1/6 Protect Gear Chuichi Koshiramaru Custom

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Introduction

Scale 1/6

Sculptor …

Maker …

Completed 06/21/08

Parts

Yes yes yes I’m painting action figures now! 🙂 The ultra cool armor from the Protect Gear line designed by Yutaka Izubuchi got my blood boiling, and the this variation offered by Takara is especially enticing. So I got over my pride and bought the figure. Actually because of its design, the totally black plastic of the original kinda works fine. I especially like the leather suit, which eliminates the typical toy-like appearance of these figures. But without some work it’ll just be lacking details. So I decided to do something about it.

Long story short, the main alteration of the figure is the ammo belt for the Mauser MG34 machine gun. The original is a plastic belt which SUCKS. See the original pics from HLJ here. It took me a while to find something I really want – a small company called Barrack Sergent offers ammo belts that are exact scaled replica of the real thing, as the segments are chained together with metal, and all the bullets are brass casts. This thing WEIGHS. Now I have the droopy belt that KICK ASS. Sorry I’m being juvenile here… Those belts are $15 a piece, and I needed 2 to make a good-looking length. It was actually quite painful to chain the two belts together since you need to work with the tiny tiny wire binding between the segments, but it’s definitely worth it. You can see how they perform in the pics below (click to enlarge). The top belt is the original figure’s plastic version, which is horrible looking – not bendy and very plastic-looking. The middle one is the belt i got from a Hot Toy’s MG43 machine gun. It has metal-cast bullets and cloth connections, which makes it more realistic. But it can’t compare with the bottom one, the Barrack Sergent’s, which completely adheres to any surface.

There are some seam lines to remove but not a lot. I repainted all the amour pieces and weathered them. I stuffed some cottons in his pants so that he looks better when his legs are in a spreading pose… well if you own the figure you’ll see. Also originally I planned to repaint the inside head, but really, what’s the point?! I’ll probably never take off the head gear, and the head is made of a rubbery plastic that can only work with V-color… well V-color has a shelf life that’s rather short, unfortunately, and all of mine are dried up… Anyway Chuichi’s awesomeness can only be accompanied by his girlfriend Midori.