Build:
Torso, arms, lower legs, feet: 2013 Retaliation Sgt. Airborne (V4)
Upper legs: 2013 Retaliation Agent Mouse (V1)
Head (no helmet): Dollar General Duke
Head (with helmet): 2008 Beachhead unmasked
Helmet, Backpack: 2011 Renegades Ripcord (V6)
Webgear: 2013 Retaliation Flint (V1)

Paints:
Light Green: AK Real Colors RC028 Interior Green (mixed w/ AK Real Colors ?? Green),
Dark Green: Tamiya XF-26 Dark Green
Webgear: Tamiya XF-73 Dark Green


(From Aug 2020 and my class of 1984 updates):

I jumped into the idea of a Rip Cord update with 2 fixes in mind. If those 2 fixes didn't work, or the update didn't retain the same amount of faithfulness to the original, I'd scrap the whole thing. Fortunately, I liked the results more than I expected, and so here we are.

The first fix, which I didn't expect to work well, was the improving the helmet/mask of the 2009. The 2009 helmet/mask works decently for Blowtorch, but not so much for Ripcord's--mostly due to far end of hose floating out in the air uselessly and distracting. The excellent Renegades Ripcord helmet seemed an obvious replacement (used my many others for customs), but I didn't like the modern oblong shape of it for a classic Ripcord. And it needing to be all black in contrast to all green used for the figure really made the shape stand out.

So the "simple" fix idea was to sand the helmet shape down to something more round. Luckily, there was plenty of thickness in the mold to take the heavy sanding down. It took a few days to get it to a decent shape and finish, not knowing how far to go with it to look right before grinding a hole into it. I also found that the unmasked Beachhead provided the best fill of the helmet, including how the eyes line up through the semitransparent goggles. But facial hair doesn't fit my vision of Ripcord, so I just swap the whole head when unmasked (Hollywood cheat!).

The second fix was just to get more bulk and bagginess to the figure, mostly with the legs. The shape and part sculpt of the 2009 figure felt a bit off compared to new parts available. Looking at previous builds from other customizers, the Retaliation Airborne works out well, particularly the lower legs and its big pockets to help balance out the bigger webgear. The upper legs of the Retaliation Airborne were replaced because they made the legs too long overall, while the Retaliation Flint uppers had better length and width (and were still available in my fodder box).

The final and unplanned update was the harness. The 2009 mold was accurate enough, but kinda look undersized. The Retaliation Flint harness felt better sized and had most of the same detailing and structure as the 2009 mold. Also, I was so tempted to paint this harness black which would help balance the colors on the figure build overall. I think the original being green was a bad choice considering so green already on the figure. In the end I stopped myself from retconning this, but I did compromise by going to a different and darker green.

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