Just some random pictures...

 I've been itching to get back into some action figure photography. since the recent move, I've been slammed with various DIY projects for the new place and the other house in getting it ready to sell. I took a few minutes to set up this small display so I could at least have an environment in which to take a picture or two as inspiration hits me. I just wanted a background beyond just a plain blank background.

 Here is my updated Duke figure. I really like the Renegades head sculpt and now consider this head sculpt to be my default version of Duke. I've used a PoC general hawk body w a Steel Brigade vest. Looks pretty sharp to me!

 General Bruce Colton! Well, yeah, you know what I mean! A decent figure, even with the sort of wonky cross-eyed look on his face. In just messing around with web-gear, I discovered that Night Fox, from the RoC Awestriker, had a decent set of web-gear that worked nicely for the General's own personal use.

 Roadrock, I mean Roadblock gets a nice little toy to play with. This is the battle kata Roadblock stripped down of all of his extra gear. While the battle kata system that came with this figure was pretty amazing, the pieces are just too small and almost fall in the "pre-lost" category.I trimmed off the holsters and removed the vest. Not bad.

Sgt Stone, from the RoC line gets a new lease on life. I used an extra Snake Eyes body from the latest 3-pack that includes Mouse. This PoC Snake Eyes body is amazing and is a great base for customs. So now Sgt Stone joins the GI Joe black ops team.

Variations on a Shipwreck

 This new version of Shipwreck seems to have much custom potential with just a simple head swap. Let's see what happens with a few changes.

 Ripcord from Renegades gets a makeover. Not bad, looks decent. No long neck syndrome, so this could work.

 Beach head from PoC looks to work pretty well also. Shipwreck's sleeve and torso are different shades of green and Beach Head's balaclava blends nicely with the torso.

 The alternate head from the Retaliation Joe trooper looks fairly decent. A little long in the neck, but not too bad. By troop building the Joe troopers, you either keep them all helmeted and "faceless" or you have a bunch of clone Joe troopers. this works by keeping this great head sculpt as a new character.

 Flint from Retaliation gets a new look. I really don't like the body that he came with originally. It's not just the lack of articulation, the body just looks like crap. I've been trying to find him a decent body, but his skin tone is darker than the average GI Joe white boy, so this could work for Flint.

 This is the driver from the GI Joe mech that came out a few years ago. I can never remember his code name. He's just an Airborne head sculpt in new colors. still works on this body.

 General Hawk from RoC gets a new look. I really like this swap. I definitely would like another to keep this a permanent situation.

This is Bench Press, the TRU exclusive from the RoC days. Yeah, just a reuse of Clutch's head, but the skin tone variation works.

Leatherneck joins the crew. A reuse of the Gung Ho head with some hair painted on the back, this is a decent enough Leatherneck. this body really works with this head. 

The potential of this new green shipwreck is amazing. Just some simple head swaps and you can add tons of new Joe figures to your collection. This really works for me, because I'm all in for easy, simple custom figures. The biggest issue for this body is to find suitable web-gear for it.

The hunt is on!

Dollar General GI Joe figures - Running Changes

The much rumored '2nd wave" or running changes of the Dollar General $6.00 GI Joe figures are finally beginning to show up in my area. There are tons of Dollar General stores in my area, so this should be a fun hunt.
I only saw four of the six figures at one of the DG's that I stopped by yesterday. I only picked up the Shipwreck and Stormshadow figures. Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander were also available, but I passed on them because they suck so bad. Snake Eyes is done up in shades of green and looks really awful. The first wave's Cobra Commander was marginal at best and really doesn't need to be seen again in this format.
  

 I'm quite pleased with these two figures. The blue version of Shipwreck was pretty decent, but I really like this color change on Shipwreck. I don't know if the greens work with Shipwreck's naval aspect, but he still makes for a decent figure. 
Again, like the blue version, he comes with some pretty useless accessories. Scuba pack, mask, and a Renegades pistol.
The most important element of this figure is the potential for customizing and troop building.
More on that later.

