Black Series Sandtrooper 01 Review and Pauldron Hack
At the time of this post, Sandtrooper 03 released in July of 2013, is going for approximately $70 on Amazon. That’s quite an increase from the original price of $20. Sandtrooper 03 is pretty awesome because of the contrasting orange shoulder pauldron.
Hasbro released another Sandtrooper (Sandtrooper 01) the following year, this time with a black shoulder pauldron. 2013’s Sandtrooper 03 and 2014’s Sandtrooper 01 appear to be identical. Both figures have the same weapons and backpack. The only differences appear to be the differing shoulder pauldrons, and Sandtrooper 03’s helmet appears to have a bit more sand weathering than the 2014 figure.
I wanted to have both versions of the Sandtrooper, however, I was not willing to pay $70 for the squad leader figure. I picked up 2 Sandtrooper 01 figures from Amazon for $23 each. They appear to be slowly rising in price…I checked today, and they are $28. I’m not in it for collecting, I wanted to use the Sandtroopers for photography and in my YouTube videos.
For a little over $1, I picked up some pure orange acrylic satin finish paint at Michael’s Craft Store. It looked like the correct shade of orange that was shown in Episode IV. I chose a satin finish because gloss would be a little too shiny, and a matte finish would be too flat. Satin would do nicely. The stock pauldron had a very smooth finish, so I would need to prime it first for the orange acrylic. I had some left over black spray paint/primer from my Stormtrooper Blaster Prop Project. Once primed, the acrylic should adhere to the plastic.
I removed the head of the Sandtrooper and slid the pauldron off over the right arm.
After spraying the pauldron with some black flat black paint/primer, I masked the edges with you guessed it…masking tape. I used some Handi Tack for the rounded edges. Than Handi Tack rolled nicely into a “snake” and then it was pressed against the edges.
I used a Paasche single action airbrush to apply the orange acrylic. Because I was applying a lighter color on top of a darker color, it took about 5 coats to get a nice solid color and finish. I am very pleased with the results!