One-sixth

Sometimes I find good things

2011-05-09T02:06:00.000-07:00

I always drop by the local Goodwill when I'm in the area, which happens at least several times a week. Admittedly 1/6th figure related stuff has been scarce to non-existent lately, but I find other goodies and prop items that weren't INTENDED for 1/6th. Enough to make my visits worthwhile anyway.

Today though, was the first time in a while that I found multiple 1/6th intended items worth bringing home. Here's my haul:

Max Steel was annoyed to find two drunk ninjas on his front lawn...

The two GI Joes are from the Target Snakeeyes vs. Storm-shadow two-pack. No accessories or boots, but that's okay, since I was mostly interested in them for the jumpsuits (especially the white one, which I use as the basis for my "Minions at Work" Minions uniform.

The Max Steel is a rare Ultra-Action body with no modifications or action-features. This is a great body for customizing, It's flexible, durable, and proportioned like modern Action Man, making it a great upgrade or replacement for some of those bodies. I've got a bunch of these already, but I can always put one more in the project box.

The best find, however, was the nifty little folding dollhouse for $3.99. Sadly, I have no idea what this thing is called, or what doll line it comes from. Given the quality of construction and detail, and the subdued, non-Barbieish colors, I have a vague idea it might be from the Hanna Montana doll line (which had some interesting accessories and props in some of its sets), but I'm just guessing. If anyone knows, leave a comment.

Anyway, I've picked up a couple of folding fashion-doll dollhouses/playsets over the years, with the intention of doing something with them, but mostly they just gather dust. Most are molded in terrible colors: pink, purple, white. Most would require disassembly for proper painting, but they aren't designed to come apart. Also, many of the plastics used are very hard to paint.

Most are designed to look good from outside, but inside walls often have bizarre indents that match details on the outside. Often they have molded in hearts, flowers, logos, and other stuff that would have to be hidden or removed to make them usable for my purposes. They also tend to have unrealistic and toy-like details, especially where it comes to windows and doors.

Several of them are also just too big to be set up on a table for easy inside photography.

Get inside! It's freezing out here!

This little house is an exception in most every way. Let's start with the colors. Very subdued, and bordering on realistic.

There are a bunch of neat details, like the separate door knobs and the working mail-slot in the door. (Though, who has a mail slot any more?) That little gray button off to the right is a working (though batteries installed in the back of the house) doorbell.

The whole house is big enough folded to serve as a photo backdrop, and looks decent when folded, but small enough for easy storage.

The center brick section (behind Max's leg next to the door in the above picture) is a hidden latch that allows the house to unfold. The front splits next to the door. Let's open it up and have a look inside.

This room could use some decorating...

It doesn't look like much, but just as it sits, this is a pretty versatile little set for photo work. With the visible sink and washer-dryer, the right side could serve as a utility room or the corner of a basement. Shoot to the left with the door and window, add a table to make it a breakfast room, or a chair to make it a living room or other generic interior room. Hide the washer and sink behind a potted plant, wall hanging, or piece of furniture, and you could also shoot the right side as an entrance hall.

But we're not done there. The little hose has other secrets...

That's no closet! It's a WATER closet!

Open the wall section with the door, and there's a bathroom hiding behind it, with a toilet and shower. The sink and mirror we saw earlier now become part of the bathroom. The toilet bowl actually folds up to store flat behind the door. Even so, the lid and seat can be lifted individually. When you do, a flushing sound-effect is activated!

I like some of the details here: the toilet paper roll on the wall, the chromed towel ring, the shower wand, the yellow soap dish, and the realistic window. All this stuff is undersized, but as background items, they work just fine for photo purposes.

If you need a larger, more open bathroom, you could use it like this, but if you want something more compact, like a motel or apartment bath, just swing the wall to the right...

Is this microphone on?

That gives us a compact, three-wall bathroom set, and if anything, makes it look more realistic. The shower head is removable, and there's also a shower sound effect when you push down the water handle. There's a way (short of removing the batteries) to turn the sound off. More on that in a minute.

The next step of transformation is to swing the wall with the sink and mirror all the way to the right, folding the toilet up as you do. This exposes the kitchen.

Yes, I said, kitchen. And not just ANY kitchen, either! This is the GI Joe Adventure Team kitchen/laundry!

Yes, you heard me right.

Have a look below. You've already seen the orange washer and drying, but you really don't get the whole effect until you've seen the yellow kitchen appliances that go with them!

Add caption

Again, everything here is really undersized, especially the stove, which has burners sized for coffee cups But again, might work for a background piece. As you see below, most of the doors, fridge, oven, washer and dryer, open. Strangely, if there are any sound effects for the kitchen, I haven't found them. There is an action feature though. The projection on top of the washer and dryer pair is a button. When pushed, it activates a mechanism to spin the drums inside the laundry machines. Like I said, the doors open. Unfortunately, these aren't very deep. You won't get much in there beyond a couple pair of scale-sized socks!

I suppose if this were REALLY the Adventure Team, it would fold into a backpack!

Here's a closer detail on the kitchen with all the doors open.

There's a little slide switch under the stove knobs. This turns the sound-effects on and off, and makes the apparent lack of sound in the kitchen area all the more puzzling. Why put the switch there when the sounds are next door? (Actually, the battery compartment may be hidden under the stove or in the bottom of the fridge. I haven't checked to see where the battery compartment door on the outside back wall is relative to them.)

If you could find a way to rip these things out, given their size and color, they'd look right at home in some kind of GI Joe Adventure Team Motor Home.

All-in-all, this is a great little play-set that lends itself to a lot of "domestic" photo opportunities with no modification at all (other than the addition of some furniture and props).

I expect I'll use it for some future "Minions at Home" type cartoons, once I think up the jokes to go with them.

4 Things You Didn't Know You Needed in Your Toolbox or on Your Workbench

2011-03-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Boy, look at the cobwebs here! It's been a long time since I posted, but I've been working on some 1/6th projects (including a "guard shack" for my photo-illustrated "Minions at Work" web-comic, and it brought to mind some of the more unusual, but useful, hobby tools I keep around.

Here are a few items you probably don't have on your workbench (though you may already have them around the house) that you'll find invaluable once you have them.

Cast aluminum roofing square

If you check your local home-improvement or hardware store you'll find a variety of squares available, and just about all the smaller ones have uses in 1/6th projects, but if you are only going to have one, this might be the one to have.

I like it because it's a good size for many 1/6th construction tasks. And because many of the materials you'll be trying to mark and cut are flexible, floppy and irregular, it's good to have a straight edge that's heavy enough not to move around on its own, and stiff enough to draw a straight line even if it isn't well supported. It's even solid enough that you can clamp thin materials to the square itself to hold them for marking.

I also like the large raised lip along the left side that gets a firm grip on the corners and edges of things you're marking (and thinner materials can be put on TOP of the square and butted against the lip to secure them). The built in ruler and protractor are also useful additions.

Scotch-Brite Pads

Sanding is a common task in any kind of building or refinishing project. and sanding materials tend to be expensive and not hold up very well against the edges and sharp corners found in many 1/6th projects. Also, there's never a piece of sandpaper around when you need one.

That's why I like these pads, which can be purchased any place that sells household cleaning supplies. They come in sheets or glued to the back of a cleaning sponge (which means that can be used like those flexible sanding blocks, only they're much more durable). They're cheap, durable, and can be cut into smaller pieces for those small jobs. Unlike steel wool, they won't leave little bits of wire (which can actually short out electronics and cause other problems) or rust. By definition they're water-proof, so you can use them for wet sanding. And they're easy to toss into your tool-box for emergencies, so you'll always have one around.

I find them especially useful when prepping larger items (like 1/6th vehicles and large equipment) for painting. Just running the pad quickly over a plastic or metal part will rough up the surface and make paint stick much better.

The main drawback to the grocery-store variety is that they're equivalent a very course grade of sandpaper. There are "professional" versions that are finer through, and you can find them in an auto-body supply shop. Be aware that they're usually in different colors (grey, maroon, and white I believe) depending on how fine they are, and may not actually be called "Scotch-brite" even though they're the same product from 3M.

Speaking of, those Scotch-brite pads are tough. How are you going to cut them? Why, with...

Kitchen Shears

This may be the best single tool (except for maybe a good hobby knife and razor saw) you'll ever by for your hobby bench, and you'll find it sold in among the cooking gadgets.

What's the big deal? They're just scissors, right?

Yes, but they're BAD ASS scissors. The blades are strong and straight. The handles are big, have wide loops so you can put lots of pressure, and are designed to give you lots of leverage on the blades. They're designed to cut THROUGH stuff, not just paper or string. Things like meat, and chicken bones.

