Hopefully you’ll pardon my pawn, which was perhaps influenced by recent viewing. I can imagine that the blue protagonist from Timothy Zahn’s masterfully written Thrawn novels set in a galaxy far, far away might prove quite the adversary in own our earthly game of chess.
Hailing from his home world Rentor in the galaxy’s unknown regions, known natively as Vurawn, Kivu’raw’nuru and during his Imperial Military career as Mitth’raw’nuruodo or simply Thrawn.
As expected for someone in his position, Thrawn would study his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, but he would also immerse himself in their art and cultures. This keen observation afforded Thrawn an appreciation of opponent’s motivations and mind-sets somewhat beyond his contemporaries, when combined with his strategic cunning would systematically and clinically dispatch his enemies.
While the Emperor determined non-clone humans were superior and the preferred recruits to populate his Imperial ranks, Thrawn’s intelligence talents captured Palpatine’s attention, becoming his red-eyed boy, and ultimately propelling the former Pirate to the rank of Imperial Grand Admiral.
Moving onto the custom figure inspired by Thrawn, this was pulled together from a vintage Imperial Commander with a badly chewed head and the loose vintage Mego head of The Black Holes Dr Durant.
No boil or heat and pop needed here, the damaged head was rotated and worked off the figures neck peg. I clipped the neck peg at the base with a pair of flat cutting pliers and stored the part away for use in future projects.
I vice pin drilled into the neck remnant and teased out the remaining neck plastic leaving a hole. I worked with needle files to make the hole large enough to accommodate the Mego head’s neck peg.
The Mego head was removed for some adjustments. As with my previous Wullf Yularen custom, the head sat too proud upon the figure. So again, a few millimetres below the heads chin, I sawed around the neck peg making sure to maintain the central peg. Removing the plastic from around the neck allowed the head to sit better proportionately upon the figure while still keeping the neck pegs plug intact. Filing around the neck peg to make sure the finish was neat and the head mounts flush. I didn’t cut this head as short as Yularen, so he sits a little taller and with his Imperial Commander’s wider stance than my previous custom, he resonates an air of confident authority, in fitting with his characters persona.
Putting the head to the side, I moved onto working some Yellow/Grey Milliput epoxy to fashion his larger rank insignia plaque to display his higher status than the Imperial Commander donor’s. I then shaped his additional code cylinders, collar insignia and shoulder epaulets. These were all fitted onto the figure to adhere and cure.
A couple of days later I painted the figure with 3 coats of Revel Aqua Color white matt acrylic. Unlike his friend Wullf, I painted Thrawn’s gloves white. When dried I used some Tamiya silver metallic acrylic to touch up his belt buckle, his rank plaque, tops of code cylinders, collar insignia and shoulder epaulets. The rank plaque was sectioned into quarters with narrow Tamiya modelling masking tape and painted with Tamiya flat yellow, flat blue and flat red matt acrylics to his personal rank.
The tips of his code cylinders were touched with some Tamiya semi-gloss blue acrylic. Finally for the figure I used Tamiya clear yellow acrylic on top of his silver metallic epaulets which finished them with their gold appearance.
With the figure finished it was time to work on Thrawn’s head. The Mego head neck peg was pushed into a ball of white-tack and mounted onto a cocktail stick, which in turn was mounted into a ball of white-tack on a figure display stand.
Painting the Mego head eyes with a Tamiya flat red matt acrylic, letting the paint flow into the eye hollows. I mixed some Revel Aqua Color white matt acrylic with a Tamiya flat blue semi-gloss acrylic then worked around his eyes, face and neck up to his hairline. His hair was painted using a Revel Aqua Color black matt acrylic.
When the head had dried, I whipped some plumbers PVC threading tape around the neck peg and with a satisfying stiffness, plugged into the vintage Imperial Commander’s body.
The figure was then finished with some aerosol sealant and ready to join his intelligence counterpart Wullf Yularen.
Product Search
- Hardcover Book
- Gray, Claudia (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 448 Pages - 02/02/2021 (Publication Date) - Random House/Star Wars (Publisher)
