A recent birthday kitbash for a friend of mine whose into 3A….

I like Torch so much I decided he needed an additional gallery.

These are some pics the give slightly tighter view of some of the details that went into this piece.

I did my best to cram as much detail into this figure as possible… perhaps I agonized unnecessarily, but I had such a powerful vision of this character’s final appearance, that I had to see through to the end…

I Put a crazy amount of detail into this guy. Perhaps it was the fact that Torch was the first 3 3/4 Dreadnok figure that I owned as a kid that forced me to do it…. I’m not sure. But I’ve always wanted to make this guy. Part of the reason I resisted for so long is because I knew it would take a long time to put him together correctly. Even though I worked on a few other figures at the same time, it’s easy to say Torch took almost 2 weeks alone. There was a lot of refitting (and paint detail) going on to get him right.

This is one of those scenarios where I’m really glad that someone commissioned me to craft such an intense character. I needed that push to make him a creative priority. In addition, the fact that someone ordered him allowed me to go all out, because honestly, I knew that he would be appreciated. I’ve been scared in the past that I would put a ton of work into this character (or a character like it), and he would just end up sitting on a shelf somewhere in my collection and be lost (at this point he majority of the figures in my personal collection are customized).

I actually get a lot of joy out of making these elaborate and very faithful interpretations of G.I. Joe characters, photographing them, and then sending them out into the world. It feels amazing to share this vision of the Joe universe with other people who have a passion for these classic ’80s characters.

I took great pains to get all his little details in there, I took some liberties with the pack, but I still made it appear to be functional. All the extra pieces have intended purpose, like a small fuel filter attached to the main gas tank or the thin hose supplying primer gas, to get the flame thrower started. I can truthfully say that some of the pieces that I used to make Torch I have been carefully storing away for 12 years. Specifically some of the smaller pieces that come from older 7″ action figures. I had all the details locked away in my brain and I’m always on the look out for specific pieces. For example the neck piece came from an old Mcfarlane Toys Clown figure and the shackle on his bicep came from a “Silent Screamers” Frankenstein’s Monster figure.

I had created a Zartan for the Cobra-lalilulelo Show a while back. For this version I was visually drawing more from the Comic book interpretation of the character (which I always felt was scarier and more imposing than his cartoon counterpart).

Additionally, this figure was one in a series of 11 different characters that I was commissioned to create. I wanted him to fit in with that series, and the high tech look didn’t sit well for me when I stood him next to the other characters. That’s why I decided to go in slightly different direction with him than the previous version. I also created a dirty version with pitted craggy armor, but I decided that didn’t fit either when you puthim next to the other Dreadnoks in this series of 11 figures. He looked like a rag-a-muffin and not a biker gang leader.

The first Zartan was bulkier and had a younger face. This version on the contrary is older and more slimmed down. The younger version has some hoses and more rough electronic looking pieces. Chronologically speaking this makes more sense for me. My logic is that in his youth he is stricken with this bizar physical condition that he needs to get a handle on ASAP. To that end, his suit is developed as a survival piece, much like the Batman characters Mr. Freeze or Clayface III  (Also known as Preston Payne) wear a life support suit.

At this stage in his life his body is regulated to the point where he can sustain a certain period of time not restricted to a life support suit. It’s more likely that he needs to rehabilitate his body once a day in chamber (much like Darth Vader), and therefore doesn’t need to carry all that tech around with him all day. This allows him more mobility and an easier time disguising himself.

This would also coincide with him developing a more unified Dreadnoks organization. More members… more crime… more money… all contributing to better tech. And better tech always means slimmed down and more stream lined.

Perhaps one day I’ll revisit the idea of doing a craggy armored, rag-a-muffin older Zartan. To reflect the point in his life when the sickness finally overcomes him, and the different chapters of Dreadnoks begin to splinter off into other gangs as they lose confidence in Zartan’s abilities.

What is about Friefly that makes him so cool? He’s a saboteur, an assassin, a commando, a trickster, and a bastard….. oh, wait… that is what makes him cool!

I have a ton of projects going on. For the most part the 1/6 G.I. Joe customs that I make are not a priority until some one commissions me to craft one. Though I’ve always wanted to get back to making a definitive classic Firefly figure. I tried once, but the character has so many specific little details, that he proved to be quite a challenge to complete (At least to the level that I wanted).

