Gary “Goggles” Head was burst on to the G.I.Joe community scene sporting the username of “Gyre-Viper” on  most notably, the hisstank.com forums.  Gary started sharing prototypes, breaking news, and uniting long disconnected members of the hobby, as his passion was contagious.

It was my privilege to know Gary, and to argue with him a few times!  While I knew of Joe Declassified before Gary, it was he really brought it to the forefront, and got me hooked.  It’s thanks to Gary’s encouragement I continued podcasting when I split ways with the rest of the crew who made up nerdversity101 (it ended up being a multiple way split, and not pretty) When Patrick Stewart, now of Articulated Points, came on the Nerdahtio podcast, that was think to Gary, and we never got to record a planned episode on the Age of Apocalypse, one of his favorite comics.

I was at Joe con, when the Sightline figure was announced.  There were tears.

I still remember the message from Gary Godsoe, from WOJM, letting me know of Gary Head’s passing.   The community honestly hasn’t been the same sense.   With G.I.Joe back, I’d love to see Sightline again, but I’m not sure we will, the folks who knew of Gary have moved on, and DePriest and Weber seemed to have had to convince legal to let them get away with naming a new figure after a real person, and conceded making his last name Goggles on the file card.    Given Gary’s love of former Joe designers Boss Fight’s Kickstarter,  and the more modern to near future , yet grounded style of Action Force, that more matched Pursuit of Cobra- through the 50^th which Sightline was a part of, I decided awhile back that I had to create an Action Force version of Gary.

I present Gyre: Action Force’s Archivist. Steel Brigade trained so that he gather intel from action battlefields, both after, and during combat.

Here is Sightline (from yojoe.com) with one of Valaverse’s Steel Brigade. (Which you can preorder here )

Here are some in progress shots

You can see how much I edited here.

and finally, two versions of Gary in figure form.

I’m loving the new G.I.Joe Classified line, but honestly I’m more excited for Action Force because I like their aesthetic better, and feel like Bobby Vala will be with the fans long term, and I am nervous about Joe’s future after the Snake-Eyes movie

. Here is hoping we see plenty of similar customs once we have Action Force in hands.

If you want more custom Gary goodness, you can check out Drew Gaska of Blame Ventures work on a The Loyal Subjects version of Sightline. HERE. 

(unfortunately the interview tagged within is currently not working, when I’m not doing digital recolors, I’ll get it reuploaded)

You can also join the discussion for Valaverse Figures HERE

or 6 inch G.I.Joe figures, HERE.

Next up in the realm of digibashing, maybe some alternate takes on the head for ole Gyre here, and then I’m thinking one for more Action Force before heading back to Joe, maybe they need a Covid-19 specialist in Green and yellow?