[HissHissFangFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by axonrey

Surprise, surprise. You killed it again!

Always love your work, bud. You really get into the weeds in these designs and I love it because I try to do the same. Not as successfully, of course, but I try.

Thanks axonrey. Also haven't forgot about your Chuckles head suggestion. Your whole impressive Rawhide collection led me improving mine, but I got detoured by some 1983. And some 1986.

[HissHissFangFan]

It's a custom. I've got the hours on my timecard to prove it. I can explain tomorrow with more pics, but need to make headway on his buddy tonite...

2020-06-14_12-07-18 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

[Yeet]

He has better hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AxonRey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HissHissFangFan

Thanks axonrey. Also haven't forgot about your Chuckles head suggestion. Your whole impressive Rawhide collection led me improving mine, but I got detoured by some 1983. And some 1986.

Too many projects, not enough time. I know how that goes.

[HissHissFangFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeet

He has better hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeet you are not wrong...

[shakka85]

Looks like a complete repaint (the green looks a shade or two darker), with a with a bit of grime added for good measure (see the gloves, the goggles and mic on the helmet, and a touch on the sleeves and pant legs that is noticeable). Am looking forward to seeing more!

-Todd
Shakka85

[m141911cdm]

Your updates make me wish we could buy these off the shelves. 2 thumbs up

[Stormgard]

Amazing work. The baby blue on Airborne has never done it for me, but there's no mistaking who this is! What an upgrade

[HissHissFangFan]

AIRBORNE [TAKE 1]


20200612_194939~2 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

The group picture below is from July 2015, a few years before I started posting my sets here on HissTank. At the time, I was just completing my concept set for Cobra 1983, originally a nine-figure set to match nine Joes originally releases in 1983 (discounting Duke). The 25th Joes of 1983 were all over the place in height. Until now, I never messed with tweaking these guys for height or anything else, like I have for my Cobras or for my O13 sets. Gung-Ho did get his 50th upgrade, and a few weeks ago, I updated Doc.

The main thing I want to point out with the picture above is Airborne’s height. Specifically, see the height of the shoulders. Not only is he shorter than my Cover Girl, he’s comically shorter than his partner Wild Bill. Pairing the two figures together, Airborne almost looks like WB’s kid sidekick. I thought the figures looked pretty good for early 25th releases (above standard for the time), but the height difference of the pair zeroed out any plusses—and really didn’t have ideas on how to tweak them up. All these 1983 would just go back to the main Joe shelf and just fill out the big team shelf, where all the minute issues would just get washed away in a sea of 70+ figures.


GiJoe_25th_83-83_2015-0713 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

Beyond four OG13 figures, Wild Bill and Airborne were my only Joes as a kid—they would be my last Joes (vs Cobras) until 2004. The cardback pictured is an 1984 issue—I believe I got these guys and the Dragonfly as a nice complementary toy to the Rattler manned with Wild Weasel and Scrap-Iron, and to have nice contribution to my neighborhood’s 1983 Joe Team collection (someone had the Wolverine, someone had the Skystriker, someone had the base). The copter and these two figures also made a nice standalone play combination. So although these guys had a very high nostalgic factor for me, and were actually executed fairly well for 2008 figures, I never got too amped in fixing these 25th figures up like my others.

Fixing up Doc just recently finally did get me to revisit these two, but after all these years without tweaking, I’ve become attached to the basic builds of these two—and can’t get myself to overhaul them like others figures (like Doc). The compromise I made was to tweak the things and problems that I didn’t like. For Wild Bill, those things would be the head size, vest fit, arm length, little hands, and massive gun holsters. For Airborne, it would mainly be height—I wanted a modified 25th version that could stand with 25th Wild Bill as an equal. But the height correction would also entail a lot of repainting as explained later.


2020-06-14_11-47-15 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

I’ve got a concurrent tweak project going on right now with some 1986 figures (mainly spurred by height correcting Sci-Fi). That concurrent project freed up spare 25th Airborne parts, previously used for a custom Dialtone but replaced the short Snake Eyes torso of the original figure with a 25th Duke torso. Fortunately, that Duke torso is what was needed for the height correcting. Unfortunately, the upper torso was too pronounced (not helped by the chest pockets), the sculpted belt too wide, and the Airborne vest initially too short on this torso (and probably true for just about any other torso save 25th SE). So major cuts, sanding, etc were done to the torso, and minor shaves to the inside and shoulders to the Airborne vest to make this all work better.

When this figure part of the Dialtone custom, the legs and knees were painted black and dark green, and painted heavily and long ago as one of my older customs. As a result, I had a lot of trouble removing those paint jobs effectively, and had to repaint both the legs and knees. Since I had to repaint the brown knees and the green holster, I felt I needed to repaint all browns on the figure to match (mix of Testors Leather and Testors Schokoladenbraun '43 RAL 8017). Luckily the Testors Sand color on the legs was a close enough match to the arms so those did not get repainted.


PhotoGrid_1592011100543 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

All the other side colors also needed repainting. Since the hands got switched to ball swivel (using DG Cobra Commander), the all the greys got replaced (Tamiya Ocean Grey 2). The vest used was also from a different abandoned custom, and its previous dark paints could not all get removed. So the greens got replaced (AK Real Colors Light Green) as well as the light blue (AK Real Colors Air Superiority Blue). I liked this blue so much, I also repainted by extra unmodified 25th Airborne as well.

The backpack was replaced with the correct one based on the vintage. I can’t believe I didn’t notice the incorrect backpack until pulling out my original figure. I used a green one from an extra Ross/Marshalls Tiger Force Duke, and kept it green to help balance out the color of the figure overall.

Last thing real small thing was to sand down the heels of the boots. Though I could have used the slight height increase (every micrometer counts at this scale), those heels were a bit obnoxious looking. The figure really could have used a switch to different lower legs and feet, but those Gung-Ho parts were essential for maintaining the height increase.


20200612_014854~5 by HissHissFangFang, on Flickr

With all that, I do consider this one a custom job--but with the end results being almost invisible. Hopefully seeing this guy between an unmodified 25th WB and Airborne above shows the difference. And then if the custom job is still not visibly apparent, I’ve really done my job a weird way. Based on the front view above, I think I still need a little work on the vest (cut down narrower, cut off the inside snap), and I’d like to sculpt a wider neck collar with ribbing, but I’ll circle back to that down the road.

In the pic above, unmodified Wild Bill don’t look too bad. But in hand he’s got issues that are glaring. I think I’ve got my modified 25th WB finished and painted, just need to take pictures, hopefully sometime this week. This one will be another “stealth” custom…

[89PILOT]

You put the hours in alright!!! I like all the ones you've done. Very cool.