usage also mean that its not as articulated as its larger kin, although that's more characterful design choice than a design flaw. Between its own merits and opportunities for customisation, though, I've paid a lot more to get less.