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04-12-2021, 08:41 PM | #1 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jun 2020
Location: Seattle
Posts: 95
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Hello! I'm Erik! You may know me from my Adventure People customs or some of my posts to the Marauder and MoJoes Facebook groups, where I post a lot of my custom figures.
I've enjoyed my brief time here on the Tank, and wanted to update my posts to include some of my more recent GI Joe-related projects. I started customizing action figures at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (alas, too late to join in on the fun contests going on here at the time), and was inspired by the vibrant creative community here to try my hand and more and more ambitious projects as time went by. With about a dozen finished or almost-finished customs based on the old Fisher Price Adventure People under my belt, the old nostalgia for my true favorite childhood toy line--GI Joe--got stronger and stronger. Eventually, I knew I wanted to transition from the Adventure People to GI Joe. I was nervous about jumping directly to some of my favorite characters, however, and decided to first approach the 1970s GI Joe Adventure Team as a way to develop my technique and parts knowledge before trying the really tough stuff. Many of the Adventure Team characters have relatively simple outfits and limited gear, so I thought this would be a great place to start. This thread will contain images of all my GI Joe Adventure Team customs, hopefully eventually including the 20+ 1970s-era villains I have assembled but not yet painted. Enjoy! |
04-12-2021, 08:44 PM | #2 |
LNC Commander
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Sbartek's Guest Room
Posts: 24,594
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Erik these are awesome man! I am a fan of fine paint and your skills are outstanding.
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04-12-2021, 08:45 PM | #3 |
Tiger Force member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Here with my boy , Jacob , and Mama:)
Posts: 5,374
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Those look awesome! Any bios for them?
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04-12-2021, 09:18 PM | #4 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jun 2020
Location: Seattle
Posts: 95
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I want to do file cards for all of them but I'm way too mired in other writing projects to have the time for it now. I will be posting some vintage reference images as I update these guys to this thread.
Unfortunately, I just hit a super-fun thing where my phone is now "helpfully" converting all my images to HEIC, so I just spent a while re-converting them back to a format BBcode can understand. Thanks, Apple! The upshot is I'll have a lot more to say about these guys in this space, but right now I gotta go walk the pug. ;) |
04-12-2021, 09:20 PM | #5 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jun 2020
Location: Seattle
Posts: 95
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Quote:
There are some paint jobs I'm really proud of in the posts ahead. And also a couple that I want to re-do now that I've looked at them again with some distance. Alas, that's the way of things. Onward! |
04-13-2021, 04:13 AM | #6 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: St.Louis, Missouri
Posts: 1,485
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They do have a nice 70's look.
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04-13-2021, 04:58 AM | #7 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jun 2020
Location: Seattle
Posts: 95
|
FIGURE 1: TROUBLESHOOTER
Ok, so I am doing filecards. The GI Joe Adventure Team was the version of GI Joe enjoyed by the older brothers and cousins of my generation of early 80s kids--something we knew existed because we saw them around, but with a tenuous connection to the Real American Hero world and storyline unfolding on filecards, in Marvel comics, and on television. The reality is that GI Joe didn't have much of a narrative in the early days of of the brand. Much of the lore behind the Adventure Team characters came piecemeal over the next few decades, as the GI Joe Collector's Club tried to tie the Adventure Team lore, along with that of original 60s GI Joe and Adventure Team hero Joe Colton, into the greater A Real American Hero mythology. Back in the day, pretty much all of the members of the Adventure Team were named Joe, or a few other one-time names in company newsletters, records, or other promotional items. The Collector's Club filled in a lot of the gaps, particularly in the ongoing short comic in the GI Joe Collector's Club Magazine and associated file dossiers featured in random issues. A lot of this material is fairly easily found online, but a ton of it isn't. I had to hunt down the magazines issue-by-issue, often for 0-3 pages of relevant content per issue and no suitable online index. Some of these info pages in the magazine are so random you assume they were written at the last minute to fill space, as they seldom seem to have anything to do with that month's other features, and are ill timed with the (usually 12-inch) figures they were meant to accompany and support. It's weird. So the upshot is that most GI Joe fans are mostly ignorant of the details of the Adventure Team, because the brand managers themselves have always kept this material on the periphery. In order to provide additional context as I populate this thread, I've decided to include file cards with each entry. This will slow down the posting process, but as I've been going through my images of my Adventure Team customs again that's probably a good thing, as I've learned almost as much about photographing these figures over the last year as I have about how to customize them (and I still have PLENTY to learn about BOTH!). Anyway, look forward to a lot more file cards like this one. When possible, I'll include official text verbatim--the