Alley-cat Blues

Take nearly anything I enjoy and make a robot out of it and I'll love it even more.  So naturally when the new TMNT show was announced, I was excited to see a revamp of one of my favorite characters: Metalhead.  So far he's only been in one episode, but that still warranted him an action figure.  While his articulation is a little lacking, (no elbows or ankles, really?) the overall sculpt is great and updated the character's look well.  The paint work, (or lack thereof) and the other hand .....

Left a little something to be desired

Let's see see how I went about transforming this figure into one worthy of the name Metalhead.

With a character named Metalhead, I found the figure greatly lacking in, well, metal.  After blasting several hours of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden at him failed to produce results, I decided that I'd have to solve the problem through paint. I began with a flat black undercoating on all of the grey areas of the figure in addition to the arms and legs.

Next came the metal paint application itself.  Using Testors Silver, I dry-brushed all the metallic areas just enough to give them a worn iron look.  As Metalhead's shell is fashioned after an NYC manhole cover, I wanted all the metal to match that look.

Next up was repainting the yellow areas.  While I liked these sections the way they were, there were spots that the manufacturers "forgot" to paint in yellow.  Looking at the front-facing picture above, you'll notice that the left and right "belt" areas were not painted yellow as they should have been.  I still used a base coat of black to help the yellow adhere better to the plastic.  Also the left and right sides of his "bandanna" were not painted at all.  Once the yellow was applied, I did some small detail work on the knees to better match his appearance on the show.

Now with full belt/bandanna and knee detailing.

At this point, I couldn't help but feel that he looked too "clean."  He's a sewer-built robot after all, and I thought his look should reflect that.  I also wanted to give the figure some shading for added "realism."  I accomplished both goals through the use of a lightly applied green paint wash.  It gave some definition to the lines for shading and gave him a "fresh from the sewer" look.

That's, um, algae.  Yeah, that's it. Algae

And there we have it; a Metalhead worthy of Donatello's workshop!