Black Mamba: Steel Brigade digibash

This one began as another parody, but I ended up really enjoying it, so I only added one element of parody on the unarmored torso. I wasn’t a fan of over the print on the “Snake Supreme” Cobra Commander, nor am I really a fan of that mold, it feels over busy with details that aren’t functional. When I applied extra deco to the Steel Brigade model, it became obvious that every bit of detail was functional, and I think that really separates the Action Force aesthetic from the new Classifed Joe line. Both are highly detailed, but Action Force, uses those details for a purpose.

Here is next to his inpiration. You can see the overlay is just “overdesigned” written a bunch of times. I don’t think CC would wear a shirt like an proffesional bowler from the 70’s.

At one point I intended to make his color red, and maybe his pockets too, and one of the belt buckles. I forgot about that at some point. I may be do some more touch ups and do an additional upload later. As I completed it, I began to think of it more as an Iron Grenadier than CC, and that influenced where I stopped.

Here he is without the overlay, because I liked it enough to go forward with the parody elements.

and with the armor on

You will notice I colored the tongue of his boot this time, something I haven’t done before.

Lastly a close up without the armor.

Action Force Cereal Offer

It’s been a few months now, but remember that NTWRK disaster? Lots of folks noticed that that someone who was Commanding Cobras, looked more like Capt. Crunch than his old self. Why should the classified line get all the cereal fun? Today’s Photoshop is based on an idea by Bobby Vala, of Valaverse.com. I gave the Steel Brigade a parody treatment in light of regal Cobra Commander’s similarities to Capt. Crunch.

and of course the armored look

You will notice I have added several new deco bits that I don’t normally included. I’ve also taken the time to do add more layers in my base photoshop image, so I should be able to make these recolors a little faster.

Some close ups:

Here is an alternate take on the Cereal box:

both were based on this Capt. Crunch box

and if you haven’t seen the “regal CC” here he is:

This was a fun one to create, check back very soon for another one I already have done.

Airtight and Ozone Digibash by way of Valaverse Steel Brigade

I put these up on Facebook and Instagram, some time ago, but in an effort to keep all my work in one place, here are digibbashes of modern 6″ versions of Ozone and Airtight. I used  Action Force’s Steel Briage as a base. You can check out more of Action Force here.

I’ll start with what were actually my second version of each character

some wip in shots:

Continue reading

Gyre : Action Force’s battle ready archivist

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 50th 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 Continue reading