Big Bear
Oktober Guard Airborne Assault

This is a paint upgrade for Big Bear, whose original figure is rather plain. I added some camo to his outfit, and painted a few other details as well. I also upgraded his weapon. A number of sources suggest his weapon is supposed to be a PP-19 Bizon submachine gun. But that firearm didn't even bein development until 1993, the year after Big Bear was released. If you look closely at the accessory it's pretty clearly an AKS-74U carbine, but with the rather unfortunate feature of not being loaded. So I added a magazine from Marauder Inc. to it, removing the sling in order to allow it to fit, and painted some detail on it as well.

All parts and accessories – Big Bear (rifle modified with Marauder Inc. magazine)

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Tombstone
Psychological Operations

Tombstone was a new character released in 2016 by Hasbro, and this custom is an ARAH figure inspired by that release. Most of the work came with the head, which is from a Street Fighter Balrog figure. I shaved off the hair, and gave him a scar over his right eye like the original. I also removed some of his right ear, from the same incident that gave him the scar, and made the right eye milky white instead of shut because it's more dramatic. All it took was a sharp knife, some paint and some patience. I included a close-up pic of the head for reference.

This figure was also a good excuse to use lots of Model Master flat black acrylic paint, which is the greatest paint I have ever worked with. It applies super smooth, is very easy to work with, gives excellent coverage even with one coat, and dries really fast. It's far superior to the Tamiya black paint I used to use, and now I use it at every opportunity.

Head – Balrog (Street Fighter)
Arms – Slipstream
Torso, waist – Viper
Legs – Dodger v2

Rifle – Marauder Inc.
Backpack – Low-Light

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Chikatilo
Oktober Guard Field Commander

Larry Hama does not usually name characters lightly, there's often some meaning in them. So when Colonel Chikatilo appeared along with another character called Malyenkiy as (unofficially) part of the Oktober Guard in ARAH issues 173 and 174, you might wonder what their names mean. Malyenkiy means “small” or “little” in Russian, so his name ir probably equivalent to calling someone “Tiny.” You might assume that Malyenkiy is his surname, but that's not necessarily the case. As for Chikatilo here, the only connection I can make is that there was a notorious Russian serial killer in the 1980s named Andrei Chikatilo. I don't know what Larry was trying to say about the character, but there it is. Chikatilo might also not be a surname, it could be a code name in reference to the killer.

Head – Big Bear
Arm – Gung-Ho v2
Torso, waist – Windchill
Legs – The Corps! (Lanard)

Pistol - Bombstrike

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Red Shadow Elite
Red Shadows Trooper

The Red Shadow Elite is based on the Devil's Due version of the Red Shadow troopers. This custom is based on their comic appearances, using custom head, torso and waist sculpts by Krexx Radek. The torso and waist are the same ones used for the Red Shadow leader, Wilder Vaughn, so to differentiate between the two I used some different colouring – the Elite has red pants instead of black, and black straps, belt and boots instead of brown.

Head, torso, waist – Krexx Radek sculpt
Arms, legs – Firefly v7

Rifle – Marauder Inc.

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Wilder Vaughn
Red Shadow Leader

The Devil's Due continuity introduced a new version of the Red Shadows to the GI Joe universe in 2005, led by an ex-ally of Joe Colton named Wilder Vaughn, who I have given the codename of Samael, since everyone in the Joeverse needs a codename. This custom is based on his comic appearances, using custom head, torso and waist sculpts by Krexx Radek. The torso and waist are the same ones used for the Red Shadow trooper, so to differentiate between the two I used some different colouring – Vaughn has black pants instead of red and brown straps, belt and boots instead of black. After deciding on the colours I noticed that this makes Vaughn look quite a bit like one of the versions of General Blitz from the Sgt. Savage line, the leader of the IRON Army. This suggests that in my Joeverse, the Red Shadows might have been an evolution of the IRON Army from World War II.

Head, torso, waist – Krexx Radek sculpt
Arms – Wild Weasel
Legs – Windchill

Submachine gun – Marauder Inc.

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Scylla
Cobra Submarine Commander

This is a custom based on a Cobra submarine commander that appeared in the Sunbow season 2 episode “Not a Ghost of a Chance.” Several customizers have done versions of this character using a variety of different names. I settled on Scylla as the codename for my version. She's named after a monstrous man-eating creature in the Odyssey, which combined with the monster/whirlpool Charybdis to create an almost impassable strait as an obstacle to Odysseus' journey home.

