[Joeness]

Musk Rat prefers the term Bayoux-Billy over 'Hillbilly'. He wears mismatched camo, rips the sleeves off all his shirts and carries a banjo with him everywhere, even on patrol.

[Joeness]

For Muskrat I needed a rough back country look, so I ditched the neat matching flack jacket and stole Recondo's torso to make a cut-off shirt. I also wanted to give him a different pattern for his shirt, pants and hat, but quickly realized even in my four-color "what-if" fantasy, there's no way an eighties toy factory would have gone that far.

So I settled for good old Olive Drab BDU for the hat and pants to bracket the camo shirt. I did two colorways for the shirt: first a greener one to approximate the earlier ERDL camo from the Vietnam era, then a browner version more like the later 'highland' ERDL or standard Woodland BDU. As usual, the colors and patterns aren't meant to be exact in color, shape and scale, but an approximation that would satisfy a slightly geeky 10-year-old kid who wanted his eighties lineup to look more 'authentic'.

Speaking of Recondo see below: I figured he could either go tiger stripe or something exotic. I settled for the fairly common lizard pattern that saw many iterations from the 50s to the 80s, first with France then many developing countries. It was merely a matter of darkening the base a little and adding a layer of brown to the existing scheme - a lot less work than most of the others.

To complete the look I used a modified version of the FAL models used for I think Ripcord or maybe Crimson Guards?

[Joeness]

Recondo has spent so many years stalking third-word guerillas he speaks twelve languages, knows which bugs to eat, is proficient in everyone else's weapons and never turns up for parade because he's forgotten where he put all his regulation gear.

[Joeness]

When Hawk needs a solid drill sergeant to whip the Joes into line, Sgt Slaughter is the guy he goes to. When the Village People need a backup vocalist in a spandex tank top...same guy.

[Joeness]

Added slightly to the pattern of Chuckles' Aloha shirt, and gave him a behind-enemy-lines gun. Other than that, it was a good figure, one of my faves at the time and all I did was darken the OD pants a little.

* I was generous giving the AK colors but without the wooden furniture, it just doesn't have the look. I always liked that third-world cobbled-together style you see on the news from various hotspots, with the red plastic mags and folding stock.

[Joeness]

Footloose joined as an eager young man trying to find himself in 1978. He served in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, The Balkans, Operation Urban Warrior and the invasion of Afghanistan. Through it all he managed to keep using the same pair of boots. He retired when they finally fell apart on the tarmac as he was boarding the plane out of Kabul.

[J James]

These are really cool.

[ozzie92]

Nice job! Fun to see your takes.

[ozzie92]

Interestingly enough, I hated chocolate chip camo when I was in the Air Force in the mid-90s… But I love it now, especially on my action figures!

[Joeness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozzie92

Interestingly enough, I hated chocolate chip camo when I was in the Air Force in the mid-90s? But I love it now, especially on my action figures!

I liked it from day one. Of course, it looked like cookies, so it made me hungry.