Post
by Darthvehement » Mon Apr 22, 2024 4:21 pm
When this figure was released, I was quite excited because there was never anything that accurately resembled a Cylon Centurion produced before. (I don't count the pitiful excuse for a character the Mattel company produced in the 1970s/80s)
These figures are impressive, 12 inches tall and fully articulated.
I was disappointed in the inconsistency with the accuracy on this figure- most of the details are 100%, but other parts it seems as if they simply guessed the details!
With the abundance of reference photos available these days, I find no excuse for mistakes. (They even have an actual photo of the character on their box cover!)
In order to improve this figure and more accurate, I began with the paintwork.
One of the best qualities of the figure is the polished metal finish (only reproduced in the Joyride figures).
However, I needed to stick on gold foil patches to cover sprue molding marks left in parts of the armour.
Also, they had omitted the black panels at the back of the helmet, which I had to sand down and paint in with enamel.
The red scanner "eye" needed painting over and replacing, again with enamel model paint.
After the repairs and repainting was completed, I coated all of the gold armour with clear gloss enamel in order to protect the finish.
(Vacumetalization finish tends to fade and decay in the atmosphere, I found this problem with other plastic items with this finish, including sports trophies, light and radiator fittings, photo frames,etc.)
The black ribbing on the joints needed clear gloss acrylic for the correct finish,( they are somewhat bulky and oversized, but is a minor issue), and also on the thigh sheaths.
Adding missing parts of the armour; sheaths for the upper arms- these are cut from plastic tube packaging, then painted black and fitted under the gold arm bands.
The chest plating is secured by a gold band that links at the back.
This was cut from a matching gold chocolate box and glued inside the chest plating.
An electronic control box is added to the back of the belt with black electric cable connecting the CPU backpack.
The belt, (originally fitted the wrong way around!), has space at the back for this, along with the Chainmail skirt (also missing!).
The skirt is cut from net curtain and painted with matching metallic acrylic gold, attached with wire loops.
A holster for the pistol is also added to the belt (made with plastic wire ties and a watch strap band.
Wire ties make a harness to hold the sword, attached to the side of the belt.
(There was a dowel on the side of the sword, meant to fit a hole in one of the battery packs on the belt but it didn't fit properly and looked ridiculous attached in that way, so I cut off the dowel and used it to fill in the hole in the battery.)
The rifle and pistol details are excellent, but surprisingly (as they obviously took such care overall), the bayonet is painted silver!! I scraped off the paint to reveal clear plastic underneath, as it should be!
The same is the case on the muzzle of the pistol. Unfortunately, I only discovered this after replacing it!
Other, smaller gripes concern a slot cut out of the chest plate, for some reason unknown and there should be angle cuts to the bottom corners of the shoulder plates (all the figures I've seen have this error!).
The next best figure of this character comes from the Joyride company.
Their figures also have a few inaccuracies and parts missing, however, the sword is the correct scale and the metal finish is correct.
The figures are only 7 inches and solid cast, without much articulation.
