Hello, Figure Realm! I'm back! Yeah, yeah, I know, no one noticed I was gone. Life kinda got in the way of fun, and I didn't have time to post my latest figures, despite the fact that I've had them done for about a month now. Ah well, I've got time now, so allow me to present the next figure in my Metroid series 2, "Military, Metroids, and Minor Characters." Big round of applause for . . . Bounty Hunter Ghor!

Every Metroid fan knows that Samus is a space bounty hunter. What has been suspiciously lacking throughout the series is competition. What, there's only one bounty hunter in the entire galaxy? This little oversight was corrected in the latest released installment in the series, Metroid Prim 3: Corruption. Fans were introduced to a trio of similarly occupationed . . . occupied . . . occupated . . . uhm, a trio of similarly employed individuals who took on the Galactic Federation's dirty work for a price. Arguably the most unusual of these was Ghor. On the surface, he was an android, but deeper research tells us that he was once a living creature, but his body was nearly destroyed, and now he's a cyborg with less than 6% organic tissue remaining. Though not the strongest fighter himself, his ability to merge with other technology, including his starship/battlemech combat suit, he is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Ghor is easily the most unusual, ambitious, difficult build I've ever undertaken. It's not that he was hard to put together, per se, but rather that it was a nightmare trying to come up with the components I would ultimately use. LOOK at this guy! You can't make him out of a conventional figure, for obvious reasons. Bionicle Legos seem a logical choice, but they're far too bulky, for the most part. Star Wars prequel battle droids looked like a good fit, but they're too short, and ultimately couldn't support the weight of the whole figure. The design process proved to be quite the dilemma.

Eventually, I came across a suitable starting point: a 7" tall, 1/6 scale Pit Droid from Star Wars Ep. 1. I took his arms and legs, cutting the legs down to a size and width comparable to the small legs seen in the picture. As for Ghor's upper legs, they posed another challenge. No official artwork of the character exists beyond the publicity shot seen below. I had to pour over online gameplay videos to determine the exact shape of his legs. It turned out, they were large, grooved armor plates. After some trial and error, I found a suitable analog in a Transformers Beast Wars Armordillo toy. I removed his shell, cut it in half, cut the halves to the proper shape, and smoothed the surface and added specific details using Loctite Epoxy Putty.

The hip and shoulder ball joints were from a Bionicle set, and I specifically used gray so I wouldn't need to worry about paint wear. Then it was on to the upper body. The spinal shaft was made from a random GI Joe arm, and the torso was from a fodder Batman torso, heavily carved and resculpted. The neck was the forearm from a Spider-Man figure, and the head was a resculpted Legendary Comic Book Heroes Judge Death head, thanks to the perfect dome shape. Then it was all just detail work, from the GI Joe missile launch tails for the various spikes, to the hand-sculpted wrist plasma beam blade on his right arm, to the Star Wars Battle Droid legs I used to mimic the joints seen on his inner thighs, to the Gundam Wing Zero beam cannons I used to make the extensions on his lower legs, to the also hand-sculpted, removable PED armor vest.

Ghor is just a random collection of limbs and joints. There is no real "base figure," he's just stuff I found and put together, pretty much a scratch-build figure from toe to brain. Most customs I do use a single base with one or two other figures providing additional parts. Ghor used parts from nine toys (Pit Droid, Gundam, Battle Droid, Armordillo, Bionicle, GI Joe, Batman, Spider-Man, Judge Death) to come to life. And yet, I think he's just as game-accurate as any of my other figures. He's easily one of my favorites, and he's going to look spectacular next to his fellow bounty hunters on my shelf.

See you next mission!