by DJ | Aug 21, 2023 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, G.I. Joe, GI Joe
G.I. Joe 6 Inch Custom Dusty V2
Check out all of our G.I. Joe reviews, and customs here!
Dusty V2 has been on our list for …well about as long as Dusty V1, who we got to Dusty V1 in 2021. Not too long after, Hasbro caught up to us with their official release, and then they even Tiger Forced him this year! But the original V2 with the beret and Sandstorm was always close to our hearts as a kid, so we had to take him on our shelf adventures as an adult collector. That’s where the most amazing Mrs. MUReview comes in! Dusty V2 rounds out our custom coverage and creation for 2023, and I’m more than overjoyed with how he turned out!
Ingredients
Recipe
- Swap the legs on and head from Dusty to the Outback Torso (boil and pop for the legs at the hip joints)
- Paint the shirt tan to match the pants
- Paint the crotch piece tan to match the pants
- Paint hair red
- Paint beret tan
- Paint web gear, boots, gloves weapons brown
- Don’t paint Timber..or do if you want, but I think he’s just fine and I don’t have another so went with it
Special notes
A fun way to wrap up Customs for 2023, Dusty V2 brings it all together, and gives me a take on a character that I’ve always loved! As usual Mrs. did an outstanding job! As the Classified line expands, pretty rapidly, I must admit, the motivation to continue making custom figures is waning. We are running out of characters Hasbro “probably won’t make”. But, I think I still have a list that is pretty bullet proof, and we will see what 2024 / 2025 holds for the line, and our customs. Nothing lasts forever, but GI Joe was really the start of my childhood collecting and passion for toys. I hope this line has a good long life ahead of it, but when it does end, maybe that’s when we really ramp back up and fill in the blanks that the line didn’t hit. This isn’t a rumor or prediction of end of the Classified line in any way. I’m sure it’s going to continue for some time, and I hope it does. But it’s nice to have a plan to keep the line going for myself when tides turn in the far future. Especially since the customs turn out like this, and continue to be freaking amazing! Thank you for putting up with me Mrs. MUReview! YO JOE!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade
by DJ | Aug 14, 2023 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, G.I. Joe, GI Joe
G.I. Joe 6 Inch Custom Fail-Safe
Check out all of our G.I. Joe reviews, and customs here!
The G.I. Joe Skystriker is based on the real life, Grumman F-14 Tomcat. Grumman is / was headquartered in Bethpage, NY, on Long Island. Bethpage is 20 minutes from my home. It is 20 minutes from the home I grew up in. It is the town that I have worked in for about 20 years, and where I work is only a few blocks away from Northrop Grumman as it exists today. There is…or was before COVID, an F-14 on a pedastal outside of the building. And it was freaking cool to drive by there now and again. So when Hasbro announced Fail-Safe, with the HasLab Skystriker, and his hometown is Bethpage, I lost my mind more than a little. Knew right away, he’s a custom we’d have to make. Originally a character featured on Skystriker box art, and never produced, it took Hasbro 30 some odd years to make him at all, so I figure, it’ll be a while before they make an official in Classified, if ever. It is with great excitement, that I present to you, Fail-Safe!
