Head: ARAH Steeler
Chest/back: ARAH Recondo
Arms: ARAH Alpine
Waist: ARAH Flint V1
Upper legs: ARAH Televiper
Lower legs: ARAH Tunnel Rat


Backpack: ARAH Roadblock
Rifle: ???
Night vision: knock-off figure binoculars modified
Radio handset: ARAH Firefly
Radio attached to backpack: from Playmobil knock-off figure set

Design:

One of the remaining The Plague characters for my set. Like the other Plague characters, the artwork in WWIII was not consistent from panel to panel, so there is no definitive "look" for the figure to follow. I took pieces that I thought would look gritty enough for the character and went from there. One of the few Plague characters that Devil's Due fleshed out in the writing, Vanguard was a frustrated American soldier personally recruited by Cobra Commander.

Color & painting:

Like the other figures in this custom set, the colors shift from the charcoal-only palette in the comic to being charcoal punched up with a bit of other colors.

The Plague is the largest subset I've done and wanted them to stand out from other figures. I have "dusted" all of my Plague figures in a desert weathering pattern. The body was dusted with a light tan, like my Infrared custom, to appear dirty and grimy. Unlike the other customs, on which I painted the webgear/secondary paints after applying the dust effect, here I applied the dust after all of the paints were complete. It's too dense, especially on the back, but looks more realistic.

The weathering, as a whole, was a failure. None of the figures have a consistent weathering effect that runs from figure to figure, as I had intended.

Sculpting & modifying:

I drilled a hole into the head to accept the night vision post. I added the straps for the night vision head-mount system.

The night vision from the 25A Snake-Eyes ('89 tribute version) is what I started to use. I dropped it at my work bench and it was lost. Lost, lost, lost. So I had to hobble together a replacement out of a knock-off figure's binoculars and some plastic scraps. The new night vision looks acceptable, but isn't sturdy enough to swivel up and down.

The back-facing portion of the backpack was modified to better fit the back.

Thanks for looking.

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