[Joeness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh Z

That's exactly what they did. It's Lady Jaye's body mold with a new head.



That was Hasbro's thought process at the time for some of the other figures they released from 1997 to the early 2000s. Some turned out better than others.

Volga looks nice. It's a cool camo scheme. Doesn't resemble anything Russia was using at the time IIRC - though they had a lot of obscure ones issued to units. The standard pattern then was three colors, not four. Still, shows Hasbro could make it: quality and detail are little different from a decade earlier - it's the two extra colors that make it a believable camo.

[Joeness]

So here's my take on the Oktober Guard. Being a bit of a camo history buff, I enjoyed playing with old Soviet stuff with help from camopedia.com: I actually like them better than the Joes i did.

I chose three patterns but these came in variations of shade and size over the years. Sometimes intentional as some units wore different patterns, and sometimes just sloppy inconsistency.

Don't know all the character names but from left to right:
- Figures 1 and 8 in PMK desert pattern from the seventies
- Figures 2, 6, and 9 in KLMK two-color pattern. It saw many variants from 1944 till the eighties. Two has a darker variant.
- Figures 3 and 4 in TTSKO green from the eighties
- Figures 5 and 7 in TTSKO brown - a variant for mountain troops

Despite the plethora of patterns and overlapping designs, the standard Soviet camo during its Afghanistan war was a plain desert beige. The original of Figure #8 was pretty much bang on for this color, but being a solid, I decided it was kinda dull.

The blue-striped undershirt is associated with Soviet/Russian paratroopers, marines, Spetsnaz, and some other elite units the Guard could reasonably have come from. Incidentally, as well as Russians, Ukrainian paratroopers and better units from many former Soviet Republics still wear this shirt.

On the characters, I realize some think Daina and Volga are the same character. Since one was depicted ginger and another blonde I decided to separate them. Horror Show on the far left (BTW based on the Russian "Khorosho" meaning "good" or "alright") was IIRC an imposing chap, so I made the figure a tad larger.

[Joeness]

Many of the Oktober guard came in grey, with red stripes down their pants like parade uniforms. This plays on western confusion and perception. The Germans in WW2 liked grey, it was never really a Russian uniform colour for either field or dress occasions. They were always more into brown and green - teal for ceremonial gear. Likewise the idea they would wear dress kit into battle - more fits stereotype of authoritarian regimes than reality. For that reason I eliminated most of the grey in these figures and tried to cover up leg stripes with camouflage.

[Joeness]

And following the theme, using eighties models again and the conceit that Hasbro at the time was willing to spring the extra cost for more accurate painting, here is a small contingent of friendly nations.

Mostly I just wanted to play with more Cold War patterns. left to right: Billabong, Taniwha, Geezah, Rupert, Edelweiss, Cordon Bleu and Panzerfaust.