The first time I gave a crack at the character, the figure sported a clothe balaclava and that just wasn’t right in the end. I had put so much effort in the piece however, that I decided to put it on display for the Cobra-lalelulelo show.  Basically, he was a place holder for things to come.

I finally got to make the classic Firefly figure of my dreams. He’s even got the little computers and explosive devices. At the last minute I even decided to make his rifle (some of those pieces are in-fact ten years old).

For his pack, I wanted to reproduced as realistically as possible. The original figure had a nifty tool box on his back, so I reinterpreted it as high-powered portable computer. The computer is a powerful tool after all. The way I see it he pulls off his pack and uses the device to remotely detonate his explosives. The view screen is tiny, but he doesn’t need a whole lot of screen space, just enough to set of bombs, add code or hack into other computers. The one snag is that his keyboard / view screen component might get banged up in a serious firefight. He is however, a sneaky saboteur and not an infantryman in the midst of crossfire. The camo colored box being the meat and potatoes of the computer, the device is not much bigger than a late ’90s desktop. Besides this is the ’80s… right? So, his computer/backpack is sort of a predecessor to the modern laptop (or iPad), making him ahead of his time.

This final version was a custom 1/6 figure on the back burner for me for a long time. Like many of the 1/6 customs I make, I’ve been collecting pieces for this figure for more than 5 years, and therefore he would be extremely difficult to reproduce exactly the same way.

But here he is, finally after all this time…

Ah Duke… when it came time for me to craft a Duke figure I struggled. I was not always a big fan of Duke. There were moments when I wanted to tackle this character, but he was so… good, and that it immediately turned me off. I read the comics when I was a kid and I loved them, but he was never a character I focussed on and I never became attached to any of his stories. Whereas Snake Eyes had this awesome story about being a Vietnam vet (which put him on par with Punisher to me), and a “crashing Helicopter incident” which resulting in scarring his face and making him mute.

Duke had this purely good ‘ol American quality about him to contradicted the opposing evil terrorist sense of Cobra. That made him feel generic for me. He was the archetype blonde good guy leader. As I got older and dug deeper into the mythos of a lot of the various G.I. Joe characters I discovered that Duke was in fact German. There are a lot of German-Americans, this I know, but his real name is Konrad Hauser. There was always something to that to me, his name is so strongly German that there must be a reasoning behind this. It revealed more than anything else about Duke to me. In my mind I always thought maybe the reason that Duke is so good is because his family escape a Nazi controlled Germany during WWII.

As I got older and understood the history of the war I discover that a lot of high profile germans (such as well respected doctors and scientist) tried to flee the country, genuinely fearful of a Nazi controlled country.

Perhaps at a young age Duke heard stories of the war from his parent. Being instilled with a strong sense of right and wrong it’s possible that he developed an enduring sense justice. This would lead to his eventual role of leadership as the Joes faced Cobra again and again. Maybe Duke just knew that they were wrong… terrorism was wrong and it had to be stopped… and he was just the man to lead the team. In the cartoon he was the first guy to shout “Yo Joe!” or something like “Let’s get those snakes!” Maybe this family history that I made up in my mind was what lead him to such a confidently heroic path….

Secondly, Duke is an iconic ’80s hero, and there was always one person in my mind that fit the bill for this character. Both in stature and personality. Maybe his English isn’t so great… but hey he was a governor.

Can you figure out who plays Duke in my universe?

Renown action figure sculptors, The Four Horsemen, held their second retrospective this year at TT Underground. Dubbed Toypocalypse 2: Futuretro, the show featured the Four Horsemen renditions of the ”Outer Space Men.” The horsemen acquired the rights to the Outer Space Men property and started releasing figures in 2010.

The show featured preliminary drawings of the Outer Space Men figures, a display of pristine Outer Space Men vintage figures, a handful of Maters of the Universe prototypes, and a beautiful display of upcoming original figures.

In honor of the event, the Horsemen curated their first custom toy show, using the Outer Space Men as the base for the customs. Being a huge fan of the Horsemen’s work, I was looking forward to the show, but I found out about the customizing part only a week before. I just barely managed to squeeze a piece in and I’m very grateful for it…

For this piece, I took the chest from an Outer Space Man “Commander Comet” figure, flipped it over, and hollowed it out. The head slides in and there’s a tube and some antenna’s added.