They cut paper and cardboard just fine, but they'll also cut plastic like butter. They can even be used to cut thin wood and doweling. (I rotate the scissors around the dowel, scoring a neat, shallow, cut all the way around. Then you can just snap the dowel off and smooth end end off with sandpaper or a file.)

When picking a pair to buy, look for sturdy blades and large loops in the handles. I like symmetrical designs that can be used equally well in the right or left hands. It's also good to look for a design that has a slip-joint in the pivot so that the blades can come apart for easy cleaning or sharpening.

PVC Pipe Cutter

This is probably the most expensive and least versatile tool I'll mention today, but it's still worth considering.

If you haven't looked into working with PVC pipe before, you should. It's cheap, easy to get, and incredibly versatile. There are a million different fittings and connectors you can get in any hardware or plumbing supply store. You can use it to build 1/6th steam pipes, street-lights, power-poles, antennas, pontoons, fuel tanks, all sorts of things. You can also use it to make tables, shelves, supports for photo-backdrops. I've even built a PVC "lighting grid," around the bench where I shoot "Minions at Work," that I can clamp lights to, and use to hang props from overhead

But the trouble, especially for those of us who don't have a full work-shop is the cutting. Cutting with a hand saw is a pain and creates plastic "sawdust" and the edges aren't very clean. A power chop-saw (or band-saw) works better, but how many of us have one of THOSE on our hobby bench? (I do have one in my shop, but that usually isn't where I usually do hobby work.) Only recently did I spot this tool in the plumbing department at my local hardware store and decide to give it a try.

It works BEAUTIFULLY! It's a heavy metal handle with a thin, razor-sharp blade (replaceable on a good one). There's a ratchet mechanism in the handle so it's easy to open, and then you just put the pipe in the jaws, squeeze the handle repeatedly, and the blade cuts smoothly through the pipe almost like butter! It's very quick. The edge is clean (though it's sometimes tricky to get an exact right angle, a power saw is still better for that), and you can get precision to within a millimeter or two if that's important for your project.

Drawbacks? Well, expect to pay $15-20 dollars for this thing, and cutting pipe is pretty much all it does. And though it's perfectly safe when used carefully, this is by far the most frightening non-power tool I've ever used. As you watch it cut through pipe, it's easy to see how it could easily cut off a finger or thumb. Now, it's impossible to move the blade quickly, so you'd have to be incredibly stupid to do this to yourself, but if you have a vivid imagine like I do, well, just try not to think about it!

But the blade is VERY sharp and exposed when the tool is open (it's covered when closed, and most tools have a handle lock to keep it in that position when stored), and you could cut yourself directly. I imagine the blade is also brittle, like a hobby knife, and if you tried to use the tool to cut something it isn't designed for, you could possibly apply enough pressure to shatter it and maybe send sharp flying bits flying around the room. For all these reasons, this is NOT a tool I'd EVER leave where a child could possible get it. A locked drawer or toolbox or at least a high-cabinet is called for here.

Still, I just love this tool, and I use it a lot. I'm doing far more with PVC then I've ever done before, and with far less effort.

So that's it. If there's a lesson here, is that you'll find plenty of useful tools for your hobby projects outside the tool section of a hobby shop. Don't be afraid to check some of the odder corners of the hardware store, or even the kitchen or auto supply. There are plenty of cheap and useful alternatives to expensive hobby tools.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

2008-11-24T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm assuming that most anyone who would be reading this is familiar with my weekly photo comic, Minions at Work. MaW is created (mostly, some occasional photo manipulation is used to) using 1/6th scale action figures, sets, and props.

The other day, I got this note from Minions reader Phil M.:

I love your comics. I was wondering, where did you find all the scaled down items? most of them look like the correct scale for the "minion" you have. I have never seen trash cans, golf carts, etc.
Just wondering...

Fair, question, but one I figured only a fraction of Minions readers would be interested in. So rather than cluttering up their space with what would have to be a lengthy post, I decided to answer over here, at my seldom-used hobby blog, where it was more likely to be seen by interested parties (and where interested Minions readers would be able to find it).

So, just for starters, let's take a look at the latest cartoon (you can, by the way, click on any of these to view a larger version):

Okay, the pat answer to Phil's question is, "everywhere." I've spent several years obsessively building up huge collection of figures, set-pieces, props, and accessories. Some are made. Some are found as action figure or doll accessories. Some come from the most unlikely places.

So what I'm going to do is use some cartoons as examples, talk about where the various items in them came from, and use that to offer more general advice about where you might find things of your own.

Let's just kind of go left to right and discuss things as we find them.

Number Two is talking on a pretty nice phone. The phone is a modified kitchen magnet I found at a kitchen store. I had to do some cutting and modification to make the hand-set removable.

Since the set is non-magnetic, I stuck it to the wall temporarily using a putty-like reusable adhesive clay sold for mounting posters and the like. You can find it in most any office supply stuff, and it's good for a million and one things when making dioramas. It doesn't dry out, so I keep blobs of it stuck to the side of a cabinet adjacent to my "Minions" workbench/studio, ready for immediate use. Like I said, it's reusable, so when I pull down the blob holding the phone to the wall, it will go back up there for reuse.

In the foreground there are some sandbags. Those are accessories that come with "Power Team" military action figure play-sets. Since most of my Minions use Power Team bodies, I've bought a lot of those over the years. The bags are actually hollow plastic, and open on the back, and so only look good from the front. I almost threw them away at some point, but I'm glad I didn't.

Not only are they handy for giving a set that pseudo-military "lair" look, but the hollow backside is great for hiding battery-powered LED "puck" lights, which I often use to as blue fill-lights in my photo set-ups. Actually, there's a light hidden there, but I forgot to turn it on before shooting. Whoops.

The rats fighting on top of the bags are toy-store items, sold as part of line of clear plastic tubes carrying various plastic animals. Some tubes are sold with nothing but various colored rubber rats, and I've bought a bunch of these. Again, handy around the lair, and I use mostly the black ones, which most of the rats in the tubes are white or tan. Save those for the lab-scenes.

The broken table and green storage drum are also Power Team items. The table isn't broken. It just snapped together in the first place, so I just snapped it back apart to make it appear smashed. It will be good as new next time I need it.

You can't see it well here, but the cell door is scratch-built. It's made from foam core, cardstock, toothpicks (for bars in the window), craft store hinges, and a padlock-charm found in a bead store.

1/6th scale doors are hard to come by, and I should make some more in various styles.

The wooden crates were found in thrift stores. Crates like these are used as containers for gift-soaps, bath products, little jars of jelly and jam, and other such things. I think the fad for these may be over, but there are still zillions of them cluttering up grandma closets everywhere.

The trash cans also came from thrift stores. They're at once surprisingly common, and hard to find. They're made as promotional items and sold to garbage and recycling companies, usually imprinted with their logos. The idea is you use them for pencil cups, paper clips, and the company's number is on your desk next time you need trash service. I've managed to pick up maybe half-a-dozen different ones in various colors. I don't know ANY place to pick these up at retail, but if you really want one, calling up the various trash companies in your area might turn one up. Good luck explaining WHY you want it.

Okay, let's move onto another prop-intensive cartoon.

Phil mentioned the Minionmobile, so I had to include it. The Minionmobile is obviously a golf cart. It was sold as part of some die-cast vehicle line a few years back, and it's actually more like 1/8th scale, not 1/6th. The roof was way too low for a 1/6th figure, so I had to extend the metal rods that support the roof and raise the seat to allow for more leg-room. You can see details on how I did it here. It doesn't look bad, and actually, I think the "clown car" aspect adds a subtle bit of humor everywhere it appears.

The clips in the back are designed to hold golf bags, which were missing on my example of the golf cart (I saw it in stores, but mine came from a thrift store again). So, instead, we have a GI Joe anti-tank missile launcher back there, and a scuba tank from an 18" knock-off action figure sold at Wal-Mart a few years back. (I bought some on clearance with idea of making giants or monsters out of them.)

While this golf-cart may be hard to find (check eBay), there are alternatives. Wal-Mart sold an RC Yamaha Rhino 4-wheel ATV last year, and there's a golf cart in the current "High School Musical" fashion-doll line that has possibilities.

The traffic cones are Power Team items again, and I wish I had more of them. They're great little props.

The high-tech curbs are rails from an Imaginex building set I think. More thrift store finds. The nukes are actually launchers from a Quest Aerospace Micromax model rocket starter set. I bought a bunch of these on clearance a few years back, mainly for the rockets and motors. The launchers I didn't have much use for, until I noticed how much they did look like some kind of nuclear storage canister or warhead. Now they show up regularly in Minions at Work sets.

