New Post! A couple of easy customs.

First ever official LBAMToyreview Custom Post

Yeah, it's been since July. There's really no legitimate excuses here. I haven't been engaged in any other projects that have kept me from blogging (other than, I guess, working 3 jobs from September to December, but that does not account for the month of August, weekends, breaks, etc). I throw myself on the mercy of my audience, such as it is.

At any rate, does anyone out there have a decent explanation as to why there hasn't been a Jinx figure in the 25th Anniversary or Rise of Cobra lines yet?

No, you don't. Because there isn't one.

The line as a whole, from 25th Anniversary through Rise of Cobra, is in need of more female figures. Cobra has Baroness, in five different versions (six, I suppose, if you count the Con set, which I don't). The Joes have it a bit better, though given that the RoC line has introduced three more Joe female characters, two of which are more or less entirely new (Dialtone and Helix), why on earth has it not included Jinx, especially given that she almost certainly appeared in the movie?

Well, perhaps that's overstatement. Maybe that actress just happens to have enough of the right characteristics to make us all wish she were Jinx. At any rate, a lack of Jinx figures feels like a missed opportunity (granted, there's only ever been 3 versions of her). And for those of us who'd really like to complete the Arashikage clan (I'm assuming that we cannot reasonably expect the Soft Master, Blind Master, or Billy, and frankly do not care if we ever see any of the members of Ninja Force) there's really only one choice; customization.

Now, the 'recipe' I used here is far from original; I'm almost certain I've seen it elsewhere. I wanted to make a Jinx that would work with the more modern-looking RoC and future releases, that also paid homage to her earlier appearances, and even incorporated some of her Devil's Due look, which I thought was a huge improvement over her original design. So, without further ado


Yeah, that's basically just a Reactive Armor Scarlett with a RoC Flash head. Why the Flash head? Well, one, I can't find a decent Asian Female head for her, and the RoC Flash head closely resembles Jinx's DDP comic look. If anyone out there has a head they think will work and is interested in selling or trading, I'd love to have swappable heads.

I really didn't want an all black Jinx, though I don't tend to mind that loook on some of the other RoC figures. So I turned to my trusty Reaper Paints for a little "Blood Red," thinned with a bit of water. A note on painting; I haven't painted many Joe figures. My experience in painting is with RPG miniatures, which I generally find easier to paint than Joes, oddly enough. With figures this size I feel like errors are harder to cover, and smooth even coats are more difficult to attain. I've only really fully painted three or four Joe size figures, but scores of minis. Now, bear in mind, I'm not a great mini painter, but I'm decent enough at it that my gaming friends ask me to paint their minis for them (maybe they're just lazy). At any rate, all I really tried to do with the paint here was get a coat over all of the raised armor plates on this Scarlett body, and then put on a thin clear coat of sealer. Any tips on Joe painting are welcome, but overall I'm reasonably pleased with how Jinx turned out. And yes, there's an amateurish dry-brush on her firearms; I always apply a bit of gunmetal drybrush to any black weapons, whether from Hasbro or Marauder John. When done right, I love the 'distressed metal' look the weapons take on.
Jinx is wearing the backpack and webgear from the Target Rescue Mission exclusive Snake-Eyes (the sets are $5 at my Target right now) and carrying his sword, which I touched up with the same red for the hilt, and more Reaper 'honed steel' for the blade. Her firearms come from other RoC figures; one of the pistols from the Scarlett fig that makes up her body, the smg (an MP97, I think) from Paris Pursuit Baroness.


As you can see in these last photos, I took the crossbow holster from the Scarlett figure, cut the belt off and went ahead and glued it to her boot as an ankle holster. Bigger than a typical ankle holster, sure, but I much prefer my figures to have functional holsters and sheaths whenever possible, and I didn't want to try and get both belts on her.

So there she is; my first officially posted custom. Fire away.

But wait, there's more! Want to see the easiest recipe ever for a custom Rise of Cobra-style Flint?

Of course you do!


That's just a 25th Anniversary G.I. Joe 5-Pack #2 Flint head and webgear tossed onto the Wal-Mart exclusive LAW mini-battlestation Hawk body. Sure, it doesn't have the buttoned-up shirt of the classic Flint, but I think it works well enough. Now, the color of the head and the color of the neck aren't a perfect match; the neck is much paler. I find I'm capable of ignoring it.

I do not, however, think Flint is Flint without a shotgun. To wit:

I cut the holster off of this Hawk's belt, and the tip off of the holster, and carefully glued it onto the back belt part of Flint's webgear. The first 25th Anniversary Shipwreck's sawed-off shotgun slips into it perfectly.

The one potential problem with this recipe is that Flint's webgear is not really wide enough to fasten around Hawk's waist. I dipped it in some boiling water to stretch it and pulled it around, but it has a bit of trouble staying fastened. It's hardly a deal breaker...and let's face it, this is hardly exactly a revolutionary recipe, so who cares really...but it needs to be pushed back into
place now and then.

So there they are, two wildly unoriginal customs. But I enjoyed making them and incorporating them into my collection, and ultimately, isn't that the point?