by generalsjoes | Mar 24, 2014 | Behind the Curtain, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’d officially announced the begin date of my next Dio-Story “Darkness Falls” via YouTube, and I’ve been working hard continuously since then to make sure that deadline is met.
If you’ve been wondering why some FSS Reviews have lagged behind, well hopefully that provides some insight. 🙂
As part of my work on the Darkness Falls dio-story, I dove headlong into set building once again, which was something I only touched on briefly in previous stories. This time around I ventured into the Facebook Group depths, hitting up the DioStructure group, and immediately was inspired. I posted this article over on JoeCustoms first, because I’ve been soliciting advice from many of those great customizers, and I think they helped me develop this Cobra Compound into what it is. But now I think enough time has passed that I can post it up here as well in case anyone has missed it. Read the full story to see the run down!
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by generalsjoes | Dec 10, 2012 | Behind the Curtain, Customs, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero
As folks who have been paying attention probably know, I’ve been actively working on my next Dio-Story for several months at this p0int. I even documented some of the set building process in my “Behind the Curtain” series for this Dio-Story. I was feeling really good about how things were coming along and anticipated having much of the filming done at this point and ready to hopefully launch the dio-story by the end of the year.
Then the house move came about… and I haven’t mentioned this to too many folks yet, but in the process of moving, the load in the U Haul truck shifted, and almost all of my constructed dio sets were destroyed. My Cobra Temple awesomely constructed by Eric “Capolan” Vaughn? Crushed. The Cobra Commander throne room so crucial to the climax of the story? Done.
It was pretty depressing.
But I’m determined to continue moving forward on this, and as part of that, I’m reconstructing the interior to the Cobra Temple, going in a slightly different direction. Capolan’s Temple set was fantastic. I absolutely loved it, and it served me great, but as the story of Darkness Falls has evolved in my head, I needed a little bit more size and scope, so I started from scratch to rebuild the internal lobby of the temple. Yes, this means there will likely be some design differences and inconsistencies throughout the scope of the story, but I’m hoping some suspension of disbelief will allow folks to overlook that and just appreciate the story.
To give folks a bit of a taste of this new Cobra Interior, I documented the process, which will hopefully give people something to hold them over until Darkness Falls launches. Though that launch probably won’t happen until next year at this point. Click the “Read the Rest of the Story” link below to check out the process of constructing this new Cobra Temple interior.
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by generalsjoes | Sep 5, 2010 | Behind the Curtain, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Toys, Pursuit of COBRA, Web Stuff
Yes, tomorrow is “Labor Day” which means I do not have to go into the office (though I am on call as always… gotta love being in IT), so I should have some extra time to get some content ready for posting.
Last week I received the new Pursuit of Cobra Bravo Vehicles, the VAMP and the Fury, and I am in the process of gathering images for the review. I also managed to snag some Pursuit of Cobra figures at retail (*GASP!*) so I’m hoping to possibly have a review of one of them leading into next week as well.
I know news seems a bit slow these days, but I’ll be doing my best to get content rolling again.
I also got another awesome package in the mail from the generous folks from the Canadian JoeCon, and as always, I’ll work with them to get reviews up in their awesome newsletter as well as on the site as well, so keep your eyes open for those, too.
I will admit, too, that the Pursuit of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Resolute are really fueling my dio-story fire once again as well…and with a break in “continuity” in the wings with G.I. Joe: Renegades, it almost seems like a natural time to work in my own little twist on the G.I. Joe universe and finally finish Darkness Falls. I can’t promise anything, but the sets are pretty much built, the story is written, and all I need is the time. Which of course, is the hardest thing to come by.
We’ll see.
Hopefully the pay off will be worth it. I’m usually my own harshest critic, but I must admit, I am very happy with the way my dio-story universe wraps up in Darkness Falls. It feels like some great closure to my own story, and could potentially provide a bridge to future events as well. Maybe once the kids are in college. 😉
by generalsjoes | Oct 12, 2009 | Behind the Curtain, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe
The throne room doesn’t see a whole lot of use in Darkness Falls, but what it’s used for plays a critical part in the story, so I wanted to capture the spirit of Cobra Commander’s “home” so to speak. Huge thanks to dino-viper on JoeSightings.com for the idea about the terrariums (which I ended up finding on eBay here), and I was really psyched when I found that crystal globe…one cheap rubber snake later and there’s a neat statue for the room as well.
Overall, I’m pretty happy how it came out. I wanted to add a different color scheme with the steps under the throne, but I’m not real happy with the results there. Beyond that, though, I think it looks decent. It’ll work.
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by generalsjoes | Oct 5, 2009 | Behind the Curtain, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe
So the construction on my diorama sets for Darkness Falls have been continuing on, even if I haven’t said much about it recently. I had three fairly elaborate sets to build, and I think they’re pretty much squared away. I need to add some trimming to the throne room, but the foundations are all set. The three sets are as follows:
Basically a large cavernous room the focus of a pretty major shoot out. The last element I really needed were sandbags, and as I should have expected, Marauder, Inc. came through! They carry some great PTE sand bags that I used for the set, though I did clean them out of all their stock. I need to pick up a few more once they get more in.
This was pretty straight forward, thanks to Joe Amaro’s fantastic G.I. Joe Base templates. Some foamcore, some print cartridges, glue sticks, and I was able to cobble together a pretty effective COBRA tech center. Tried to make it appear as if it was an underground room, though it didn’t come out quite as good as I’d hoped. Still, I think it’ll be workable.
Anyone notice a theme here? :shifty: The throne room is fairly obvious in purpose, I’d think. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but I plan on adding some neat accessories to hopefully spice it up a bit. Once that’s done, I think I feel good enough about these to lock ’em up until I’m ready to shoot in them next year. Check out the pics below!
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by generalsjoes | Sep 23, 2009 | Behind the Curtain, Dio-Stories, G.I. Joe
Throughout the week I’ve been burning the midnight oil working on the COBRA Foyer for the Darkness Falls dio-story, and am happy to report that I’m pretty much done. Pretty much all I have left is to glue some stones on the third arch, and maybe clean up some of the white foamcore showing through. Besides that, I think I’m happy where I’m at.
Now, I’ve started work on the COBRA Comm Center, which is a computer console room. My initial plans kind of went out the window unfortunately as Michael’s apparently no longer carries the “Texture Copper” scrap book paper by ProvoCraft. 🙁
So, I had to adjust those plans a bit, but construction is still going forward on that one. Check out the gallery below for the most recent progress pics on the COBRA Foyer.
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