OVERKILL 1991

Overkill is the 17th figure in the Re-Color Project, yet another that was really hurting for a better color scheme. The sculpt for this figure was really detailed and had the making of a very good figure, then Hasbro took two massive dumps that buried this figure. First they chose a completely random and clashing set of colors for him that would look awful on any figure, then they compounded it by attaching the ridiculous oversized sound maker backpack that jacked his price up $5.00 higher and made him look even worse. In short they really dropped the ball on this figure and the others in its sub-group. The sound attack garbage only served to raise the price of the figures and didn't do anything to make them more desirable. Taking the hiked up original price of this figure into consideration, I wanted to re-imagine him in a way that would actually merit the increased cost without adding crappy gimmicks. I decided that a deluxe figure with more complex paint applications would be much cooler and a better justification for the price increase than some goofy talking backpack.

This figure uses the Warning! color scheme found on B.A.T., with all the intricate little wires found throughout his body picked out in the Red/Blue/Green/Yellow detail colors from the original B.A.T. chest hologram. Unlike the B.A.T., the color layout on this one isn't as simple as a black jumpsuit with yellow web gear. This figure is a prototype for a new generation of android and as such he has a rather cobbled together appearance, so the trick was deciding which colors to paint which part to strike the proper color balance. I knew the base would be black, but deciding where to put the yellow and silver was a bit more tricky. I came to the conclusion that the mechanical looking parts would be silver and the extra armor panels yellow, and used this as the basis for the overall color scheme. The original B.A.T. came in two color variations; one a normal golden yellow, and the other a bit more orangey yellow, so I decided to purposefully use both of these shades of yellow throughout the figure so it looks like each part was painted at different times with different batches of paint. This detail doesn't show up very well in the photos unfortunately.

For the legs I made the ribbed pants black, with the hydraulics and mechanical areas on the thighs, shins, and knee area silver. The armor plates around the thighs, knee pads, and feet got the yellow. There are a number of small wires found on his shins and thighs that were picked out in the four colors of the B.A.T. hologram. The waist was done in standard B.A.T. style with yellow belt and silver buckle on black base.

The Arms got similar treatment to the legs; black flexible padding, silver hands and forearm braces, and yellow bicep armor. Up near the shoulder you can see where the ribbed padding ends and appears to be bolted to the shoulder, leaving the ball joint exposed, so I made the ball joint itself silver to represent bare metal. The square opening in each bicep armor panel shows some internal electronics so I painted that just like the hologram, a blue base with red/green/yellow wires and gadgets. On each forearm there is a wire that wraps all the way around, and these were painted one in red, the other green.

The torso was the trickiest part of the figure, since I couldn't decide about how to paint the chest cover. My first idea was to make it out of transparent resin and then paint it with transparent yellow paint, but the whole idea of a transparent front armor panel seemed a bit cheesy to me and it would also mean all those intricate details wouldn't get painted. I finally decided it would look much better if it was painted solid colors and all the detail picked out, so I tried a couple of different possible color arrangements until I found one I liked. The main ribbed part of the torso was going to be black, so this was carried over to the ribbed parts of the chest panel. The lower abdomen of the torso was painted silver along with the hoses on the back, and this silver was carried up onto the three hydraulics on his chest panel. The group of wire harnesses across his upper chest panel got painted in the hologram colors and so the only place left that yellow would fit is the muscle tissue type areas on either side of his abdomen and on his lower breasts. The inside of the chest panel was painted like the hologram with blue base and red/yellow/green details, while the built in gun is silver.

I wanted the head to resemble a Cobra trooper with bare metal taking the place of bare skin to make it look more sentient. The face mask and helmet that wraps around the back of his head were done in black, with the rest of his face in silver. The little wires on his forehead were picked out in hologram colors, his targeting eye was picked out in red, and the other eye cavity was painted black with a yellow lens in the middle. The little nubs sticking out on the forehead and temples were picked out in black to add some detail. Since there is no yellow on the upper torso I painted the neck yellow to help balance out the colors a bit more.

The main modification of this figure has to do with the removal of that abysmally stupid backpack and replacing it with something that was decently sized and could actually hold his extra arm attachment. It just so happened I had something on hand that worked wonders; a left over 1995 Boba Fett backpack. By trimming the mounting bracket off and turning it upside down it fit perfectly into the socket on this figures back and could be screwed on from inside just like the original sound pack. I did a little trimming on the edges of the pack so that the jet nozzles act as pegs to hold the extra arm attachments, and removed the missile sticking out of the top. A hole had to be drilled into the center of the pack so the torso could be screwed together, so I used a little clipped off piece from the removed missile to fill the hole so it looks like a rear facing gun or some other technical component.

The end result is a figure that is far more pleasing to me than the original, and he is far more useful now that he doesn't have a backpack bolted to him that's larger than his entire body. His filecard said he was the primary driver for the Earthquake, now he can actually fit in the drivers seat!

Figure: Overkill 1991
Scheme: Warning!
Notes: Overkill front and back view, and with a group comparison shot of B.A.T, and a shot of the chest panel open with gun deployed.