Sniper
Experimental Weapons
Action Force

Character:

Sniper would have been in Palitoy’s unreleased Special Weapons Force unit of Action Force.

Design:

The German Soldier head is a decent enough match for the one Palitoy would have used. The rest of the parts are New Sculpt- not quite random, but they don’t match up to the prototype much. All of the Special Weapons Force customs I’ve made (Boffin, Lighting, and Fixer) used skirt pieces, so Sniper gets one. It adds a touch of visual cohesion between the figures.

Back to the heads. The Palitoy versions of Sniper, Lighting, and Fixer would have used the same head- the one with a hood pulled under a dome helmet, plus the microphone. My Lighting custom uses a Star Wars head that is very close. My Fixer custom has no cap or hood. And Sniper splits the difference with just a cap and a pulled-down hood. This gives a wider spread on the heads/faces and keeps them from looking like clones of each other.

The Indiana Jones satchel is used as a backpack.

Colors & Paints:

Based on the prototype, with more grey added, then shifted around a bit to better accommodate the parts used.

Of all of the Special Weapons sub team, Sniper’s codename really implies the salt-water taffy color set Palitoy would have used isn’t right for the character. A sniper should be environmentally copacetic. But this is probably something closer to a lab uniform than a field one, so I let it go.

I had planned on inverting the colors- using white for the gear and grey for the uniform. But while working on this custom I’ve been enjoying Andor season 2, and appreciated the white uniforms of some of the Imperial officers- so I kept white for the base uniform (it’s actually a very light grey because it photographs better).

Sculpting & Modifying:

The head is epoxy blended onto the NS neck. Epoxy also fills and smooths the elbow rivets and thigh screw insets. The midriff was extended by adding an o-ring to the top of the waist piece, then sculpting epoxy over the area.

Thanks for looking.