Ingredients
- G.I. Joe Classified Stalker Base Body
- Marvel Legends Peter Parker head, I’m entirely uncertain of which one, apologies
- Gridiron Studios Helmet
- Action Force Steel Brigade Vest
- Action Force SWARM garter
- Shoulder straps cut from Stalker Web Gear
- Lots of green acrylic paint
- White acrylic paint
- Tan acrylic paint
- Black acrylic paint
Recipe
- Headswap, had to cut off the ball at the top so the head sat lower
- Cut the staps off of Stalker web gear, cut to shorten to create the extra shoulder pieces
- Paint the base a solid green
- Color match / paint hands and neck to match face
- Paint shoes grey / black
- Paint the garter black and slide it on over feet up legs (no not weird way to say that)
- Cut away ammo pouches from vest
- Paint vest darker green
- We puttied on the Stalker shoulder straps to the vest
- Put the vest on
- Paint the helmet green / eye wear black
Special notes
- Simple custom here, just a lot of …pretty much the same color paint, headswap, add a fancy Gridiron Helmet, and some great Action Force parts, and it let us create this new to Joe Plastic, instant classic figure / character, Fail-Safe! My wife did an outstanding job, as she always does, not just with paint, but amazing color matching! This figure came out even better than I’d hoped, and I’m so excited to have Fail-Safe stand shoulder to shoulder with my Classified roster!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade
by DJ | Aug 7, 2023 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, G.I. Joe, GI Joe
G.I. Joe 6 Inch Custom Captain Gridiron
Check out all of our G.I. Joe reviews, and customs here!
I gotta tell you. When I got into customizing Joes. It was pretty greenfield. It was a lot of imagination, and full on kit bashing between lines. These days, you kids have all kinds of crazy options, from Etsy, Grid Iron Studios, name it, and there are custom made pieces so you can make just about any Joe. Heck, half of Battle Force 2000, or more, has custom printed parts out you can buy…we lived the dang struggle with that one! Now, getting off the bench for the first time in 2023, I’m seeking to take advantage of some of these easy mode options. Starting with Captain Gridiron. Gridiron Studios offers a whale of an option that is basically a full way to kit out a figure as Captain Gridiron. So let’s make our Football Team Captain the easy way with Gridiron Studios!
Ingredients
Recipe
- Paint to match original Captain Gridiron
- Paint the Diver Vest
- Put all the pieces we bought on
- Man this is so much easier than it used to be!
Special notes
- I love Football. I’ve always loved Football. So Captain Gridiron was an immediate favorite figure. To this day still, ridiculous as he is, I love the football grenades, and the helmet. This custom turned out just the way I hoped, freakin awesome. Love getting back into the mix with the awesome talents of my wife doing …mostly all the work. Love how this turned out. Yo Joe!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade
by DJ | Oct 17, 2022 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, Marvel Legends
Marvel Legends Custom Red Shift – Herald of Galactus
Check out all of our Marvel Legends reviews, and customs here!
That’s a wrap folks, Customs 2022 ends here, today, with Red Shift. And we are posting this, hopefully, somewhere in line with the HasLab Galactus ship date…maybe? Well, as usual we went on a tare of G.I. Joe Classified Customs, but we expanded this year to include some Legends, so that we had a nice beefed up roster of Heralds for Galactus to come home to. I think we pulled that off. Originally the slate was three figures, Invisible Boy, Stardust, and the Fallen One. I had some parts I was kicking around to do Airwalker too. But as it happened, Hasbro announced a 2-pack of Heralds, with Terrax and The Fallen One. Now, the Fallen One was to be easy mode, because it’s paint a Silver Surfer starry black and head swap for Sentry or Thor. But, it wasn’t meant to be. So, I put my Walgreens Surfer back together, and took a long look at the pieces that I had for Airwalker, some of the discarded pieces that is. The Fallen One was off the list, and Red Shift joined! A simple repaint, but pretty complicated and frustrating (for my wife) sculpt work on the head. She once again did an outstanding job though, and I’m so excited to share our last custom of the year in Red Shift!