Now onto something that shows a whole variety of prop-sources:

Going left to right again:
The wonderful console is part of a "Muppets in Space" action figure playset from a few years back. I got a bunch of these very cheap on clearance, and they're just full of great parts and set pieces. The console was plenty big enough, but it was too low, so it's removed from its original base and mounted on an inverted plastic cup sold as a desk organizer.

You can see the edge of an arched doorway in the back. This is actually one of those "sold on TV" gizmos called a "Can-A-Round." They're white plastic tracks designed to allow you to slide cans of soda and beer around to the back of your fridge. Or something. Seems like a stupid idea to me, but when painted gray, they look like high-tech girders and bulkheads. I have two or three sets, and I use them all the time.

The back wall is foam-core board (office supply or craft store) painted silver. It's decorated with PVC plastic pipe from the hardware store, held on with metal clips, screws, and nuts, also purchased there. The louvered vents are sold as under-eave vents for home roofs. Lots of goodies can be found in the hardware store, if you browse everywhere, and thing of things in terms of form, not intended function.

The equipment rack in the background is another one of those wooden gift crates I mentioned earlier. I painted it black, and stuffed it with a variety of military field radios (Hasbro GI Joe, Power Team, 21st Century toys), again, repainted and detailed using hardware spray paints and craft acrylic paint.

The chairs are all fashion doll items. Fashion doll lines are good sources for furniture and household items, though they often need repainting (lots of pink). Barbie, Bratz and My Scene lines are all good sources of stuff.

The table is thrown together. The top is just a piece of scrap wood put in as packing material in an "assemble it yourself" bookcase I bought a while back. The pedestal bases are a couple of curtain hardware things I spotted at the thrift store (form, not function, again). The top is held on with more of that poster putty stuff.

The top of the podium is a doll-house item. Standard doll-houses are 1/12th scale, half the size of 1/6th, but a lot of usable items can be found at doll-house suppliers. This was a desk-top lectern though, so I had to build the base myself, using wood scraps, and decorative molding strip (hardware store). Craft paint tied it all together.

The map and stand are from a Power Team set again, as is the green crate.

The briefcase actually was sold as a novelty gift item. It has a manicure set inside! But the latches, handle, and all the hardware work fine, and it's in pretty good scale. I've also seen these sold as business card holders. Business and desk-top novelty items and premiums often yield interesting items. In addition to the trash cans and briefcases, I've also picked up some cool office chairs, beach chairs, desktop computers, and other goodies sold as novelty or promotional goods.

The red table is another wooden crate. The yellow thing on top is part of some toddler playset. I found it at a thrift store, liked the shape, and made a few modifications to the "screen" on the side, replacing animal stickers with green cardstock (so I can easily Photoshop in computer displays or whatever).

The phone is our magnet again from the first cartoon. I've got a lot of novelty magnets that are useful props: computers, desk phones, pay phones, blenders, coffee-makers, dustbusters, clothes irons, toasters, lunchboxes, crates of fruit, pots and pans, toaster ovens, microwave ovens, aquariums, lunchboxes, gumball machines, wine bottles, all sorts of stuff. It pays to spin through the kitchen store every once in a while.

Okay, one more, in part to see how the same props get used again and again in different ways. This is Cap'n Rehab's submarine.

The porthole in the background is some kind of fiberboard ring I found in the floral section of a craft store. I have no idea what it's used for. I spay painted it gray, put in some scrapbook paper for the "reef scene" outside, and stuck it to the wall with more putty.

The ship's wheel was a wall hanging I bought at a tourist-trap gift store (I live in a beach town). The metal base for it (which you can't see) was made from a brass candle holder and some copper-pipe fittings from the hardware store.

In the foreground, there's the Muppet's in Space console again. Behind Number 9, you can see one of those rocket-launcher "nukes" again. The red barrel is a repainted Power Team item. The lamp thingies on top is actually an old, novelty salt-and-pepper set. I think I got it for $2 at a junk shop.

The arched doorway is made from our friend the Can-A-Round again. The door in the middle is cardboard and some textured scrapbooking paper I got at a craft store.

The high-tech crates came with figures in the GI Joe "Sigma Six" line.

The rubber duck around Cap'n Rehab's neck was part of a set of novelty earrings I spotted while following my wife into an accessory store at the mall. (Really guys, if your wife or girlfriend is at all crafty, it pays to follow her into bead, craft, and fabric stores now and then. You can go in by yourself, but the strange women who work in these places seem to have a talent for asking embarrassing questions.)

The little Nautilus desk model in the foreground was an accessory for a smaller scale Captain Nemo action figure I bought on deep clearance a while back. (I had no interest in the figure, but he came with a ton of cool accessories. I've also seen cool, usable for 1/6th accessories in other small-scale figures. Wrestling figures, the entire Muppets line being examples. (I got a cool mop and janitor's rolling bucket, a footlocker, some books, and food items with Muppets figures.) But for things like desk models, look for smaller die-cast toys. Nothing spruces up a military office like a model fighter plane, missile, or tank on the desk, and they're all over the die-cast section of the toy store. I've also found similar things in gumball machines and museum gift-shops.

I could keep doing this, but this post has gotten pretty long already. General hints:

Develop a "one-sixth eye." Develop the habit of looking at things in scale. Potential props are everywhere. For instance, I noticed one day while taking the protective cap off a "sports bottle" style bottle of drinking water I got at the theater, that it looked like a miniature Tupperware style bowl. I collected a few and added them to my box of kitchen and food items.

For specific ready-made 1/6th items, check fashion doll toy lines, but also look for novelty items elsewhere, sold as novelty clocks, souvenirs, key-chains, lighters, pencil sharpeners, magnets, desk accessories, business give-aways, jewelry, charms, etc. In addition to toy and hobby stores, you should also be browsing craft stores, bead stores (lots of interesting charms, bits of metal hardware, clasps, etc.), kitchen stores (especially for magnets and other novelty items), gift stores, souvenir stores (in my experience, the junkier the better), museum gift shops, zoo gift shops, and office supply stores.

Finally, you'll notice that a lot of my stuff comes from thrift stores. Thrift stores, garage sales, junk-stores, swap meets, rummage sales, are full of useful prop items. Just use the 1/6th eye. A wooden jewelry box is a desk. A pencil cup is a waste basket. A novelty metal cocktail skewer or letter-opener is a sword.

This stuff is literally everywhere, and often the coolest items are cheap or free. It's all a matter of having the eye, and the creativity, to find them.

Thinking inside the Box

2008-09-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

After doing over 125 "Minions at Work" photo cartoons, I'm getting a little bored. Not with the Minions but with the sets I photograph them on.

My "stage" for the Minions is nothing but a small workbench on which I throw together sets using a variety of backdrops and walls (most built of foamcore board) and a variety of other "wild" set pieces, such as columns, beams, arches, and doorways. I can really do a wide variety of sets by swapping my basic pieces around, but for the most part, they have one thing in common. They're flat.

Because of the single-panel format for "Minions at Work," it's generally important to see all the characters in a scene clearly: who they are, what they're doing, what their body language is, and what they're holding. That's hard to do when you get more than two characters in a scene, especially if you're also struggling to get an interesting angle on the set (something else my current setup makes difficult).

Somebody is always turned the wrong way, or you can't see their hands when you need to, or you can't see what they're holding, or where they're looking, or something else that's important to the scene or the joke.

But it's also difficult to make multi-level sets to my requirement. I need modular flexibility. I need things that are sturdy and versatile. I need things that are self-supporting and that don't eat up too much of my limited (especially front-to-back) bench space. And most of all, I need cheap.

Here's a solution I've come up with (click on any of the images for larger versions):

Yeah, boxes. These are recycled "shoebox" sized Express Mail boxes. I've just glued the flaps shut and covered them with self-adhesive shelf-paper, also known as contact paper.

Contact paper is wonderful stuff, with all sorts of uses. It's cheap, comes in useful sizes, sticks well to most surfaces without additional glue or tape, and can be used to disguise or repurpose all sorts of common objects for use in our 1/6th world.

The big problem is the limited patterns available and their applicability to 1/6th sets. A lot of the patterns are florals or other decorative patterns that aren't much use to me, and there are wood-grain patterns that are way out of scale for 1/6th use.

On the other hand, there are sold colors, geometric patterns (like black and white or other checks, good for floor coverings, and stripes, which have some uses), and metallic. Here's an on-line-site to show you some of the patterns and colors you may also find in your local stores.

I've used the metallic papers before, but for this project, I went with a couple of stone patterns, one a gray granite and another a gray marble.

Why two patterns? Well, while either pattern can be used for both walls and floors, it's my feeling that the coarse pattern of the granite is better for floors, and the smoother pattern of the marble is better for walls.

Also, cover a box with one pattern, and it still looks rather like a box. But if the sides are one pattern, and the top another, then it takes on a bit more weight and reality.

