Star Wars Scout Trooper [WIP - Upper Half Assembly & Blaster Pistol]

 Amidst despair at the continuing incompetence of politicians exacerbating the country's pandemic situation, I sought to isolate myself in a "sanity bubble" that is my hobby workstation. When even a modicum of hope is in short supply, it helps that there is a go-to state of mind that excludes having to think about the sheer dull-witted arrogance of those with the power to help but instead do the exact opposite. Anyway, rant over. Let's move on to cheerier topics that is the Bandai 1/12 scale Star Wars Return of the Jedi Scout Trooper, or more to the point its Upper Half progress.   

Bandai Star Wars 1/12 scale Scout Trooper Upper Half [completed; front view]

Bandai Star Wars 1/12 scale Scout Trooper Upper Half [completed; back view]

Assembling the Upper Half of the Scout Trooper was a simple enough task of putting together all the requisite sub-assemblies that had been painted and put together thus far. So to complete the Upper Half, I only had to pop both upper appendages into the upper torso because all painting for the Upper Half components had already been done earlier. Well, maybe that's not entirely true as I did apply a flat, clear top coat on the black colored areas of the right appendage. But only that.

Sub-assemblies that make up the Upper Half of the Scout Trooper

 While by themselves the upper appendage sub-assemblies look very much like what you would expect of action figures, they surprisingly took on a more realistic appearance after being attached to the torso. This seemed to be a case whereby the whole was indeed greater than the sum of its parts. As to why this was so, I can only surmise that when the upper appendages are taken in isolation its plasticky action-figure-look was accentuated by the piecemeal armor attachments. But attached to the upper torso, these very white armor pieces look a better fit to the overall armor design.     

Once both appendages had been attached to the upper torso ...

... the shoulders, forearms, elbows, arms, and hands seem to lose their ...

... "action-figure" look, and resumed a fairly realistic appearance

 In terms of articulation, I have been suitably impressed by the Scout Trooper so far. Preliminary freedom of movement tests show that the 1/12 scale figurine is expected to easily form standing poses as well as ones with it seated on a Speeder Bike. Of course final proof will only come once both are fully complete and can be posed together in a vignette.

Having a color scheme comprise subtle difference of whites/off-whites ...

... in a way reduced the plasticky, action-figure-like look further ...

... and ratcheted up the realism level of the figurine exponentially

 In addition to the Upper Half assembly, I also finished the last piece of the puzzle that will make up the Scout Trooper per se, namely the Blaster Pistol. Any thoughts of weathering the pistol beyond a black wash was quickly put to rest primarily because of how I intend to utilize it in the vignette. I'll almost certainly place the weapon securely into the holster found on the Scout Trooper's right boot. With the pistol largely be hidden from view, further weathering would be unnecessary in my opinion.

Scout Trooper Blaster Pistol is considered complete for the moment ...

... unless I get ideas for weathering a gun that'll be hidden from view in a holster

Soon the Scout Trooper will be finished and only then will work begin on his/her Speeder Bike. The latter will require far more effort to hit a level of realism comparable to that of the former. Bandai makes better out-of-the-box figurines than vehicles. To be fair, that's not entirely their fault for number of reasons. First, Bandai does an excellent job with their figurines. And Two, vehicles tend to be far more complicated in design and detail than figurines. Taken together, that means more work lies in store for me to get the bike up to speed (pun unintended) in terms of realism. So it's back to my "sanity bubble". I'm going to need it. We all do.