Workbench Report vol. VI (I think)

It's been months since I've finished anything. Although I did pick up both Sideshow's Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander. They're amazing figures and two of SSCs best, imho. Hot Toys level, folks, that's all that really needs be said.

It doesn't look like Airborne will be parachuting in any time soon, much to Wild Bill's and my dismay. It's a parts matter more than anything else, he's got a fairly simple design and it's something I want to get just write rather than stick him in a flight suit and throw a vest on him. He IS coming just not right away. As always there's somebody(ies) on the backburner and I'm proud to say I've finally got a leg up on a Joe I've been trying to produce for over a year now. He's a personal favorite and think you're really going to like him.

The dios feature was fun to do and I've been contemplating doing another one soon. As the team grows more and more dio possibilities open up. Then of course there's the Cobra Troopers coming from SSC, they look awesome!!! Gonna need a couple Dragunovs for them of course.

In closing I've decided to leave you guys with a little teaser of the upcomming Joe I mentioned. Since the movie is looking to be an outright disaster I feel obligated as a diehard Joefan to give you something to look forward...

Cursing the poor lighting in the weapons
warehouse, Rock N Roll goes back to see what he tripped over. He's
perplexed to see a .50 cal and wonders who the hell it belongs to......

Special Missions: Dios Feature I

Back after a long break... Did everyone catch GI Joe: Resolute on Adult Swim? If you missed it be sure to check it out!!!

As it turned out Airborne won out the second Reinforcements Poll, thanks to everyone who took the time to vote! I'm still searching for a few things but he's definitely been started. There's a couple more Joes in the works as well, and if you're following on Twitter you'll know who I'm talking about.
Tonight's update is mostly just pictures as this is the first (of what I hope will be many) Dio features!

Workbench Report Vol. V: Revised and Redone and NOTHING about the "film"

Normally the WBR is a feature of my main thread at Sector3601, today I've decided to bring the report to you!

"I want YOU to pick the next GI Joe!"
To start, the poll is going exceptionally well! Even better than the last one I should add. As of this writing Chuckles and Airborne are tied at 6 and the others each have 5. (Mind you the votes here are added along to the votes the Sector.) Both would be really fun projects to do as they are two of my favorites! However, it's still anyone's game!!! What's that? You haven't voted yet? Well what're you waiting for!!! That said, the next Joe should make is appearance by months end just in time to wrap up the poll. While I can't give any specifics I will say that he's been around the block...
Moving right along, let's talk about the dios feature. This is really something I keep meaning to do. For those that don't know dios is short for "diorama" and from there I think it's pretty obvious. There are a plethora of Joe collectors, myself inculded, that enjoy building and photographing GI JOe dioramas. http://www.joedios.com/ is great place for this and some of the members there (Outrider, Flatline, Fireflyed, Hammerfell, and Sonnelion to name very few) do some great work! If you haven't checked it out I highly recommend it! I've been saying it for a while that once I got some more guys done I would start doing dios and I promise it's coming!!! On the subject of upcomming Joe events, Sideshow Collectibles' Snake Eyes figure is almost in hand! This looks to be an amazing figure for any Joe collector!

Rock N Roll and is getting a redux soon. I was never too thrilled with the body before but have opted to swap him onto BBI G 3.5s. This was suggested to me by Starrdogg and Sinister of Sector3601 during Outback, but I was too stubborn. After finally seeing a G 3.5 in person I have to say it's far superior to the old Hot Toys body I was using. It's a lot more sturdy and the joints are tight. Outback has already gone through the swap and now has the approriate H&K rifle!

Light Infantryman CODENAME: Hit & Run

Hit & Run in the eyes of almost any collector is a standout topnotch figure. He's perfectly camouflaged right down to his olive green skin tone. He's got a built in repelling loop sculpted into his waist piece. He was packed with some pretty cool accessories and yet even more accessories if you got the Target exclusive version with the parachute. I remember my cousin had that one when we were kids the parachutes worked so-so at best. One of the best, if not the best, figure to hit during the '88 run.
By his name Hit & Run sounds like he'd be a guerrilla fighter along the lines of the Swamp Fox down south during the Revolutionary War. Hiding in the bushes until such a time came when he could catch the enemy off guard with an ambush and then disappear back into the woods. I imagine him getting dropped into Cobra infested territories with nothing but a rucksack and maybe a rifle. Anything else would have to be acquired on-site. So in that sense he's pretty much the Solid Snake of the Joe world. Go with it.
This figure in particular was another long time coming. The head/helmet was almost completely finished, save for the goggles, for months while everything else sorta came together in the last couple weeks. The helmet is about 75% original sculpt using a fighter pilot helmet as a base. The goggles are from Dragon and they have the signature orange lenses. The outfit was the most significant liberty I took. Instead of a button up shirt I made it into a jumpsuit, which was originally a blue Russian jumpsuit from Dragon which happened to have the right sleeves. The arms and legs were hemmed as they were quite baggy on the body. From there it went through several dye baths to get the proper olive drab green. The black camo pattern is painted on similar to Recondo's stripes.
Once the suit was finished he still looked considerably naked. The harness/rig he wears is about as character specific as Flint's shotgun shell suspenders so it really had to be done just right. The belt is just a standard belt from a Dragon BDU set. The repelling loop is a combination of sheet styrene and apoxie sculpt. The harness is made from black nylon ribbon and the middle piece is again sheet styrene cut to shape. From there the whole figure was weathered from head to toe for a rugged dirty look. I wanted him to feel like he'd been through swamps and up mountains and generally just laying in the dirt...
So that's it for Hit & Run. A long process but a fun one. With a little luck there might just be another Joe finished this month so stay tuned!