But remember, I said flexible, and that's where I got sneaky. The trick her is that, in a photo, normally you can only see at most three of the six sides of a box. If you see an exposed side with one pattern, you'll tend to assume that the reverse face of the box is the same, but it doesn't have to be.

So for my boxes, I covered the ends, one wide side, and one narrow side with marble, and one wide side and one narrow side with granite. By flipping and rotating the boxes to expose various combination of surfaces, two little boxes can be used for an awful lot of different things.

Let's start with something simple. Stood on ends, the boxes become modular, free-standing wall panels. These can be used to provide a stub wall in the foreground of a picture, or to suggest a doorway or hall where none actually exists. Turn them one way, and you've got granite walls.

Turn them the other way, and you've got marble.

One thing to remember for photo purposes is, it isn't important what you build, it's what people see, and what they fill in mentally to complete the picture.

So while we can see this is just a couple of boxes on end, if you were to zoom in or crop to eliminate the tops of the boxes, the viewer will just assume it's a wall that extends all the way to some invisible ceiling. Same with the sizes. If the picture doesn't show the end of the wall, the viewer will assume it continues well beyond the picture, even if the wall overhangs the frame by a fraction of an inch.

Of course, I've only got two boxes, so the wall is necessarily pretty small. Making two more would allow for much more sizable walls, and the flexibility to create a doorway in the middle.

But while this is useful, my primary purpose for creating these was to create some verticality to my sets. Let's see how that works...

Here, by flopping the boxes on their side, I create a raised walkway or second level along the back of the set. This isn't a full "story" bump by any means, but it's enough to allow background characters to be seen clearly over foreground ones, and it adds some visual interest.

Note that I've put the granite "walkway" side on top, and the marble on the front. The fact that the floor is also covered with granite pattern ties the set together.

This setup would also work as a large display shelf of some sort, like a museum or trade show-exhibit, or a runway for a fashion show or a strip club. These things are just as flexible as your imagination.

In a perfect world, the gap between the two boxes wouldn't be dead center in the shot, but it's easy to hide behind an object or character, or to Photoshop out. You could also use a scrap of the same pattern contact paper to cover the gap. Or, you could just live with it, and assume it's a natural seam in the stonework.

Okay, here we flip the boxes, and we have a higher, narrower walkway. Still not a full story, but enough to provide some real separation between the levels.

Okay, the next step to tie these things into a scene is to enhance them with props. I happen to have three of these Power Team traffic barriers, so I'll put them on top of the box walkway. Now it looks more like a balcony or catwalk of some sort.

Of course, you may not have something ready made like this. One thing to remember is that cardboard is really easy to work with. You could punch or drill some evenly spaced holes and make removable stanchions out of wooden dowels or tubing. (Remember though, any holes you make in a side may limit its usability as a wall for later use) Connect the stanchions with scale-sized-ropes or small chain (check the jewelry department at craft stores) and you've got hand-rails.

Now, let's get a little more creative in both our arrangements of the boxes, and the use of props.

In this example, by flipping the boxes in two different directions, and careful exposure of a bit of that granite pattern, we've got a wall with a set-back shelf that we can fill with decorative props.

This somehow reminds me of Stargate SG-1 and the interior of a Goa'uld mother-ship. Once again a longer wall would be better, and you could also add to the height by stacking more boxes on top.

(Most of the Egyptian props, by the way, were purchased in the aquarium department of a pet store. The gong is a brass nick-nack I picked up at a thrift store.)

This arrangement suggests the base of a massive column, perhaps along the side of a great temple or hall. Once again, I've arranged the boxes to create a shelf, and added another aquarium department prop to sell it.

A row of two or three of these would be even more effective in suggesting a large and impressive space. As I said before, let their imaginations work for you. Show them three, and they'll imagine a dozen.

This scene would also be greatly improved by a backdrop more in keeping with the foreground (it could just be a sheet of foamcore covered with more marble paper, and some decorations added, like hanging tapestries created from cheap scarves or from scrapbook papers purchased in a craft store.

Finally, here's a slight variation on the above arrangement, used to create an impressive platform from which an Evil Overlord can address their attentive Minions. The custom-built lectern that I've built from wood and molding scraps is a big plus, but you could simply provide a box of roughly the same proportions (perhaps also disguised with shelf paper) for them to stand behind.

This scene would be greatly improved by hanging something on the backdrop, such as a flag, banner, shield, or logo.

Ironically, my first use of these in Minions at Work really doesn't fit any of the above. Mostly they're used to support a pre-existing set piece, my metal catwalk prop. Here's the cartoon. If you're interested in seeing how the catwalk was built (it's an easily reproducable design from parts you can get in most home-centers or hardware stores), you'll find a post on it here.

Of course, while the granite and marble patterns work well for me in a lot of applications, they won't work everywhere, or for everything. If you don't find the pattern you need in contact paper, check the fancy papers sold by the sheet in the scrapbook section of most craft stores. Paper can be glued to the box or applied with double-sided tape. You can even create your own papers by taking photos (culled form the net or shot with your own camera) and printing them on a color printer (heavier paper stock is easier to work with than standard printing paper). Using your own camera, you can capture weathered wood, cracked concrete, stone, rock tile, rusted metal, or whatever else you need, and scale it for use in 1/6th (or other scale) scenes.

New Bright CXT Truck

2008-07-15T01:11:00.000-07:00

I found one of these monsters, trashed out and no remote, at the Goodwill yesterday for $3.99. Despite a little flack from my wife, I couldn't pass on it. As big as it is, it's 1/10th scale or smaller, and the cab (even if the door opened) is way too small for a Joe. Maybe if you wanted a Sigma 6 semi, this would be just about right. I think this came with a dump bed, but it was broken off this one, as were many of the grab bars, and the steps on the driver side.
What really interested me is the chassis and the wheels. It's BIG. The wheels are 6 inches in diameter (with duals on the back). It's 29 inches long (14 feet 6 inches in Joe scale) and 14 inches across (seven feet scale), which gives it a bigger footprint than the New Bright H2, and it's taller. They learned their lesson with the H2. It's very light for its size. The motor is also small too though, which makes me wonder how much power it has, even with a 19.2v battery.
Operationally, it's a bust. It came with a battery, but I don't have a charger for the 19.2v batteries. But more importantly, no remote, and since it has a multi-band switch, I'm guessing it won't work with the New Bright 49mhz remote that I already have (it IS 49 mhz, so there's a slight possibility that it might work on one switch position, but not the others). I hate to invest $20 in another battery and remote (if I can find one) if my remote isn't going to work, and I can't test it without a charged battery.

My thought is to strip the body and use the chassis for some project. But if I want it motorized, I may have to install a completely new RC system (and I'd probably go to standard RC-type batteries too).

Here are some pictures, with a Soldiers of the World Jeep and some Joes for size reference.

The underside. The battery compartment looks almost identical to those with a snap-in 9.6v battery. The batteries do have the same footprint, but the 19.2v battery has slightly different contacts and flanges so you don't accidentally get them mixed up, and the 19.2v battery is twice as thick. Note that while it looks like there's tons of ground clearance, the front end and gearbox are still pretty low to the ground.

Note that the truck looks plenty tall, but when you compare Joe to the tiny doors, you seek the scale doesn't work at all

It's not tons longer than the Jeep, but it's wider.

Star Wars Helmet Tutorial

2008-03-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not hugely into 1/6th Star Wars figures. I have a few, but not many. But I know there are tons of Star Wars fans, collectors, and customizers out there, so I'm passing along a couple methods of producing removable helmets for Empire troops.

The first is pretty straight-forward. The starting point in this case is a Hasbro TIE fighter pilot, though this technique would probably work for other Hasbro troops such as the storm-trooper, sand-trooper, clone-trooper, and maybe even Boba Fett or Darth Vader.

The figure shown is in fact just a thrift-store special I found nude. As you can see, the Hasbro TIE pilot is mounted on one of those awful Action Man/Hall of Fame bodies. I don't much like the proportions on these, or the lack of articulation (especially the lack of ankle rotation and head tilt).

One option on improving one of these figures is simply to remove the head and transplant it to a GI Joe body of your choice. The head-posts are completely compatible. Of course, you still have to contend with transplanting the molded glove-hands and the sewn-on costumes, but it's doable. But you're still stuck with a non-removable helmet, and that bothers me. Besides, maybe you just want a helmet to sit on a shelf or table in a diorama. So lets turn that TIE fighter "head" into a helmet.

First step is to remove the head. I used the "boil and pop" method. Dip the head into a pot of boiling water to soften the rubber, the pry it gently off the neck post. A narrow tool like a small screwdriver is very helpful in this task.

Take great cautions not to scald yourself, as the hot water likes to find its way inside the hollow head and cavities of the bodies and arms, then dribble out on you as you're working on the figure.