Ingredients
- Body is Marvel Legends young Thor
- Head is Eddie Brock Venom head from a Marvel Legends Venom
- Black Acrylic Paint
- Red Acrylic Paint
- Gold Acrylic Paint
- Flesh Tone Acrylic Paint
- Milliput or equivalent modelling putty
Recipe
- Sculpt the ‘helmet’ onto the head. Good luck with the ‘wings’ getting them to stay in place was brutal
- Paint pants black
- Paint chest and arms flesh tone
- Paint boots red and black
- Paint helmet black
- Paint wings / horns red
- Paint belt gold
- Paint eyes white
Special notes
- This year of customs really exceeded my expectations for a ton of reasons. We put together a full team of Joes in Battle Force 2000, and we added three customs to an already outstanding, Hasbro provided roster, so Galactus will Hunger in my home for very little, as he will have a massive squad of Heralds to do his bidding. Thank you so much to my amazing wife for doing pretty much all of the work, and for putting up with me, and for making me all of these wonderful toys!!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade
by DJ | Oct 10, 2022 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, Marvel Legends
Marvel Legends Custom Stardust – Herald of Galactus
Check out all of our Marvel Legends reviews, and customs here!
It was a really really really really long time ago that I bought the base for Stardust. Probably the same week that the Marvel Legends Galactus Haslab Campaign started. I knew for sure that they’d make more Heralds, but I had a gut feeling, that at this point has proven to be true. Stardust? No way. Who the heck is Stardust anyway even? Well, he’s a Herald of Galactus. A heck of a powerful one at that, and certainly one of the most alien looking of the bunch. That look made finding parts rough, and committing to the sculpting even more rough. But I bought the parts, and my awesome wife did the sculpting and the painting, and here we are! One Herald closer to a….gaggle? A gaggle of Heralds?
Ingredients
- Body is Marvel Legends AOA Iceman
- White Acrylic Paint
- Blue Acrylic Paint
- Milliput or equivalent modelling putty / clay
Recipe
- This is a matter of painting on eyes and doing a whole heck of a lot of sculpting to taste. I don’t have a better way to put it
- Then we painted the sculpted on items a lighter blue than Iceman, also painted his chest and some notes on extremities that blue
Special notes
- I had absolutely no idea how Stardust was going to turn out. So when my wife said “here, done”, my jaw dropped. I really didn’t know or think we could make something that looked even close, I’d of been happy with a blue thing, just because he’s such a bizarre and out there character. Which, is why I’m sure Hasbro didn’t go down the path of Stardust. But making customs can bring great surprises, and this is one. Very excited with how this turned out, and am once again thankful to my awesome wife for making me another awesome figure!!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade
by DJ | Oct 3, 2022 | Action Figure Reviews, Action Figures, Customs, Marvel Legends
Marvel Legends Custom Invisible Boy – Herald of Galactus
Check out all of our Marvel Legends reviews, and customs here!
We’ve made a whole boat load of GI Joe customs here at MUReview.. I think it’s high time we turn our eye to some Marvel ones, given that Marvel is how this site was born. We backed Galactus, he’s coming soon, and he’s coming with Heralds. More even than we first thought, thanks to the SDCC announcement of the 2-pack with Terrax and The Fallen One. The Fallen One mind you, was to be our first Herald custom, but we hadn’t gotten started yet….so I’ll just put that dark Silver Surfer head back on that body and leave it. We kick off our dive into Heralds with The Invisible Boy, to chronicle Johnny Storm’s time as the Herald of Galactus!
Ingredients
- Body is Marvel Legends Johnny Storm
- Black Acrylic Paint
- Blue Acrylic Paint
- Purple Acrylic Paint
- Silver Acrylic Paint
Recipe
- I hate to over simplify, but this is a paint only custom, apply paint to match the costume of the Invisible Boy over the Johnny Storm figure…aaaand you’ve got a new Herald!
Special notes
- The moment that the Haslab Galactus was announced, my Herald wheels started turning. When the Marvel Universe Galactus came out, I was in a very different place, and all the same I ended up eBaying more than a few Heralds. Because HERALDS!!! So, this is our first foray into Marvel Legends custom making, with the most noble cause, to give the Devourer his own little army to add to the one that Hasbro is making. We’ve got a few more in mind…stay tuned for what’s next, and for now, enjoy Invisible Boy!
These items are custom pieces of work made for our personal enjoyment, they are not for sale or trade