Those are all pretty darned impressive.

Especially digging the Red Shadows. Great detail there.

Great work, as always! I especially like your "sidewinder" as well as the Ripcord and Flint!

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Chain Viper
Special Operations Infantry

This is the Chain Viper, named after one of the deadliest and most aggressive vipers in the world. They are the elite of the Cobra Viper corps, tasked with special operations such as long-range reconnaissance and surveillance, and elimination of high-value targets. The idea of this custom is that it is the type of Viper that Mercer was before he defected to the Joes, which is why the body is a mashup of a Viper and Mercer v2's outfit.

Head, legs – Viper
Arms, torso – Mercer v2
Waist – Tomax and/or Xamot

Backpack – Mercer
Rifle – Viper (accessory pack version)
Pistol – Marauder Inc.

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Crimson Asp
Saboteur

Crimson Asp is a convention-exclusive figure from 2013. She's always struck me as something like a Mirror Universe Scarlett, which the bright red hair but an evil bent, and the eyepatch standing in for the villanous goatee. This custom version bring Crimson Asp into the ARAH universe. I tried to remain quite faithful to the paint colours, but took a little license with the design. I think it turned out quite well, and is a good translation of a modern era figure into classic form.

Head – custom cast (added eyepatch)
Arms, legs – Scarlett
Waist – Scarlett v4
Skirt – Jinx v3

Rifle, shotgun – Marauder Inc.
Backpack – Firefly v5

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Daina (AKA Vorona or Vrana)
Airborne Assault

The Oktober Guard's Daina appeared as a member of GI Joe in the Devil's Due run of comics, being introduced alongside Depth Charge, Mariner and Mayday among others. They call her Vorona in the book, but this is actually a Russian word (meaning “crow”), while Daina is Czech. Czech for crow would be Vrana, so that's a better codename for her, assuming you don't want to use Volga, which is the name used in a Hasbro release of the character in the late 90s, or simply Daina as she is usually known.

This custom is inspired by the Devil's Due design. Most of the parts used were modified at least a bit: the torso was smoothed down, the arms had the biceps sanded down, the lower legs had kneepads added, and the waist's, shall we say, “bulge” was taken down quite a bit, since Roadblock presumably carries quite a bit more tackle than Daina does, so to speak.

Head – Krexx Radek custom sculpt
Arms – Torpedo (modified)
Torso – Baroness (modified)
Waist - Roadblock v4 (modified)
Upper legs – Ardalla (Mego Buck Rogers)
Lower legs – Major Bludd (modified)

Backpack – Airborne
Rifle – Duke v11

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Desert Wolf
Ranger

Desert Wolf is a custom inspired by the Sigma Six figure released neat the end of the run of that series. He's a ranger specializing in desert operations, and according to G.I.Joe vs. Cobra: The Essential Guide his file name is Lance M. Langdon, something that is not included with the toy itself. The original figure is fairly plain in appearance, focusing mostly on the accessories. The two rifles I gave the ARAH version (Barrett M82 anti-material rifle and Vector CR-21 assault rifle) are consistent with the original, and I maintained a pretty simple look for the figure as well.

Head – Galoob Unifighters
Arms – Roadblock v4
Torso – Snake Eyes v2
Waist – Action Soldier
Legs – Pathfinder

Hat, anti-material rifle – Marauder Inc.
Assault rifle – BAT v3
Backpack – Chap Mei

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Lift-Ticket
Rotary-Wing Pilot

ARAH Joes in general have heads that aren't completely to scale with the rest of the figure. This isn't a bad thing by itself – because of how important faces are to how we see people, it's better for small-scale people like this to have a somewhat larger-than-scale head. But some figures take it too far, and Lift-Ticket is one of the worst offenders, made that much worse by the smirk on his face. So I had to give him a more reasonable head. I used Scoop's head because he has the same kind of smirk that the original Lift-Ticket head does, and changed the hair colour based on his cartoon appearance. An aviation helmet from Marauder Inc. completes the look.

Head – Scoop
All other parts – Lift-Ticket

Helmet, pistol – Marauder Inc.