Here's the bottom of the removed head. You can see the opening for the figure's neck post. You can also see a ridge around the bottom of the helmet that probably represents where the real helmet ended. I chose to use that as my cut line. I've heard of people using Dremel moto-tools to cut these, but that's huge overkill. The head is soft vinyl and not very thick. I used a brand-new hobby-knife blade, and it cut like butter.

Again, use caution not to slip and cut yourself, or to cut too far into the helmet. Slow and gentle pressure is the way to go.

Here's the bottom of the helmet. The opening is plenty big for almost any kind of 1/6th figure head.

Here's the finished helmet shown on a molded-shirt CC-Joe with a WW2 head. If anything, this helmet is over-sized.

Our next project is much more challenging. Our starting point is a Burger-King kid's meal toy. These were out a year or two ago, and they aren't hard to find on eBay, or for that matter, at thrift stores and garage sales. There are a couple other figures in this line that might also provide useful helmets (I think there was a Clone Trooper and a Boba Fett, for instance).

The toy is a solid molded figure held together with those damned security screws (triangular openings in the head) that are on so many fast-food toys. (If anyone knows a source for an affordable driver to fit these, please tell me about it.) There's a light mechanism inside activated with a button on the backpack.

Since the helmet is molded as part of the whole, the first challenge is to cut it off. This would be MUCH easier if you could take the figure apart first, but lacking the right tool, and not wanting to take the time to try and drill the screws out, I just started cutting.

A Dremel tool probably would be useful here, but I don't use mine much, and I wasn't confident I could avoid cutting too much, especially in the complex little curves around the "jaw" of the helmet. So I opted for one of my favorite tools, a razor saw. I just took a lot of time and patience going round and round the helmet, coming at the joint line from all angles and taking away a bit of plastic at a time. It was tricky, but I got it done.

Here's the bottom after I cut it off. First problem, the neck opening is way too small. Second problem, the head is full of STUFF, including the LED light and battery holder. I used small needle-nosed pliers to break the tabs holding the light in and removed it. I then was able to work a small pair of diagonal-cutting pliers inside from the bottom and cut the post that contained the screw. This weakened it enough I was able to rip the two halves apart. Again, the right tool for the job would have made this so much easier.

Here are the two halves of the helmet. All the interior junk needs to go. I attacked it using two different sizes of diagonal cutters to "nibble" plastic interior parts out, and a pair of needle-nosed pliers to grab, twist, and break off what was left. Again, patience is required. Again, a Dremel tool would be an option, but be careful not to cut or grind through the outside shell.

Here's what I was left with. A Dremel probably would be the best way to enlarge the bottom opening, but I just sort of whittled things out using a sharp hobby knife, taking away the plastic a sliver at a time. Though I removed all the alignment pins, there's a lip around the edge that makes it easy to put back together properly. I glued the halves together with a bead of super-glue.

Here's the finished helmet on a CC Joe. This is a much tighter fit than the TIE helmet, but I had no trouble getting it on the Joe, and even got it on a much larger Power Team head. I think this is rather close to scale, actually. At least it looks right to me.

The nice thing about this is the you can care up plenty of extra Storm Trooper helmets, if you want them for custom projects or to make a squad of troops. Of course, you'll need to come up with armor for them. Since the original 1:1 Storm Trooper armor was made from vacuum-formed plastic sheet, and home vacuum-forming isn't difficult at all, it wouldn't be that hard for somebody to create some molds to mass-produce 1/6th Storm Trooper armor. Combine that with some simple black body suits, and you could crank out 1/6th Storm Troopers by the dozens!

Go on! I dare you! (And send me a set of armor when you're through.)

Max Steel Ultra Action Body, a spotter's guide

2007-12-12T19:24:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of my previous "Spotter's Guide" post on the Hasbro, GI Joe CC body, I present a somewhat less extensive post on a body-style whose importance and usefulness has been greatly underestimated, one that remains a favorite of mine, the Mattel, Max Steel, "Ultra Action" body.

Though eclipsed in the U.S. by the 12" GI Joe line, though the late 90s Hasbro had a second 12" line, Action Man. Many adult collectors disliked Action Man. Most Action Man bodies had limited articulation, and the colorful and toy-like accessories and uniforms were clearly geared to younger children. But on the other hand, Action Man explored non-military themes more in keeping with the 70s GI Joe Adventure Team, and there were some interesting vehicles, play-sets and accessories in the line.

Why are we talking about Action Man in a post about Max Steel? Because, though Mattel would probably never admit it, Max Steel was very-clearly Mattel's attempt to do a knock-off of the Action Man line.

That may seem a strange move for a major toy company, but outside the United States, the Action Man line was a big seller, and even in the U.S. reached a younger market segment than GI Joe. At this time, Mattel was also still hugely successful with it Barbie doll line for girls, and therefore it would have seemed natural to offer a similar product line for boys. Max Steel was that line. (Interestingly enough, M&C's Power Team line also seems to have been created as an Action Man knock-off, but it evolved in its own, very interesting, direction.)

However, while most knock-offs are done by lower-tier toy companies with the idea of creating a cheaper, but inferior copy. While Mattel was pretty slavish in copying Action Man and his accessories, their intent seems to have been to surpass Hasbro at every turn, and I must admit that in almost every case they succeeded. Action Man had a plane, Max Steel got a better plane. Action Man had a car, Max Steel got a better car. Action Man had a high-tech wind-surfer, Max Steel got a better wind-surfer.

And though the original and most common Max Steel body (sometimes known as "Super-Action" was a copy of Action Man with only minor enhancements (slightly improved neck articulation and a high-tech arm-band, to be described later), Mattel wasn't content to stop there. In some of the higher end sets they started to offer what was sometimes known as the "Ultra Action" body, an improved body with double joints at the elbows and knees plus cut rotation joints (two in each leg, and one in each arm). This post will focus on this very interesting body design, which I regard as one of the best compromises ever in creating a well-articulated but robust and kid-friendly body design.

Though it's little known to 12" action figure hobbyist (except for those few who specifically collect the Max Steel line), based on the numbers of these I see in thrift stores, I think the Max Ultra Action may be the most-produced "super-articulated" action figure bodies in history (though the M&C G3 Power Team body may be catching up).

This first picture shows two very basic Ultra Action bodies. The one on the left is a plain-vanilla UA body, which is actually a rarity in the line, as I'll go into. The one on the right is a "motion talker" body, with added electronics in the torso and head. More on this later.

From a kitbashing standpoint, one thing I like about the body is how beefy and muscular it is. Many "super-articulated" bodies, such as Hasbro's SA body, tend to be rather slender. Making the arms and legs thin makes it easier to have a large range of motion. But not every character is suited to be a bean-pole. For others, such as super-heroes, a muscular body is a necessity, and the Max body offers that option.

As I said, it's unusual to see an UA Max without some kind of action feature or modification. It's fairly common to see them with black molded bodies, arms, and sometimes even legs. There were action torsos, like the talkers seen here, and many figures were issued with "hybrid" bodies, that has UA legs with a Super Action torso, or some kind of action-feature torso or arms that even further limit articulation. Like Action Man, this was first and foremost a toy line, and the desires of adult collectors and kitbashers were probably never a consideration.

This shot gives some idea of the articulation offered by the improved joints. Though the arms and legs can't bend as far as some super-articulated designs, the range of motion is very good considering how muscular the limbs are. It could be argued that the joints are somewhat large and obvious, but one real advantage to the design is that the joints seem to have lots of internal surface contact area. I've never seen a loose knee or elbow joint on one of these, and they hold poses very well, even holding heavy accessories.

The same applies for the rotating cut joints in the arms and legs. The arms have a cut joint in mid-bicep. The legs have one mid-thigh, and a second one in the ankles to allow for full rotation of the feet. (The latest Power Team G3 design also has similar cut joints, though it lacks the ankle joints, and they're more more likely to become loose over time.)

Unlike other super-articulated designs, the UA body doesn't have any additional joints in the torso. Again, I think this is a kid-friendly choice. Such joints tend to be fragile and are difficult to design so that they don't become floppy. Uniforms and accessory straps can also become caught in the joints. The utility of such joints is limited too. They most often come into play in prone shooting positions, and Max was more of an adventure line than a military one.

One other thing that should be noted is the pelvis. Like Action Man, Max came molded and colored with "underpants." This is kid-friendly as younger kids often remove and lose the uniform. With the underpants, they still have a playable figure. There may also be modesty concerns in some countries where the toys are sold. One less obvious design feature is the "waist band" on the shorts. This double-row of raised ridges is designed to hold the elastic waist-bands used on many of the uniform pants and shorts. Without these ridges, the elastic would tend to slide over the top of the pelvis and get caught in the upper torso joint. It's one of these little details of design that you have to admire.

