Snake Eyes – Rod Whigham

In searching for the artwork for the previous post, I came across one more piece that I thought I should share.  This is a Snake Eyes sketch done at a convention in the mid-80’s by none other than regular (at the time) GIJoe artist extraordinaire, Rod Whigham.  His pencil work from the majority of issues…

Incredible Change-Bots

In 2007, author/artist Jeffrey Brown created a pseduo-parody of the Transformers called The Incredible Change-Bots.  His brand of humor and playful poking fun at all the tropes that filled the cartoons and comics of our youth make for a fascinating and entertaining read.  Every G1 Transformers fan owes it to themselves to read this funny, charming…

Gone, But Not Forgotten: Part 1 – 1982

As a child of the 80’s, I recall toy stores with entire isles dedicated to singular lines like GIJoe or Transformers being common.  Clearly just-in-time inventory systems were not widespread, and larger toy stores like Toys-R-Us and Children’s Palace often stocked like they were hoarders, preparing for a toypocalyse.  It made finding new toys easier,…

G.I. Joe – Mega Bloks: VAMP & Stinger

After customizing over 80 tiny GIJoe and Cobra figures from Call of Duty, Halo, and other Mega Bloks licenses, I decided they needed some wheels.  Kre-O’s GIJoe brick vehicles redefined the word “disappointment”, so that was a no-go.  The Call of Duty construction line has a wide variety of genuinely impressive military vehicles, many of…

Transformers Backgrounds

Displaying all of your hard earned plastic acquisitions is a rewarding part of being a toy collector.  And few toys make a better display than Masterpiece Transformers (and their third-party brethren).  Near-perfect representations of the characters we watched on TV and played with in the living room floor many moons ago, MP TFs are complex,…

Revoltech Transformers – Mirage

As I explained in an earlier post, I wanted to make additional characters in a line of highly articulated, non-Transforming figures that died well before it’s time.  Autobot Mirage, everyone’s favorite blue F1 car, was my second figure. Collecting is half the Battle!

G.I. Joe – Mega Bloks: Cobra – The Enemy

Continuing the spotlight on custom Mega Bloks GI Joe figures, today I’m posting the adversaries of the Joe team, the ruthless terrorist organization: Cobra.  This group had it’s good and bad points while making them.  The designs were simpler, and making repeats of the nameless/faceless troopers require less thought.  However, it got a little monotonous…

G.I. Joe – Mega Bloks: The Joe Team

A few years ago when Hasbro announced that they were going to get into the brick business (presumably to get a share of that sweet Lego revenue), we all rejoiced that we might get some really cool small-scale Joe figures.  Instead, we got “Kre-O”, a blatant ripoff of cute little Lego minifigures and grossly under-scaled…

Mixel Madness – Stop Action

My son Alex spent considerable time making a stop-motion animation “movie” summer before last. Actually, he wanted to go to stop-motion camp (yes, it exists), and I explained that we could do that better at home (you know, because the idea of melding photography and expensive software I don’t know how to use was just…