This was a labour of love/hate. I picked up this 12 inch T-600 from Toys-R-Us back in 2010 when they were being sold off for £5 each. I picked up a t-800 (the one with a massive head and bug eyes) and a t-700 (with the bug eyes) as well as this. Let me just say that this was a bug ugly figure and the only reason I bought it was becasue of the rubber mask. At times I wish I had left it on the shelf but at the time I had only the 4inch figure and wanted a large T-600 but could not afford a Hot Toys one. I am very critical of this figure especially given the amount of time spent on it.

So, where do I start? First off the figure was dismantled and the arm pistons were cut off and the wrists hollowed with a dremel. After I slipped with the dremel, I had to then rebuild the wrists using a coke tin. The pistons were made with various plastic tubes and also guitar string that looks like braided hosing. After that I lost interest and put the entire project away. When I restarted I set to work on the skull. It doesnt have the detail of the t-800 or t-700 and to me looked very cheap and beyond saving. I always liked the idea of a battle damaged skull and so set to work modifying. First was the eyes. They were terrible. I used paint trickery on them by painting them out and scratching through the paint to the led to make a more realistic and scaled eye. I also cut the huge rubber mask down and decided to have it almost blasted away. I reassembled it onto the skull taking care not to glue over the battery port cover for the led eyes. The clothing was made with fabric and superglued over. One thing I found that is excellent for scaled fabric is the material from ladies pantyhose. It stretches over the figure and when glued in place and painted, has a great texture. The legs were also rebuilt and hip pistons were added. About this time I had a reaction to the superglue as it gives off a heck of a lot of fumes when applied to fabrics (I now use minimal superglue and favour watered down pva to get the fabric to hold)and work had to be halted as I sniffed and sneezed. Fabric was added everywhere to hide some of the terrible features of the original figure.It was then all undercoated and put back in the spares box for a few months. Stage 3 saw the gun was rebuilt from plastic tubing and a grenade launcher was added from the spares box. The entire thing was painted in stages using vallejo and citadel paints. The weathering to the mask was applied by splattering dark grey onto the latex colour with a toothbrush. The rust effect was a variety of shades of browns and oranges. A base is still forthcoming...

This was the hardest custom I have ever attempted and I still prefer the 6 inch I did but this is as finished as it will be I think.