I think there are a couple of reasons that Max never caught on with kitbashers. First is the head, and the way it's mounted. The only character ever to use this body (that I'm aware of) is Max himself. There are several variations on the Max head though, including one with a molded-in headband and a more determined facial expression, and one with a Terminatorish high-tech headpiece that covers one eye.

Also, the mounting design used is non-standard and makes head-swaps challenging (though not impossible, as we'll see).

The other disincentive for customizing is the arm-band, featured on every Max figure in the line, no matter the body style. The molded-in band is painted silver over the flesh-colored plastic, and has decal "controls" (often missing or damaged on the ones I find in thrift stores).

The back of the armband has a socket, and many Max accessories have a plastic "cable" that can plug into into it. I think this is so he can control the accessories with some kind of build-in bionics, but I've never paid a lot of attention to the character's back-story.

Some customizers have carefully carved away the band using a hobby knife (though I imagine it's difficult not to leave the arm with what looks like a horrible burn scar of some sort). Others have covered it with custom cuffs or arm bands of their own. In most of my Max-based kitbashes, I've either gone with the arm-band as an accessory, or covered it with a long sleeve and a tight cuff.

Let's get back to that "talker" Max seen above. I'm going to cover this in some detail, in that it seems to be one of the more common UA variations out there, an unlike most "action features" that have been added to action figures, this one doesn't interfere with the utility of the figure must, and I actually kind of like it.

The talker-torso can be identified by the speaker holes in the chest, an activating button on the front (the "third nipple" on the right pec), and a three-position slide switch on the left side of the body.
There's also a battery door on the back, secured by a screw. The bit of cloth ribbon is intended to make it easier to remove the button batteries, and normally would be tucked inside out of sight. The torso is otherwise the same size and shape as the standard one, and this doesn't limit the articulation in any way.

The slide switch has three positions, off, button activation, and motion activation. The first position is self-explanatory. In the second, a sound clip is activated when the chest button is pushed. As I recall, Max's vocabulary (at least in the versions I have) is pretty limited. He will alternately say "Going Turbo!" or let out a "yeeee-HAAAA!" worthy of the Dukes of Hazzard.

The motion activation is more interesting. This kicks in the voice chip when the figure is moved drastically. I think this figure was originally built around the concept of tornado surfing, believe it or not, and came with something like an aerial snow-board. The child could swoop and flip Max through the air, and he'd shout and whoop enthusiastically in response.

I made another interesting discovery when I tried doing a head-swap on these. I'd naturally assumed that whatever kind of motion sensor it had, it was mounted in the chest with the rest of the mechanism. Instead, I discovered that there was a special neck attachment piece with a post extending up into the middle of the head. At the top of a post was a metal canister was a component that is apparently the motion sensor (my guess is that it may be a magnetic sensor that responds to movement in the Earth's magnetic field, but it could be something simpler than that.) It's fascinating to me that Mattel's designers decided to put the Max's "balance organ" in approximately the same location as the human inner-ear.

In case you were wondering, though the size of the neck post was somewhat different than other Max heads, I was still able to successfully transplant a modern Action Man fuzzhead onto the body and keep the voice/motion feature intact. That figure is currently dressed in a spare FAO Schwartz-exclusive Adventure Team "Skydive to Danger" uniform and accessories. It's amusing to watch people's faces as I toss he and his parachute into the air, and the character shrieks "yeeeee-HAAAA!"

This shot shows one of the most annoying limitations of the UA body. There's just no ability to bring the arms together across the chest. They stop at a 90-degree angle. The rotating cut-joint compensates for this somewhat, but it still prevents a lot of poses.

I may go into this in greater detail in a future post, but for now, I'd just like to offer some evidence of how other types of heads can be transplanted onto the Max Steel neckpost. This first shot uses a 30th Anniversary GI Joe head. The 30th Joes were Hasbro's first, crude attempt at recreating the vintage GI Joe, an used a barely articulated doll-like body. The head design almost makes it impossible to transplant to later GI Joe bodies.

The design, however, had a concave socket in the bottom of the head that fit over a rounded neckpost on the torso, very similar to Max Steel's, making this a natural head-swap. The 30th head is also kind of large, and I think large heads look better on the beefy Max Steel body. The only problem is that the neck on the 30th torso is longer and the socket on the head proportionally deeper. The result is that the transplanted figure is something of a "no-neck," but it does work.

Here's an assortment of head transplants onto Max Steel bodies. All the heads are Hasbro of one sort or another. Left to right, 1, 4 and 5 are from the GI Joe Hall of Fame line. Number 3 is obviously a from a Star Wars Luke Skywalker. Number 2 is a modern Action Man fuzzhead. Most modern Action Man use a neckpost identical to CC and SA GI Joes, but for some reason, this one used a socket-on-dome similar to the 30th body and head. Likewise, an easy transplant, but a no-necked result.

The figure on the right, by the way, as an example of one of the "hybrid" figures I mentioned. The legs are UA, but the upper torso and arms are a mish-mash of parts. The left arm is a less articulated arm from a Super Action body. The torso has a battery compartment, and the right arm is a special part. Moving the elbow activates a led light feature visible in a clear window in the bicep. Because of the lever that activates the feature, that elbow loses its ability to rotate. Still kinda cool in a Six Million Dollar Man way, though.
And finally, for something completely different, a more unusual transplant. As mentioned above, some of my first transplants onto UA Max bodies were Action Man heads, bringing this high-class "knock-off" full circle. Given that the build and proportions are similar, Action Man heads look pretty good on the UA body. But the result isn't perfect. The UA arm still has that wrist band, and most modern Action Man have a cool AM logo arm tattoo. How to get some improved articulation and retain that tattoo?

I started to wonder, if Max Steel is an AM knock-off, is is close enough that some parts might be interchangeable? In fact, at least in the case of the mid-torso joint, they are! Using the "boil and pop" method, I was able to remove an Ultra Action lower body and snap it onto an Action Man upper body! The result still has AM's limited (but distinctive) arms, but the improved leg articulation of the Ultra Action Max.

I've used the same method to improve other figures in the Max Steel line, namely the "Bio Constrictor" villain, a favorite kitbash subject of mine. The Bio Constrictor has a unique upper torso, arms, and head, but the pelvis and legs are simply recolored (Bio Constrictor's skin is kind of a putty-brown) Max Steel parts. When I run across a Max Figure with black-colored UA legs, the lower body usually gets transplanted onto one of my Bio Constrictors. They don't look any different, but they're much better at assuming realistic poses than stock figures.

The real shame of the Max Steel Ultra Action body was that it was used for so little. Mattel never created other heads for the body, and as the line wound down, the UA body parts were pushed aside by the less articulated Super Action body, and increasingly gimmicky action bodies with even less articulation and utility. One assumes the molds still exist somewhere, an excellent body design going to waste. Let's hope this isn't the last we've seen of Max, or at least, of his better body.

A CC Joe Spotter's Guide

2007-12-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

(Click on photos for full-sized versions)

(Minor revisions made 12/12/07. Typos corrected, sections on hands and "Kung-fu Gimp" edited.)
Though it only ceased mass-market production a few years ago, it seems more mysterious to many people than the original GI Joe body-style first produced in back in 1964. As I was cleaning up a box of CC Joes caught in our recent storm damage (see previous post for details) I saw an opportunity to sort out some of the many variations of the CC Joe body and document them in one place.

Though many people seem to treat CC Joes as being interchangeable except for the different head-sculpts and hair colors, there were actually a huge variety of body versions, some quite distinctive and unusual. The basic CC design had many variant parts, hands, feet, torsos, different arms, and many had unusual coloring and marking variations. Given all the heads, parts, and ethnic variations, I'd guess (and it is just a guess) that Hasbro probably made somewhere between 100-200 distinctly different CC figures over the life of the line, and literally thousands of configurations were possible (and many are available to the kitbasher as well.

This is by no means a definitive guide, and I don't claim to be an expert. I'd welcome input, corrections, and additional information that can be used to expand and improve this post.

Let's start with some basic body types.

The figure at right is a "CC Blockhead," defined by his flat-top head-sculpt. I think this is one of the very early CC figures. He seems to have a somewhat distinctive neckpost, but otherwise his body parts set the pattern for Joes that continue through the life of the line.

The CC Joe was intended as a modern replacement for the vintage style (AKA, "Timeless Collection" or "TC Body.") GI Joe. The original Joe body style continued to be produced (and is still produced today, in GI Joe Collector's Club exclusives, and store exclusives like the recent GI Joe Adventure Team reproductions sold through Wal-Mart and other outlets) and is preferred by old-school collectors. But the CC body was aimed at younger collectors and kids, who wanted more realism, posability, and durability than the vintage body provided. The CC body was also likely much cheaper to produce with less hand labor, a body designed for modern mass production.

