Customising Mego Star Trek action figures

A female Andorian Ambassador... at last!

Scroll down to read the whole saga and see more pics!

After twenty years of contemplation, I have finally customised an Andorian female to scale with the 3.75" line of Mego action figures (1980) from Star Trek: The Motion Picture! To accompany the regular Starfleet crew, Mego had produced a smale range of Star Trek aliens: Klingon, Betelgeusian, Megarite, Arcturian and Saurian (incorrectly named by Mego as a Rigellian). No Andorian.

Andorians had been better represented in the extensive range of tiny, white-metal wargame figures released in Britain by Citadel Miniatures in 1980. Available in pairs of each alien, the long-haired male Andorian Ambassador (right) came complete with a flabbjellah (combination weapon and musical instrument). Unfortunately no Andorian female in national costume was produced by Citadel; she was omitted in favour of a male Andorian Enterprise crewmember (left).

Had the Mego ST:TMP line (and the first movie) been popular with children and collectors, Mego would probably have released more of TMP's barely-glimpsed alien ambassadors to cash in on the success of the similarly-scaled Star Warsaction figures by Kenner in the 70s. Coincidentally, it is the recent 90s versions of 3.75" Star Wars characters that have inspired my latest customising activities.

Did you guess the "ingredients" for creating Andorian females?

The recipe:

1. Simply take the head and arms of a Queen Amidala Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace action figure and the robed torso of the Rune Haako figure.

2. Amidala's hair is made a little more elaborate with quick-setting putty.

3. Her antennae are made from bendy wire from inside a plastic-coated "twist tie". This is heated, inserted into the forehead and cut off to desired lengths. Note that the Andorians depicted in ST:TMP had very different, tendrill-like antennae emerging from the forehead rather than the crown of the head.

4. Rune's robe needs some trimming to bring it to scale with the male Mego ST:TMP aliens. A chunk is cut from the middle of each thigh and the legs rejoined. Rune's shoulder hump has to be trimmed down. Some more putty changes the dimensions of his chest.

5. From there it's a (fairly) simple paint job: blue for the skin, white for the hair, off-white for the dress, decorated with pale blue swirls and a darker waistband.

6. The addition of real Australian gem stones, to represent the geodes used for waist and hair decoration, completes the female Andorian ambassador.

Many years ago...

The above figure was not my first Mego Andorian custom.

Captain Willard Decker and The Dukes of Hazzard's Luke Duke make a great Commander Therin action figure.

Further details can be found at my Recipes for customising page.

More Mego customs:

[Betelgeusian] [Rigellian Lord] [And the rest]

Playmates customs:
[Tellarite] [Arex] [M'ress] [Dr Selar] [Capt. Bev and Prof. Data] [Tuvix]

Races of the United Federation of Planets

A Rogues' Gallery of Andorians

A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture by Leslie Fish

Captain Therin's photo album

See Therin and Grol hosting intergalactic game shows

Therin's Log of the USS Hood (Fiction by Ian McLean)

That other blue race

Separated at Birth...?

Ian and Therin's hot links

The Andor Files

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Star Trek © Paramount Pictures Corp. This website is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount/Viacom. The Mego Customising pages © 1999 Orange Eye Productions. No text or graphics may be reproduced without permission.

Page revised June 2006
URL: http://www.oocities.org/therinofandor/index.html
Email Therin and Ian at: lindsay96@ozemail.com.au