above card is an amalgamation of the 25th Anniversary Adventure Team Commander filecard and the Collector's Club dossier on the Commander, which provided considerably more information. Anyway, on to the figures! Here we have Mike Triumph, one of two Adventure Team Commanders from the original GI Joe Adventure Team line! When they first came out in 1970, there was no such thing as "Mike Triumph," and all of the members of the Adventure Team were "GI Joe". That's a little boring and doesn't really match the team idea, so I'm leaning into the "official" alter egos of all of these characters as I customize them and develop their filecards. Here are some other angles on the Adventure Team Commander. I really feel like the Zica Toys Action Jackson figure is a necessary component to a good modern Adventure Team in the 4-inch scale (even if the rest of their figure barely qualifies as the same size as even scrawny Hasbro Joes). It's just perfect for my purposes here. You might notice that none of my Adventure Team customs feature the Adventure Team logo on the breast pocket. I'm aware of Bad Mother Water Slide Decals, and have used them effectively on other figures, but I am very unsatisfied with my results from the Adventure Team sheet I received from him. The white background makes trimming the logo a thankless chore and the scale isn't quite right. I can live without them, and I hope you can too. Here's a look at the unpainted Adventure Team Commander, along with some random buddies in waiting in the background. TROUBLESHOOTER RECIPE HEAD: Zica Toys Action Jackson TORSO & ARMS: Marauder WW2 US Marine WAIST & UPPER LEGS: Marauder WW2 US Marine LOWER LEGS & FEET: Marauder Contract Ops REVOLVER: Marauder WW2 SHOULDER HOLSTER: POC General Hawk And finally, a hint of things to come... Last edited by Erik Mona; 04-13-2021 at 11:08 PM.. |
04-13-2021, 09:46 PM | #8 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jun 2020
Location: Seattle
Posts: 95
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FIGURE 2: COMMANDER BLACK
These filecards are fun to do! Can't wait to get to some of the more obscure characters. Speaking of somewhat obscure characters, here we have Commander Black, the co-leader of the GI Joe Adventure Team! This custom marked a pretty significant turning point for me in terms of my customizing skill and confidence, but I'll get into that in a minute. First, let's talk origins and inspiration. Back in the early 70s, the character who would go on to become Quentin Black didn't really exist. As I mentioned in my previous post, the approach to the overall meta-narrative of the GI Joe brand was vastly different before A Real American Hero, in that there really isn't much deliberate continuity to speak of. (Most information on the custom filecard above comes via a dossier in the GI Joe Collector's Club Magazine, which came out in 2011.) "Commander Black" was just "GI Joe Adventure Team Commander." Indeed, there were two Adventure Team Commanders, one Black and one white, but really neither of them were their own character either, because both were meant to be alternate versions of the same guy--"G.I. Joe." You follow? This guy never really existed in the first place. Only there he is in 12-inch form in the photo above. And honestly, he looks fantastic. With a full beard, 70s Afro hairstyle, and distinctive long jacket in a slightly different green than his cohorts, the Black Adventure Team Commander is one of the most distinctive-looking figures in the basic Adventure Team line. I have no doubt that kids happily had both "G.I. Joe Commanders" and used them as distinct members of their own little combat squads. I mean, he's just too cool not to be his own dude. Let's take a look at a few more angles on my custom. I mentioned above that this figure marked a turning point in the development of my customizing skills. After dabbling in some Fisher Price Adventure People customs, I decided to tackle the relatively simple GI Joe Adventure Team before some of my ARAH favorites as a way to develop my skills. I'd previously attempted some extremely basic modeling putty applications on my Explorer Brad and Construction Worker customs, but when selecting heads for Commander Black, I realized that none of them really had the Afro I was looking for, which I felt essential to capturing the character. So I took what little sculpting skill I had managed to scrape together on Adventure People sock hems and sideburns and decided to sulpt an entire head of hair. I think it came out great, and success here pushed me into even more confident use of modeling putty on future customs--maybe TOO confident, but that's a tale for a different day! COMMANDER BLACK RECIPE Head: BFS Black Knight of Accord w/sculpted Afro Torso & Arms: Marauder German Soldier Skirt: Marauder US Army Soldier* Legs & Shoes: Marauder Contract Ops Revolver: Marauder WW2 Shoulder Holster: POC General Hawk * Although I like the way the US Army skirt extends the jacket and makes it look more like the original figure, I thought it looked a bit bulkier than I'd wanted when all is said and done, because it rides a bit too high on the hips of the Contract Ops waist. Musing over this made me realize I could have just used the matching US Army Waist and swap out the lower legs for the Contract Ops design that gave me the look I was going for. This was another lesson that helped me improve my customizing skills and the way I look at parts. Last edited by Erik Mona; 04-14-2021 at 01:25 AM.. |
04-13-2021, 10:40 PM | #9 |
Tiger Force member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Here with my boy , Jacob , and Mama:)
Posts: 5,374
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Sooo good!!
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04-14-2021, 02:43 AM | #10 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: St.Louis, Missouri
Posts: 1,485
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Yeah, you did an excellent job on Cmdr. Black's Afro.
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