He's got the original gripping hands. I think these are known to collectors as "lobster claws" (correct me if I'm wrong here, guys). Unlike the original GI Joe hard-hands, this Joe could hold his weapons and gear. In some respects, these were more like the Adventure Team Kung-Fu grip hands, but they were larger (too large, some would say), more realistically sculpted, and the fingers were molded together. The design of the hands and arms still had some shortcomings. Joe could hold his rifle, but not in a shooting pose. He also lacked a trigger finger. Later hand variations would address these problems.

Another big improvement over the original Joe is the hip design. Original Joes can't sit properly because of their ball-and-socket hips. The new design featured a hip piece with wide openings, and a hip joint consisting of two friction swivel-joints mounted in a ball. Joe could sit or kneel in a way vintage figures could not. But the hip-joint had its own shortcoming, possibly a fatal one where kids were concerned. See discussion of the "Kung-Fu Gimp" below.

The figure in the middle is a later model. While the original arms continue to be used in many later figures, new "muscle arms" were added to the line. These have more realistic sculpting, and gave the basic Joe a buff new look. This figure features "Gung-Ho Grip" hands. More on these later.

The figure in the left shows just how tricky CC identification can be. This one doesn't look that unusual. But the unusual gloved hands (these hands weren't used on many other figures, and may even be unique to this one) and the anchor tattoo mark this as being part of the Modern Navy Deep Sea Diver set, one of the last high-end mass-market CC Joes. The torso features interior ballast weights that help the figure to dive using the special gear in the set. It just goes to show you that, when it comes to CC Joes, details sometimes count.

I wasn't sure if I should include this picture, but the arms and legs on this figure are definitely CC, so I'm including it, even though the torso is unique. This is another late entry in the CC line, the talker body, used for Talking Duke, as seen here, and a modern military figure whose name escapes me at the moment. You can see the talk button in the stomach. The head is a soft rubber skin (damaged in this example) over a hard plastic skull with moving jaw, molded teeth and tongue, and fingers that move the upper facial features slightly. Pushing the button opens the mouth, moves the face, and causes the interior electronics to utter a single word. You can "puppet" Duke through a wide variety of phrases by pushing the button over and over.

Because of the talking gimmick, the talker body loses waist and neck movement. The hands on Duke are also unusual, and don't swivel like most GI Joe hand. They only rotate on the ends of the arms. The upper part of what seems to be the glove's cuff is actually a separate plastic band (not removable) that rotates freely above the glove. I don't have one of the military variants, so I don't know if those have the same kind of hands, or more conventional CC hands.

Another common CC variation, added in the later years of the line, is the molded shirt. Molded shirts were almost universally criticized by adult collectors as being unrealistic looking and toy-like (as though GI Joe wasn't a toy!), but they were definitely kid-friendly, saved money on manufacturing, and some of the started to grow on me (I think many of them look great layered under an open jacket or long-sleeve shirt).

Here are the three major shirt types (there is also a "vest" torso and matching sleeve arms, which get their own photo below).

On the left is the most common molded shirt, the molded tee. Though not easily visible here, the shirt has a subtle molded-in fabric weave. The arms appear to be a variation of the muscle-arms. The molding of the shirt is such that it's easily hidden under most uniforms, and as I said, looks good layered under an open shirt or jacket. Many of the tee-shirt figures such as this one had graphics or patches painted on the shirt front, back, and sometimes sleeves. A few figures used just the tee-shirt torso with regular arms (there's an example pictured below in the color-variations section).

The headless center figure features the sweater body and arms. The molded in weave is much more pronounced in this version (some kitbashers have painted these in metallic colors to pass as chain-mail). The sweater sculpt doesn't hide under cloth uniforms as well as the tee, and the arms lose some range of elbow movement. (The particular body pictured is from a Sinbad animated movie figure, a couple of which were inexplicably grafted onto the GI Joe Adventure Team line.)

The figure on the right is an "Agent Faces" from the Valor vs. Venom line, and has the "wifebeater" shirt torso. This is an excellent variation for the layering effect I mentioned above. Great for "tough-guy" kitbashes.

This shot shows some of the many types of color variations seen in the line. The Venom figure on the left doesn't have a "shirt" torso or arms. He's got a regular torso, arms, and neckpost molded in red. Likewise his hands don't used a special glove mold. They're just "lobster claw" hands molded in black.

The center figure is a what Hasbro calls an "ethnic" figure. Specifically, this is a Hispanic Joe, identifiable by its slightly darker skin-tone. Hasbro also made African American, Asian, and Native American figures through the course of the line, all with distinctive skin-tones.

The guy on the right shows how Hasbro really mixed parts, and colors on various figures, especially later in the CC line's history. He uses the tee-shirt torso, regular arms, a variation of the lobster-claw hands with molded half-gloves painted to match the shirt, and a color molded pelvis to provide underwear.

These next two guys have what I call "wetsuit bodies." No special parts. These are basically base-line CC Joes with bodies molded completely in color.

This is the final evolution of the "molded shirt." I call it the vest torso, and it was created with a new "sleeve" upper arm mold, with which it was often used. The vest torso was bulky and over-sculpted, with a Peter Pan collar. which the tee-shirt sleeve had been tight and form fitting, this one was sculpted into a wide cuff. These was no hiding this monster under a uniform shirt, and it remains my least favorite common variation on the CC type.

Here you see the variety of ways in which Hasbro employed the mold. On the left, the sleeves and torso get an elaborate paint scheme to represent a body-armor combat vest over a contrasting uniform shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

The center figure has the sleeves and vest painted in matching colors, apparently to represent something like a safari jacket.

Finally, the headless right on the right uses the vest torso with regular arms for a much different look.

Here are just a few of the many, many variations of hands used on CC figures. There are other types, and many color and paint variations. Almost all early figures have flesh-toned lobster-claw hands, but many other hand types would follow.

The most important variation is the "Gung-ho Grip" hands mentioned above. These are smaller and more realistic than lobster-claws, and have hinged fingers that allow them to pose and hold small objects. They also have a separate trigger finger, and a special up-down (rather than left-right) swivel on one wrist that lets the figure hold a sighted rifle for the first time in GI Joe history. Despite their many advantages, the fingers were loosely jointed and so couldn't support the figure's weight, and in fact, often had trouble holding rifles and other heavy accessories.

Late in the line, a single command0 figure was released with "rope-climbing" hands. These had jointed fingers much like the GHG hands, but they were spring loaded. I've never seen these but most people who have them spoke well of these and wished they had been available on more figures. The spring-loaded GHG might have been the near-perfect GI Joe hand, and a lost opportunity for Hasbro and collectors everywhere.

Let's identify the hands pictured. On the left is a variant of the lobster-claw hands with molded-in half-gloves.

Next is the "Duke" gloved hand.

Next is a lobster-claw molded in black

Center is a Gung-ho Grip hand with molded in half-gloves.

Next is the Modern Navy Diver Glove.

Next is a basic lobster-claw in flesh-tones.

The final hand is a rarely seen version used on some high-end collector figures. I think these are known as "flipper hands." They're small, have unusually long wrists, and don't hold most accessories as well as the lobster-claw hands. I think the intent is that sleeves with more tightly fitted (and therefore more realistic) sleeves will fit over them.

I'm including this picture simply because I didn't spot a nude figure with these unusual gloved hands. I call them "hard gloves." They're bulky, with index fingers sculpted in an extended position. Unlike most Joe hands, they hard, and the fingers don't flex much, if at all. They have long cuffs (mostly hidden here by the sleeves) and heavily sculpted folds and wrinkles in the fabric. These are used in various colors on various fire and military figures as hazmat or flame-resistant gloves.

This Snake-Eyes figure is pictured for one unusual feature. It uses the modern version of the Kung Fu Grip hands. Like the vintage KFG, the modern version has individually molded, flexible, fingers. The fingers are also sharply hooked to allow the figure to easily hang from objects or slide down a rope. Mostly these were used on modern Adventure Team figures (most of which used the updated Super-Articulated, or "SA" GI Joe body, which isn't covered in this post). But unnoticed by almost anyone, a heavily advertised Snake-eyes vs. Storm Shadow two-pack was offered in huge numbers late in the CC line. Both figures had CC bodies, and both had the modern KFG hands molded in black rather than flesh tones. Adventure Team kitbashers, take note. Zillions of these figures were made, and they're common on the secondary market.

CC Joes had two major types of feet. The original style, shown in the middle, seems to be modeled on the vintage style-GI Joe foot. It's larger and has the backwards pointing heel (probably designed to keep the original hard-plastic boots in place).

