Thursday, August 14, 2008

Meet the Sniper action figure

What better way to celebrate the Heavy Weapons Guy update next Tuesday by finishing up one of his many arch-nemeses, the sniper!


(Insert musical flourish here)

He's finally painted and completed. Bought some doll stands to commemorate/help the bugger stand up properly. The sniper rifle has the laser aiming module wire after a long bout of "not doing it". The only thing holding him back last week was a lack of the right shade of brown/tan for the vest. I gave in and cannibalized a military jacket from one of the $5 soldiers which made for a great shade of tan. Let's look at some of the details.

He comes complete with his shoulder emblem, usable pockets on his vest, belt and pouch, shoulder slung carrying thing (Which I suspect is for his kukri), and the chest pocket with four rounds of rifle ammo. I bought another soldier with the M1-Garand rifle just for the ammunition. $5 for a premade detail like that is worth it. His sunglasses are removable and come from my first soldier I modded into the Medic. Now, you may assume his head is a solid sculpt, but I made sure he could also do some of his taunts...

It's not quite the same if the Sniper can't do the kukri taunt. His hat is removable, but has been designed to custom fit him only.
"As long as there are two people in the world, chances are one of them is going to want the other one dead."

"Hold still..."

For the curious, what the Sniper cost me to make (assuming I started from nothing).

Body: $4.95 (counts the rifle ammo and sunglasses as a single purchase)
Cloth and thread: ~$6 (1x black thread, 1x red, white, black, grey cloth at half a yard each)
Sculpey for the head: $10 (regular)
Epoxy for the glove: $8 (epoxy allowed me to paint rubber without the problem of rubber not being paintable)
Misc paper and paint supplies: $16 (1x white, black, brown, green, blue, portrait tone acrylic)
Total cost: ~$45

In actuality, the price is closer to $15 since the materials are shared among the other figures. Not bad for something that Valve doesn't plan on ever making.

More pictures of the TF2 Sniper doll here. (Technically, he's a doll, but hey, call him an "action figure" if you got masculinity issues with playing with dolls.)

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