by generalsjoes | Jan 18, 2010 | Customs, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary, G.I. Joe Toys, Kick Ass Custom
Who would have thought anything sporting the “Battleforce: 2000” moniker would be considered “kick ass”? Honestly, even the shameless fanboy that I am, I didn’t find much redeeming about Battleforce: 2000 back in the day. Well, except for Dodger. He became a really interesting character after he survived the bombing run that killed the rest of his team, and his figure was definitely the best of the lot, but beyond that, the figures were clunky, the weapons were horrible, and even the face sculpts were doofy looking. Those plastic empty shell vehicles that formed into the lamest “base” I’d ever seen certainly didn’t help either.
But leave it to a G.I. Joe fan to polish up Battleforce: 2000 and really make it cool. For whatever reason these designs really did NOT work for me in 1987, but seeing heretics awesome work bringing them to life in the 25th Anniversary format is a totally different story. These figures look fantastic. They call back to 1987 perfectly, yet with the larger, somewhat more streamlined figure design these days, they really end up looking better than they did back in the day. Awesome looking customs and very faithfully represented.
I found these customs on The Terror Drome initially, and you can check out Heretic’s custom page here.
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by generalsjoes | Jan 7, 2010 | Customs, G.I. Joe, Kick Ass Custom
I don’t think enough fans really appreciate what we had during the “new sculpt” days…as I worked on my Top 15 figures of the past decade feature, I continued to be impressed by the designs we were getting from 2003 – 2006, it was just a bit unfortunate that the sculpting had some proportion and functional issues. From a pure design standpoint, though, there was some awesome, impressive stuff.
Well, JoeCustoms member OreoBuilder took some of those great designs, as well as some thoughts of what was going to be “Robot Rebellion” (the follow up to Valor Vs. Venom) and produced some absolutely fantastic 25th Anniversary style customs using those designs as inspiration. Seriously, these figures look SICK. Quite a departure from your typical look, but amazing looking figures and near production level custom quality. This is exactly why I’d love to see Hasbro dip into the 2000 – 2006 well when doing some of their 25th and Rise of Cobra style figures. Even though lots of fans don’t have any attachment to that era, there is lots of great, credible inspiration that can be drawn from there.
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by generalsjoes | Dec 14, 2009 | Customs, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: The Movie, Kick Ass Custom, Sigma 6 (8" Scale)
This is Mysterious Stranger’s second time in the Kick Ass Customs feature, and I think most folks will understand why this particular project appeals to me so much. I really love the similarities between Sigma 6 and the Rise of Cobra, and Stranger brings them all together quite well here. Not only that, but he comes up with a very cool story as well.
For the full skinny, check out his post on JoeBattleLines, and I’ve also mirrored the images below.
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by generalsjoes | Dec 8, 2009 | Customs, G.I. Joe, Kick Ass Custom
One of the coolest events in toy customization are the occasional “CustomCons” held by renowned toy website The Fwoosh. During these “CustomCons”, customs of all shapes, sizes, and styles are presented as if they are new toylines being shown to the public. There usually are some very cool things to be seen, including some occasional G.I. Joe related items.
This time around, though, Joe custom fansite JoeCustoms.com goes way above and beyond, by designing and “producing” a full-fledged “Spooks” boxed set using G.I. Joe parts. You might wonder what the big deal about Spook is? Well, it’s a very cool comic title by Devils’ Due Publishing written by none other than Larry Hama, so there are obvious ties to the G.I. Joe brand scattered throughout.
As part of this great CustomCon presentation, JoeCustoms has an exciting announcement to come in the next four days…keep your eyes peeled! Until then, check out their great boxed set over on The Fwoosh. More will be coming as well…
by generalsjoes | Nov 15, 2009 | Customs, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe: Resolute, Kick Ass Custom
With all the talk of the upcoming Resolute boxed sets, everyone’s been clammoring for Roadblock, Destro, Stalker and all of the guys that didn’t get the action figure treatment, but not many fans are really making mention of the arctic assault uniforms that Duke and Scarlett wore while they busted up Siberia. HissTank member meeko, actually goes even further, and he did up some great customs of the entire cast of characters from the Arctic battle…not only did he do some very nice versions of Siberian Scarlett and Duke, but also the Alley-Vipers, Ice-Vipers, and Zartan. He used some Star Wars parts, some Joe parts, and really thinks outside the box on some of these things. Nice stuff.
Check out the thread here, and the images mirrored below.
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by generalsjoes | Oct 23, 2009 | Customs, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Toys, G.I. Joe: The Movie, Kick Ass Custom, Pursuit of COBRA
Back in my day, I was a fairly prolific customizer in the vintage Real American Hero format, but in these newer days, the simpler a custom is, the better I like it. I just don’t have time these days to rip figures apart, paint them religiously, and put them all back together, so I always love to hear about simple part swaps, especially when they’re amazingly effective. MadMac41 over at JoeBattleLines has been doing some little part swaps and tweaks on the Rise of Cobra figures pretty much since the day they were released.
He first got my attention with a trio of customs seen on JBL here. Salvo was a very simple part swap, yet looked really neat. Outback didn’t take much messing with, but, again, looked like a really effective movie style update. Recondo was the same way. Here are pics of those three customs that first kind of got my attention:
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As cool as they were, though, I wasn’t sure they were kick ass custom of the week material…but then MadMac posted a pretty neat Dial Tone, and then followed up with Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris in the Delta Squad movies!) and finally a Major Bludd that really rocked. It was the Major Bludd that finally put me over the edge, using the awesome Jungle Assault Ripcord figure base with that great camouflage scheme, a Reactive Armor arm, and the Anniversary Bludd head. It all just fit together too nicely.
So, due to the sheer volume of work and the amazing improvements he’s made since beginning, and my love for this Major Bludd, MadMac gets this rendition of Kick Ass Custom…well-deserved!
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