One of the highlights of last year for me was the reveal of the Be@rbrick I designed for Toy Tokyo. I was commissioned in 2010, by Toy Tokyo, to design the piece for the “Be@rbrick World Wide Tour II”.

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest Be@rbrick collector, but I do love the basic shape. There’s a timelessness about it. Maybe it’s a little Lego-like, but it’s shape strikes an instant nostalgic chord in the Toy Community.

I had thought about the kind of design I would want to see on a Be@rbrick for so many years. When I was asked to collaborate on one, the available choices seemed endless. You could go in any direction: illustrated, patterned, or you could add new sculptural elements to create a new piece. How do you come up with a new design at this point, when there’s been so many fantastic Be@rbrick concepts already?

If you know Lev, the owner / operator of Toy Tokyo, then you know that he loves camo and interesting fabric patterns. Being a fan of camo and fabric myself, I wanted to craft a pattern that really spoke to me about what Toy Tokyo is. I wanted something that look like legitimate camo, but I also wanted an interesting design that wasn’t quite like anything you’ve seen before. I came up with the Tehama Camo pattern to originally for the Toy Tokyo SDCC exclusive for 2009. Since originally making this piece I’ve used this pattern on a few other projects. Ironically, this was the second piece that featured the Tehama Camo, but it took a full year for it to finally be revealed.

It was also important for me for the viewer to be drawn into the piece. The closer you get to the piece the more you can tell that the Tehama Camo pattern is made up of layers of dots of different color. It literally changes before you eyes as you move closer or further away. It’s like studying the colors of a comic book page before digital printing. The different shades of color are achieved by overlapping colored dots of different sizes. Conceptually, the pattern is like a Roy Lichtenstein take on Camouflage.

The design was printed onto heavy weight quilting Cotton and cut out in sections and shapes that followed certain elements of the pattern. The sections were then decoupage onto the sanded down 1000% Be@rbrick, with an acrylic matte varnish.

It was a tremendous honor to design a Be@rbrick, and I loved the challenge of coming up with an original design.

Page 1 of the Toy Tokyo feature in the “Be@rbrick World Wide Tour” catalogue

Details from Page 2 of the Toy Tokyo feature in the “Be@rbrick World Wide Tour” catalogue

Ah Major Bludd… It took me so long to mentally put this guy together. I had started a version of Major Bludd in 2009 as part of the Cobra-lalilulole show that I collaborated on with my wife (and artist companion), Mariangela Tan. This version is closer to the image in my mind…

This is the second completed figure that’s part of an 11 figure custom project. There is extensive sanding that happened with the arm beneath the crazy arm brace. The Fett blaster has the perfect mini rocket launcher look for the Major.

In December 2011, I was commissioned for a variation on my “Battle Android Seeker” figure, that first showed it’s visage at SDCC of the same year (at the Toy Tokyo booth). I made four pieces of that figure and I haven’t had an opportunity to get back to the Seekers until I was asked to create an all black one.

Now I hear “all black” but I don’t see it that way. I ended up choosing a charcoal hued fabric that had a black swirl pattern. The head is a dark blue with a black wash (just to give it a little personality).

When I came up with the concept originally for SDCC last summer, I was thinking about the “Pretenders” in the G.I. Joe / Transformers universe. Not the English rock group from the late 70′s, but the strangely disturbing subset of humanoid Transformers characters. I say disturbing because each one split apart to reveal a thin android-like robot inside. Almost like the exoskeleton type andriod in The Terminator. These figures fascinated me as a kid, because the robot inside actually had some level of transformation. Coincidentally, the two that I had transformed in futuristic planes, though neither of them was Starscream. However, I found out last year that there was in fact a Starscream Pretender….

I see him as a Pretender from Starscreams team of Seekers. It’s unclear at which point in time the group of robots (that transformed into F15 Eagles) were called “seekers”, but that is the name they have come to be known by.

This Seeker Pretender would be a 6 foot tall humanoid shell with a downloaded copy of Starscream’s consciousness, with the ability to communicate with Starscream via a wi-fi like link. Featuring holographic tech used  to distort his appearance into something more human, the infiltrator known as “Disruptor” has the uncanny ability to dismantle any organization from the inside out.