Head – GI Jane
Arms – Scarlett
Torso – Cobra Trooper v5 (Black Major custom)
Waist – Scarlett v4
Legs – Baroness

Pistol - unknown

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Snake Eyes
Commando

The original 13 ARAH figures that Hasbro released in 1982 had a lot of common body parts, which was designed to reduce the cost of producing the figures to minimize the risk should the line prove not to be popular. They had no reason to worry of course, and starting with series 2 each figure featured its own individual sculpt and therefore a unique appearance. This custom is to give the original Snake Eyes a unique look. I put Snake Eyes' head on Firefly's body, since he had design features I was looking for in Snake Eyes – grenades, a knife and an explosive. Instead of all black I painted details and highlights, similar to version 2.

Head – Snake Eyes
All other parts – Firefly v8

Submachine gun, explosives pack – Snake Eyes
Backpack, sword – Snake Eyes v2

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Wet-Suit
Navy SEAL

The original version of Wet-Suit is one of my very favourite Joes of all time, something about the sculpt and colours just really clicks for me. So I wanted to make a version of that figure with a removable helmet. I could have used the head from the 1992 version of Wet-Suit, but the mullet on that noggin is pretty off-putting. The 2002 version's head is very nice, so I used that instead. The only thing I needed to do was to repaint the skin tone to make sure he didn't look to be suffering a terrible sunburn, which I was able to do without having to repaint the eyes or eyebrows. I also painted a few details on the body, but there really wasn't much to do there because the original paint job is so nice. Then I took the mask that came with the 2002 figure and painted it in colours inspired by the original.

Head – Wet-Suit v7
All other parts – Wet-Suit v1

Helmet – Wet-Suit v7 (modified)
Speargun – Torpedo
All other accessories – Wet-Suit (accessory pack versions)

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Night Fox
Navy SEAL

Three versions of Night Fox were released between 2010 and 2015. This custom is based on the first one, in order to give us an ARAH version of the character. I tried to be as faithful as I could to the original, the mask on the Beach Head noggin allowed the two-tone look from the file card. I like that he's a Navy SEAL in desert gear, and the overall look is very nice, so I tried to replicate it as best I could.

Head – Beach Head v6
Arms – Low-Light
Torso, waist – Dusty
Legs – Lift-Ticket

Cap, ammo belt – Marauder Inc.
Machine gun, tripod – Roadblock
Shotgun – Burn Out

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another great round!

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Another great batch. My favorite is Sidewinder. That is a great idea for a custom character and it came out terrific.

OB

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Cool stuff, Kwinn!
My favorites are Iron Bear, Sabre Tooth, Tombstone and Night Fox.

So many awesome customs in this batch. Very inspiring stuff.

Freight - Great combination of parts, I always wondered what the star brigade heavy duty head would look like on a proper o-ring body. Never bought one to find out. That case accessory looks familiar, but I can't place it. Might be A-team.

Iron Bear - Solid custom, the parts suit the character design and he's very nicely painted. Looks far superior to the con figure.

Sidewinder - Nice work altering that mindbender head. That unnamed bald officer was an interesting detail in issue 1. Even though he was probably only meant as scene filler, you still have to wonder who he was and what his significance was in the early days of cobra.

Storm Shadow - very cool custom, I like the simple, clean look you gave him with the all white outfit. Great use of parts, those arms in particular.

Flint - Very interesting repaint, and the NF Falcon head works.

Ripcord - great tribute to the figure that could have been. Great idea swapping in those arms and legs for added detail. Very nice.

Sabre Tooth - Another solid tribute, those arms really do help set him apart from firefly.

Big Bear - Those added paint apps really help this figure. Nice improvement.

Tombstone - Love the mods you did to the head. Excellent parts combination too. I'll have to try out that paint sometime, I've never tried model masters before.

Chikatilo - Very cool looking addition to the oktober guard. Awesome job removing the beard from that big bear head.

Scylla - Solid custom. I've not watched much of the sunbow series, so I'm not familiar with this character but she looks like she woud fit in with cobra's navy.

Snake Eyes - so simple, but very effective.

Wet-Suit - a shame we never got a version like this officially. I still need to get a v1 Wet-Suit. There is a great aesthetic to that figure.

Night Fox - Excellent parts combo, very effective custom.


Keep up the good work, I love seeing so many new o-ring customs. I've got so many wips and ideas that I need to finish this year.

I tried it for the first time last year, and I absolutely love it. I used to use Tamiya for the most part, but I find the texture of the Model Master to be far superior, and it dries really fast as well.

Thanks for all the kind comments. I'll have lots more to post in the coming weeks.

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Love your work Ian.
I would like to have that Stormy and Wet-Suit.

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