Scout Trooper Sniper conversion

Having had my urge to produce some Star Wars miniatures reignited by the computer game Battlefront, I thought I'd quite like to model a scout sniper to add to my existing Imperial forces:

I dug out some WOTC bendies to provide donor parts, a Scout Trooper and a Kashyyyk Trooper (the proto-Scout Trooper you see in Episode III):

The good thing about these bendy plastic miniatures is the ease with which you can chop them up and Frankenstein them into new configurations:

So, Scout Trooper torso for the armour, Kashyyyk Trooper legs because I thought it would probably best to not have a sniper running along (even if that is how it tends to go down in video games). 

But what sort of sniper would he be without a sniper rifle? After various attempts to rig something up out of Tamiya WWII parts and even an attempt to carve one out of a WOTC sandtrooper mini that was abandoned when I had to come to the conclusion that I was essentially trying to whittle rubber, I took this from a Halo Actionclix figure:

A little bendy and a little big (as the Halo figures are pretty chunky compared to most other ranges), but we can do something about both of those things. First of all, the bend:

Boiling water on the left, ice water on the right. Soften in hot, bend to desired position, and set in cold water:

Freshly straightened, some careful cuts and needlessly fiddly pinning work later we have a more appropriately sized weapon for a chap that's frankly not dressed correctly for stealth operations (wait, is there a fridge up in that tree? No, it's the gleaming white armour of the Emperor's finest):

I had originally planned to cut the arms up to convert them into a traditional shooting pose, but test-fitting it into the existing pose I was quite taken with the 'sniper taken by surprise reacting with his small arm' pose that resulted:

There's a little cleanup work to be done with liquid greenstuff on his butt to neaten the transition, but other than that he's done!

And here he is (along with a couple of extra friends) based and ready for undercoat:

Speaking of undercoat, I find myself in Bluewater (oh, the giant delicious 5 Guys burger), and my companions were deeply amused that I bought 2 shades of black paint in the Games Workshop here...