War Journalist - Kitbash

Since I've been trying to look for the Toymaster's War Journalist figure I thought I'll do a quick kitbash of my own war journalist - 'The Cameraman'.

Basic ingrediants:

Hot Toys James Dean head from CIA GOI
Hot Toys TT body from Saizo
Hot Toys Gloves
Soldier Story Glasses
Soldier Story Shemagh
Misc Black top
Crazy Owners Flannel shirt
Hot Toys Bottom from NSW
Very Hot Kneepad
Soldier Story Bumbag
Toys City Camera
Very Hot Laptop and case
Misc. Adidas x Bape Superstar

Can't beat a home video stripper!

Hot Toys Marcus Wright

When Hot Toys announced the release of Terminator Salvation I was excited to see what they will come up with. I've to admit the film wasn't the best but the concept and character designs were what I like in a post apocalyptic film

Hot Toys had released several characters from this film, with John Connor, T-600, T-700 and the T-700 diorama, but my favorite is Marcus Wright. When I saw the preview release I thought Hot Toys had produced one of the best coat in the 1/6 world. The fitting and material for the great coat is just amazing, there is a thin wire in the bottom of the coat for you to adjust the shape. The weathering on the jacket makes it more realistic but the overall weathering of this figure is top class.

The Marcus Wright box set comes with an extra damaged head, extra hands shotgun, knife and extra leather jacket which is again very good quality. The True Type body that came with this figure seems to be an old True Type, with big chest, but the arms are cast in rubber, the right arm being damaged with the exoskeleton showing. I feel HT have put a lot of effort into this, trying to make it as authentic and movie accurate as it can be







The paint work Hot Toys have improved vastly, they added extra texture and layers so the head looks more realistic. It doesn't beat Enterbay's yet but it is getting there. With the extra head and jacket, I got myself another True Type body with narrow shoulders so I can get two Marcus Wright one undamaged one damaged. For the damaged Marcus I purchased an extra set of leather gaiters, a pair of Toys City CIA molded boots, which were the same as Hot Toys and I used the leather pants and tee from an old Saturday Toys Biker set to complete the figure. Looks quite cool, though not movie accurate.

The leather jacket is just amazing and HT have done well in sourcing soft leather to make it look and fit like the real thing. The jacket in the film was designed by Belstaff and was original worn by Blair Williams. If you seen I AM LEGEND, you'll noticed Will Smith wore a similar jacket, which Belstaff was involved in.

(Tee that came from Saturday Toys biker set, no pun intended!)

Marcus Wright gets a new body.

When Hot Toys released Marcus Wright they original gave him an older version of the True Type body, with bigger chest piece. I felt with Marcus Wright's fitted shirt that it made him look like he's got man boobs. So I used the newer version of the narrow shoulder TT body and just replaced the arms. Looks much better. Will display pictures with overall clothes fitted.

(Original body on the right)

Rescuing Hot Toys True Type knee joint

Some small problems with Hot Toys True Type body are some joints are easily breakable. Most common are the wrist joints and knee joints. The problem is caused where the screw is tightly fixed to the joints, since it is tightly screwed whenever you move the joint it causes tension on the plastic and tear.

When my HT muscular body's knee joint broke I was devastated, since HT muscular body are hard to come by and expensive! I tried to see if Hot Toys was able to replace just the knee joint, as it is a small piece, but they weren't able to do it without proper receipt. Since the muscular body was purchased individually off eBay, Hot Toys weren't obliged to replace anything for me.

I did temporarily solve this by using glue, but after a few movements the joint broke again.

Trying to figure how to fix this problem I remember Barrack Sergeant bodies were similar to Hot Toys ones. I originally purchased a few BS bodies since I thought they were very similar to Hot Toys. As you can see from the picture below, the one on the left is Barrack Sergeant and the one on right is Hot Toys.




First thing to do was to remove the Hot Toys knee joint. The best method I found s to use two small screwdrivers and simultaneously push out the joint plug. Make sure to clamp onto the leg first. See the picture below to see where to push the joint plug.



Having done that is time to remove the Barrack Sergeant knee joint, this is more tricky and must take care in doing so. The only way to remove it is to saw on the thigh where the plastic is sealed together and then pry it out. It's quite easy to do but you need to take time and care. This applies to the calf area for the lower knee joint plug.

Now that you have the Barrack Sergeant and Hot Toys joints all you have to do is use the BS joint and replace it with the HT joint plugs. Be aware that the top and bottom plugs are different size but with fit on the BS joint accordly.

You may find it difficult to remove the screw on the HT joint plug, since the screw is fasten onto the plastic. What I did was cut the plastic out as shown in the picture below on the left and push the screw out.




The end result is very good, having fixed two True Type bodies and it seems the Barrack Sergeant joints are more robust than the HT ones. Though it's a shame I had to waste two good BS bodies. Hopefully Hot Toys can rectify this small problem.

(Barrack Sergeant knee joint on the left and HT on the right)

(Combo of HT and BS)

(End result)