eBay Rescue: £3 'Zerker/Chem Brute

A security patrol walks into the middle of a private discussion, and things suddenly take a turn for the worse...

I'm sure we all have things that we're constantly searching eBay for, and at the moment it seems to be the larger minis that are capturing my own interest. I also keep looking at the miniatures for the game Guildball, which I have no interest in playing for its own sake, but does have an interesting range of models available.

Oddly for minis that can cost as much as £20, these seem to be turning up pretty regularly for a very reasonable price on the well-known auction site. And one that I picked up recently for around £3 was a large chap called "Katalyst".

Katalyst minus a metric ton of paint and superglue...

The mini arrived painted and on a base, but the paint was so thick and the base so caked in flock that I had no choice but to strip everything back and start from scratch. This proved harder than it should have been thanks to the fact that the previous owner must have literally used a pint of superglue on the thing.

Even after stripping the paint, I had to spend at least an hour scraping more of the stuff out of the crevices and chiseling off the last of the superglue. But finally I had the components cleaned and ready to be reassembled.

Starting to look more Bane-like...

The original head seemed too large for the look I wanted and the cable top-knot just wasn't doing it for me, so I feel back on my go-to solution for this kind of thing - the space marine head with rebreather. It looked pretty small perched atop that huge, hulking body, but I had a solution in mind for that too.

Plastique choker - THE fashion accessory of the season

I filled in the gaps with Miliput and then sculpted scar-tissue over the top as well as giving him manacles around the wrists. The join between the head and the body I hid with a large and very obvious collar that (I hope) looks like a huge amount of plastic explosives strapped around the brute's neck, to be used in extreme cases of disobedience on his part.

The Chem Brute poses alongside Local Oaf for size comparison

I think this might just be one of the eBay rescues that I'm most proud of, having turned it around in the space of just twenty four hours and managed to produce what I think is a pretty decent brute for a sci-fi or post-apocalyptic setting, and a mini I hope to soon be able to use on the tabletop.

Adding a mohawk with greenstuff or substituting a Goliath head would make this a good alternative to the official GW 'Zerker too, that is if you can track the original mini down for a reasonable price and are prepared to put a little bit of work into the conversion as well.

As always, let me know what you think, either here or on social media.