Well, while many of you were off enjoying the Convention this weekend, I was up in the Rockies with my family, enjoying the serenity & wildlife of Colorado.

On the way to our cabin, we stopped off at a Super Target to get some last-minute groceries and I checked the toy aisle on a whim and found the entire second 25A wave. Gotta say I was more excited about opening the figures than I was about getting up to our cabin.

When I opened BeachHead, I thought I'd found the perfect figure - everything about him was just awesome- or so I thought. Then I stood him next to a 25A Snake Eyes (my "standard buck" for all my customs) -- he was almost a full head taller . When I got home today, I compared him to some other 25A figs, and this is what I discovered:




He's taller than friggin' Roadblock!!! WTF?!? So that really sucks, since I've always pictured BH at about 5'10" or so.

So I went and tried to chop him down a bit -- I loved the look of his legs, but they were just too bulky to modify, so I did a total swap out with SE (seems like I'm always using SE legs for my customs...) Now he's still on the tall side, but not noticibly so - he's about the same height as my custom Flint & Hawk. I figure I'll use a BH body for updating my 25A Snakes to bring him up in height as well (if I find any more wave 2 stuff.) So here's what he looks like now -- close enough to perfect for me. I really like the looks of this guy and he's a lot of fun to play with.





Some production notes: I wanted to keep his original holster, but it was a [LASER BLAST] modding it to get it to fit the SE thigh. I had to cut down the holster mounting and Dremel out SE's peg hole to get it to work

Also - my $20 Amazon.com Black Pearl came this weekend while I was gone, so I just put it together and let the Joes play around on it for a while - hence the modified background for this photo shoot

A mini review of Wave 2:
Serpentor was a giant as well, but I may just keep him that way for now. It almost fits the character to be larger than life. I don't like his lame expression on his bald head, though -- so he'll get a head transplant sometime in the near future. Other than that, the figure is ok.



Lady Jaye is better than I expected. I always disliked the character and I was never happy with any of the figs, but this one might be ok. The head is a little weird, but not as bad as I thought it'd be -- I'm still debating whether to swap it for the comic pack or not.

Buzzer is a little too tall - and he's got a massive case of thunder thighs, but is otherwise a cool figure.
Cobra Trooper - meh, I'd have preferred a red Cobra symbol over the silver, but he'll be alright.


That's all from me for a while - got another trip to take tomorrow.

Cheers!

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Hi, is the Beach head vest removable? thanks.

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Sure is:

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Decided to give him an "unmasked" head. Those of you who know me are aware of how much I HATE the masked look on my Joes - it's just dumb unless they're doing a night infiltration.

I modded a BBI Sniper head (gave him a better hairline & carved him a jawline) - I think it conveys the grumpy-ass, mission-focused BH rather well.



I figure he'll wear a boonie cap most of the time, but I left his neck painted green, just in case he wants to put on his mask.

Then I was messing around trying to come up with a different head for LJ and used the SW Dark Woman head.



I'm not that pleased with it, so I'll try something else - but figured I'd share the pic in case somebody else wanted to go that route.

EDIT: Ok, so touching up the original head with some flesh tones to fix her "lazy eye" and cover up her lipstick seems to make a world of difference. I'm still hoping to find a good hatless head someday, but this'll work for now.



Cheers!

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lucky you, I only found the cobra trooper today,I want to get these guys and thought about buzzer for a base for hi-tech but if he's pretty big it probobly won't work. lmk if you think he's too big,thanks

Judge for yourself:

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thanks Chief, I think he is probobly too big,,he's RB sized
Tim

Nice work on that Beach Head, especially the Tom Berenger/BBI sniper head. You're right, gives him just the right disgruntled look. The repaint of the Lady Jaye head is pretty sharp, but you know what? I actually like the SW dark woman one too. It gives her a pretty nasty expression, perfect for whenever in the heat of battle or when she's really pissed off at Flint again

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Nice work on these, Chief.

Sad to see they've upscaled everyone. Buzzer shouldn't be a giant.

For beach head, did you think about cutting down the bottoms of his boots at all? That's where I would've started, I think. Your solution works, of course, but I'd love not to have to paint camo on some SE legs to make Beach Head closer to fine.

Thanks guys --

Spin, I actually considered trimming his boots down, but in order to drop him enough, I'd end up chopping too much. And I really dig how his boots look, so I'm going to graft them onto somebody else in the future. That, and his pants were just too baggy looking, IMO. But honestly, if you knock off .25" of his boots, it should bring him into scale and he'd actually look more like the v1 fig anyway (his original boots weren't that tall) -- I just didn't want to chop up these ones

For both BH & Buzzer it seems like the ankle joints just aren't recessed into the ankles that much, and makes the boots longer than they should be. But they don't lend themselves to easy fixes. I think I'll end up swapping some regular new-sculpt legs for Buzzer (tried MonkeyWrench's, but they didn't shrink him enough.) Too bad, too - I really dig the little skulls on his shins. Maybe if I can just find some suitable thighs (his are a little chunky), I can make it work.

But this means that when Firefly comes around I'll have to fix him too -- good thing I've still got pleny of SEs I'm REALLY hoping that Zartan doesn't suffer from Gigantism -- I really dig the look of that figure and I don't want to have to modify him at all.

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Love the shot of beachhead walking the plank. I like the unmasked version you made the best, but I think the masked version represents him the best. Good stuff.

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I'm actually hoping that he does. I've always pictured Zartan as being larger than most. My definitive Zartan is how Larry Hama drew him in the famous issue #26 where Zartan, Destro, CC & the Baroness are walking through the swamp. Z & D tower over the other two.

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Nice mods. I didn't realize he was so tall, but I didn't really pay attention. I love that unmasked head.