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Longslide
Recon & Surveillance

In the UK's Action Force comics, Footloose had already played a prominent part in the series before his first American appearance in the comics was reprinted across the sea. Since the American version of Footloose's character was quite a bit different from the UK version, they simply renamed the character in the reprint, calling him Longslide. So the inspiration for this custom is doing the same thing in reverse: it's based on the UK version of the character, but using the replacement name instead. Most of the figure is from Footloose, but I used a Snow Job waist since I didn't have a Footloose one available, and I used Bazooka's head (painted and slightly modified) so that he wouldn't just look like Footloose in a different colour scheme. This led me to use Bazooka's helmet as well, to make sure it has a proper fit on the head. Ironically, when I then looked at his first appearance in the UK comic (see pic), it's clear that he's wearing Bazooka's helmet in the book as well, and did so in several other appearances as well. The UK version of Footloose was often used in a reconnaissance and surveillance role, so that's what Longslide's specialty is as well.

Head – Bazooka
Arms, torso, legs – Footloose
Waist – Snow Job

Helmet – Bazooka
Backpack – Repeater
Rifle – Barrel Roll
Binoculars – Sneak Peek
Radio – Firefly v4

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Moray Eel
Elite Underwater Operations

There were three versions of the Cobra Moray trooper released in 2002, the only year any version of it was produced. Since the Moray is also the name of the classic Cobra hydrofoil, I don't want to use that name directly, so I adapted it into Moray Eels, who are elite Eels. I called one of my Eel customs done last year a Moray Eel, but I wanted to do an updated version of well. It started with the Eco-Warriors Flint helmet, which I figured would look pretty badass painted black and silver. The colour scheme of the figure is partly based on the 2009 version of the Eel (v5), with some more red added as a callback to the Cobra divers seen in “The Worms of Death” cartoon episode.

Head – Astro-Viper
Arms, waist – Shipwreck v2
Torso – Airtight
Legs – Wet-Suit

Mask – Flint v3
Fins, backpack, speargun – Eel
Knife – Snakes Eyes v28

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Shipwreck
Sea Devils Navy SEAL

This is the second custom of the Devil's Due version of Shipwreck that I've done. I like how the first one came out, but I wanted to take another shot at it when I acquired the custom-cast head that's intended for this use. I kept the upper legs of Shipwreck v5 in order to have the built-in holster for his sidearm; the lower legs had to go, they're way too long for an ARAH-style figure. I selected his assault rifle to match the magazines in the webgear on the torso.

I'm really pleased with the blue I mixed for this custom. I took some Tamiya blue and added roughly and equal amount of Model Master intermediate blue, expecting to have to do quite a bit of adjustment before I was happy with it, but it turned out exactly where I wanted it on the first try. I liked it so much that it led to a whole new subteam: the Sea Devils. I made way too much of the blue paint, and it's such a pleasant colour that I decided to build a whole team around it, and the natural theme (both based on the colour and that Shipwreck would be a member) was water. So I came up with the Sea Devils, a Joe team that specializes in amphibious, littoral and riverine operations. Unlike existing subteams, I wanted to do a significant proportion of new characters to go along with the existing Joes who fit in with the idea, and use a relatively consistent colour scheme involving the Shipwreck blue, intermediate blue, and light and medium gray.

Head – custom-cast
Arms – Skidmark
Torso – Roadblock v5
Waist – Backstop
Upper legs – Shipwreck v5
Lower legs – Tunnel Rat v2

Rifle – Marauder Inc.
Pistol - unknown

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Storm Shadow
Ninja

Urban ninja Storm Shadow is a really cool figure, who has the unfortunate feature of having a bright red backpack and sword, which really doesn't make sense. The main purpose of this custom is to give Stormy some more realistic gear, something not so easy for opponents to spot. I painted his backpack and used chrome ink on the sword blade. The figure itself also received a couple of paint upgrades, specifically the eyes and the shin guards.

All parts and accessories – Storm Shadow v2

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I just posted nine more customs today, I was extremely busy over the holidays finishing a lot of these up. My particular favourites are the Moray Eel, Longslide and Shipwreck. As I described in Shippy's post, he's the genesis of a new subteam I've been working on, which will probably be the next big update I do, when I have them all ready. The Sea Devils are going to be made up of 14 figures (including Shipwreck) and four vehicles.

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LOVE the Storm Shadow!

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you are killing these !

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I'm glad I was able to get a reflection off the sword in the first pic. Shows how shiny the chrome ink is, even when it has a light coat of varnish on it.

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