Oh and don't forget to vote for which team member you wanna see!!!

"We need reinforcements!" Pt. 2

The Joe team is in trouble and Breaker's on the horn calling for support!!!

Some months back I ran a similar themed poll for the '82 Original 13 era Joe and that wound up being Rock N Roll by a huge margine! That poll along with the many comments and support from friends and readers alike has inspired me to send another troop into the battlelines, and YOU get to pick who he is! Just like the last poll I will not be voting in this one, the results will be entirely based of your votes tallied up from Sector3601 and of course Headquarters! This time around the choices span some of the best years of GI Joe.

VAMP Driver CODENAME: Clutch
Helicopter Assault Trooper CODENAME: Airborne
Dog Handler CODENAME: Mutt n' Junkyard
Undercover CODENAME: Chuckles
Swamp Fighter CODENAME: Muskrat

Now you might be asking why not Falcon? or Roadblock? or Duke? or Psyche-Out? And the truth is those guys are already on the to-do list! ...well, maybe not Psyche-Out. I tried to pick five very different guys, made somewhat odd choices too I'm sure. But these are five of my favorite GI Joes from a long list of favorite Joes! Having come in second last time Clutch returns to face a slew of new comers! Will he win out this time? Or be stuck with another silver medal? Only you can decide their fate! *

Also of note, I do plan on using these guys in dios. I've been saying it for momths now but I'm getting there. A couple of the shots have already made their way to JoeDios. So be on the lookout for that!

* No Flag Points required.

Artic Trooper CODENAME: Snow Job

This is the original Snow-Joe, before you got Frostbite, before Eels became Serpents, and well before you hit that Iceberg, there was Snow Job. Harlan comes from a somewhat interesting year from GI Joe. The olive drab look of the original 13 was out and specialties were in. He was joined by the likes of Airborne and Doc and eventually Duke if you had enough Flag Points. Vehicles were hitting harder as well and '83 saw the release of the infamous Hiss tank and Snow Job here got unofficial assigned to the Polar Battle Bear snowmobile. I'm kinda wishing a had 1/6 scale one right about now...

Ayway, by now you can probably guess the make of the head and body. I reworked the hood and added a bit more to the beard to "extend" the head, if you will. It was a little smaller than I'd anticipated when it came in. For the jist of outfit I went back to the Hall of Fame series. There was a pretty cool artic mission set that I had as a kid and always thought it would look cool for Snow Job, back then I actually thought that's who it was for but they never released a red hair Joe for that series, not that I can recall. Back to the point, the pants were fine but the jacket is a little short in the sleeves thankfully he's got those gloves to cover it up. I'm not 100% on the make of the goggles, but they originally had clear lenses. Don't get me wrong clear lenses would've looked cool, but I decided I wanted to something slightly different. I painted them with a clear blue which is of course a genuine nod to his appearance on the cartoon. Unfortunately they show up a little too dark in the photographs.

Gearwise he's got the skis and ski poles, obviously the longest accessory so far from all my Joes. They are from Dragon and retooled slightly and then painted white. The backpack is from a Action Soldier/Adventure Team GI Joe re-release. I found it pretty fitting seeing as how Snow Job is quite similar to the classic GI Joe Artic soldier. The XMLR-3A Laser Rifle is scratch-made using a spare shotgun I had. All the pouches, ect. are standard Dragon issue painted repainted... white.

It all results in what I think is a pretty unique looking figure especially on a shelf alongside the other Joes. Special thanks to the boys at Sector3601 for giving me that extra push to finish him, it was a LONG time coming and I think it all really paid off!

...and before anyone asks, yes, I've seen that Robot Chicken episode! "This looks like a go job for Snow Job!" ;)

Year End Report!

It's been a blast! 10 figures spanning 6 of the more prominent years of GI Joe. With Snake Eyes expected to ship from Sideshow sometime in January and on top of that Snowjob is well on his way to being completed. You can check out the Sector for more info on him. I'm going through possibilities for the next Reinforcements Poll which will take place some time in the next month, so by all means if you've got ideas throw 'em out there! Feel free to hit me up on here or at the Sector! Also the coming year I plan to expand into the '88 run and hopefully begin with Cobras.

Speaking of Cobras, next year is due to bring some excitement on the world terrorist organization front with SSCs Cobra Commander and joining him their Cobra Trooper! Some people ha concerns that "Bradstreet" Cobra Commander was too modernized but the Trooper looks as classic as can be. Might need to pick up a Dragnov SVD rifle for that one, but other than that the figure looks pretty badass!

Although by no means an actual to-do list, just based off what I've got random parts for, some of '09s prospective Joes are:

-Roadblock
-Airborne
-Quick Kick
-Duke
-Clutch

-Falcon

That's gonna wrap up '08! Thanks for watching and tune in next time! Happy New Year's!!!

X-M


YO JOE!!!