 Same situation with Stormshadow: same figure, same gear, just new colors. The sword, bow, and sash are molded in a dark blue. The most striking change is the uniform color. Going from the black with white highlights to white with orange highlights, this Stormshadow figure becomes a new character. Or actually an old character. The orange highlights bring to mind T'Gin-Zu,Stormshadow's team mate from the Ninja Force from 1993.
While not officially T'Gin-Zu, most fans agree that the orange coloring is close enough top consider this guy as someone else besides Stormshadow. Again, T'Gin-Zu is just a complete reuse of the Stormshadow figure mold.

And it works. the original T'Gin-Zu figure only had an orange hood and belt, so this new version includes much more color. plus, the orange is much darker and just seems to work well on this figure.

With the first version of this figure, I saw the potential for the black and white version to become a troop builder. One can never have too many ninjas. 

But with this new orange and white version, I can only visualize this guy as a specific ninja. I don't know if I can get behind a clan of orange and white ninjas.

80's - 90's GI Joe collection

It's time...

With every new figure I buy, my collection grows and grows and grows.

Something has to give and unfortunately, my original GI Joe: A Real American Hero figure collection is going to face some liquidation of forces.


I need to reduce the amount of stuff in my collection. 
You can go to the list of figures here.

Nearly all of the figures are in excellent condition. A few have some minor paint wear. Like Tripwire, his nose is chipped. Weird.

I made a few notations on any special circumstances regarding the figures. Any figure with "?" in the "Sell?" column is in an unknown state. I'm pretty sure that I still have them, but these particular figures may have suffered the most over the years.

Any figure with "*" in the Comments section means I'm still in the process of finding all of their gear.

As figures sell, I'll update the list. And why do I have "No" listed under "Sell?" - too lazy to cut out the rows, I guess. 

If any figure interests you, send me an email!

Ninjas, Ninjas, Ninjas!

Ninjas!!

Really? Can we ever be done with ninjas? Not with the GI Joe line. Especially not when one of the coolest characters is turned into super-bad ninja mo-fo. Sometimes you just got to get sick and tired of all these damn ninjas!

Unless the toys are really bad-ass! As my ninja collection began to grow, I thought about uses for these different colored ninja uniforms. I thought about each "color" representing a different ninja clan. The first picture is just a quick and dirty idea of Stormshadow gathering members of the three most powerful ninja clans in an attempt to join together against a common foe. But is that common foe GI Joe or Cobra? Time will tell, loyal reader. (yeah, both of you!)

The red ninjas from the Retaliation toy line turned out fantastic. I don't really care about the string-things and they could have used more gear, but they look pretty damn cool. Based on the awesome Renegades/30th version of Stormshadow, they only varied in lower leg construction, allowing them to have rocker ankles.

Supposedly, there is a "movie accurate" red ninja on the way in a few months. We'll see. I wasn't too impressed with the preproduction pictures.

Next up in the Retaliation line were the "dark" ninjas. Oooh, scary! Clothed in dark gray and black uniforms, these ninjas are straight repaints of the Stormshadow molds. I don't even remember the gear that they came with. But they still look cool as crap!

The last set of ninjas in the above picture, besides Stormy, are the "Ninja Force" versions of Stormy found at Dollar General stores. I know, you question my sanity. That's a picture with three Stormshadows in it. Nope, not to me. The Dollar General version of Stormshadow uses basically the same body as Renegades Stormshadow, which is just so damn cool, I couldn't buy just one and quit. (hoping to see orange sherbert Stormy soon!)

So I twisted my sanity a little more and now consider these guys to be another ninja clan. I really had to force myself to stop at just five of these guys because they are so damn cool. I didn't let myself get psycho about them like the DG Blackshirts. (12!)

The guy in the center has "Kamakura's" head from that lame-ass three-pack movie version.

Damn, that figure sucked! I know, the head originally came from Stormy version 67 or 93 or whatever. I don't get that picky.

Ninjas do have a place in my twisted Joe-verse, mainly as a different entity in the battle between GI Joe and Cobra. At least they don't suck as bad as Drednoks.