Many later figures have the "baby foot" design shown at left. These have a smaller, narrower foot, and no heel to speak off. They're necessary for some smaller footwear, more compatible with rubber boots, and are probably make it easier for kids to remove and replace footwear.

The "green baby foot" feet at right may not be a variation at all. My suspicion is that they may have started out flesh toned, but some defect in the plastic mix caused them to turn green when exposed to UV light (probably sunlight). I've seen such "greening" on other body parts when exposed to the sun.

These final two figures do illustrate a couple of other variations in the CC line. Note the chest-tattoo on the figure at left. Many figures had tatoos on the chest or arms. The figure at right has camouflage stripes on the arms (and on the face, but mainly we're talking bodies in this post) and unusual hands. These are standard lobster-claws, but rather than molding them all in black or all in flesh, they seem to have been molded in black and then had the upper parts painted flesh-town to create "shorty-gloves." These look kind of strange to me, so I don't really know what they were thinking.

But the major intent of this picture is to illustrate the most outstanding flaw in the CC body design. I call it the "Kung-fu Gimp."

My observation comes from having purchased or examined many hundreds of used CC Joes in thrift stores, garage sales, etc. A fair number of them, probably well over half, arrive there with their legs and sometimes lower-torsos, reversed as you see here above.

To understand why, you have to look at the design. It's easily possible to reverse the hip ball accidentally. Once that happens, it isn't obvious (without removing the pants for examination of the joint) how to correct the problem. It's far easier to twist the knee, foot, or even waist 180-degrees in an attempt to compensate. Then consider that most modern kids didn't dress and redress their Joes as we baby-boomers did. Most of them played with their Joes just as they came from the package. The kids never saw the leg joints, and so had little hope of understanding how the joints properly worked. (In fact, I just noticed that in the very first picture in this post, the Navy Diver figure on the left is sporting Kung-Fu Gimp as well. It's subtle, and easy to miss even on nude figures unless you're looking for it, or unless you try to pose the figure.)

Combine this with the fact that Hasbro almost always packaged Joes with an odd sideways twist to one leg. Removing the Joe from the package, the child (or sometimes the adult) would attempt to straighten the leg, and it wouldn't work properly. Usually one hip joint would end up flipped. Sometimes the entire torso would end up twisted around and the feet reversed. But the end result was that for the Joe's entire play-life, his legs would be twisted from their proper position. In particular, one leg usually ended up with "gimped" hip and knee joints. For those kids, Joe never posed or moved as he should, and that must have been frustrating. Since, despite us adults, the majority of Joes needed to sell to children in order to make GI Joe a mass-market success, this has to have hurt the line.

Okay, it's a tragic flaw in a great and under-appreciated action figure body. While it lacked the nostalgia value of the Timeless (and later 40th Anniversary) bodies, or the elegant posability of the later Super Articulated body, the CC body was the literal backbone of the modern GI Joe line. They were produced in countless variations by the millions. They were rugged, attractive, more flexible than the vintage-style Joes, and cheap to make.

Though few if any CC Joes are being made any more, they still exist in countless numbers, and likely will continue to exist far in the the future. Consider that if your child reaches middle-age and in a fit of nostalgia decides to track down the 12" GI Joe he knew as a kid, it will probably be a CC Joe that he or she is looking for...

Joe Sleeps with the Fishes

2007-12-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

Over on my regular blog, in the posts here and here, you can read about the recent storm that turned my section of the world into an official disaster area, and how I got off relatively easy by only having a storage shed blown to bits. Lots of Joe stuff in that shed, but my wife and I got most of it out before any real damage was done. One box I intentionally left behind was a big box of nude CC Joes. I figured they could stand the water, and what was left of the shed needed ballast.

By 2AM the night of the storm, the roof of the shed had blown off, and the crate of Joes was exposed to the elements. As it was a flip-top box, it wasn't water tight from above, and it started to fill with rain.

So I dragged the box onto the porch to drain it and dry the contents so they could be brought inside. There was a lot of water. It was clean water though, and CC Joes are tough. In fact, since many of these were thrift store finds with price tags still attached, the soaking actually helped me easily remove a ton of the sticky tags.

Though the box was empty by this point, the condensation inside showed a clear water line. Even though it missed most of the storm and was only in the rain for a couple hours, it had an even four inches of water in the bottom. Not sure how much rain we got total over the course of a day, but I'd say it was probably over twice that much! Of course, places down the coast got up to 12 inches in just a few hours, so it could be worse. We traded rain for 125 MPH wind, and I have a ruined shed to show for it.

But Joe. Joe is a survivor.

Sea Adventurer Pappy

2007-11-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

Buddy Finethy has recently been having some parody-fun reimagining various cartoon characters as members of the 1970s GI Joe Adventure Team line. You can see them here.

I couldn't resist playing myself. Here's my take on the Sea Adventurer. I used Poop Deck Pappy as a starting point instead of Popeye because, well, Pappy already has the beard. Note I did not call him the "Poop Deck Adventurer," as that is a strict violation of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

New Bright 1/6th RC Hummers

2007-10-19T15:51:00.002-07:00

Click on pictures for full-sized versions

Because somebody over on my Joe's Garage Yahoo Group requested it, here are some pictures of my latest Goodwill find, a 1/6th (more or less) New Bright RC H3 Hummer, seen side-by-side with the yellow New Bright H2 Hummer I've had for a couple years.

I only paid $9.95 for the H3. It didn't have a charger or remote, but the remotes on most of the large New Bright vehicles are interchangeable as long as you have the right frequency (either 49 MHz, or as in this case 27 MHz, and I've got remotes for both frequencies). Last I checked, you can also order replacement remotes directly from the New Bright website for a very reasonable $10 plus shipping. I can use the same remotes for both Hummers, my two New Beetles, and my F-150 pickup.

The H3 is lighter and has more guts (perhaps just because it's lighter) than the H2, and corrects the H2's too-soft springs (which have it bouncing all over the road). On the other hand, it isn't as pretty or detailed, and lacks the working doors, or even clear windows and an interior. The body is just a shell. I may end up stripping it down to the chassis for an Adventure Team vehicle project of some kind. I haven't decided.

As for the H2, it has its problems, but with a GI Joe Adventure Team passenger and driver inside, a few accessories, and some understated Adventure Team decals, it still looks cool, and nothing will ever take that away.

A Store for Pop Culture

2007-08-29T00:22:00.003-07:00

I'm going to go off-topic a little this post (though hopefully in a way you'll still find entertaining). My friend Dean Wesley Smith has just opened a new store out here on the Oregon coast (in Lincoln City, to be specific) devoted to pop culture collectibles. We're talking all manner of nostalgia goodness here, but primarily toys, comics, marbles, and jewelry. It's shaping up to be a pretty amazing store, and you should definitely check it out if you're ever anywhere near Lincoln City. (Pop Culture Collectibles, Streetcar Village, 6334 S. Hwy. 101, Lincoln City, OR)

The store is located on the far south end of Lincoln City in Streetcar Village. Streetcar Village is an institution on the coast, a fun collection of antique stores and an auction house, unmistakable because of the antique streetcar grafted onto the front of one of the buildings.

The interior of the store is something of an accomplishment in itself. The storefront had been unoccupied for a long, long time. It had suffered extensive fire damage back in some dim bit of history, and the wooden floor had settled for that you could have used it for a skateboard park. Well, to be honest, that floor is still kind of a fun-house, but it's better than it used to be, and the interior has entirely new wiring, lighting, floor, ceilings, door, and interior walls, courtesy of Dean. And when I say that, I don't mean that he hired a contractor. He was his own contractor, and did a substantial percentage of the work himself. It was a back-breaking marathon of construction.

I got to watch.
These pictures were taken several weeks ago, when the store was still early in stocking. The front section of the store is primarily toys, games, and jewelery (including a large selection of vintage watches and some bead art). Up here you'll find everything from collectible teddy bears to Transformers. You'll might even find a few GI Joes if you look around.
This is another look back towards the front of the store. The tarp is the corner covering a last bit of construction that was still being cleaned up.
This is looking toward the rear section of the store. This will eventually house tens of thousands of comics, a huge selection of Hot Wheels, vintage marbles (Dean is something of an expert on antique marbles, and he has some amazing stuff). The alcove in the back is the office and eBay area. Dean is an eBay power-seller under the name "Pokerhat."
Here are the Hot Wheels shelves. These have since been completely filled with some gazillion cars. There's also a good selection of mint-in-package Hot Wheels and other die-cast available. The cases in the foreground will be filled with marbles going all the way back to the Civil War, and you can see a selection of fast-food character glasses as well.
This is the early stages of getting the comics out. This is a huge job. Dean has an incredible inventory of comics, and his section is going to be filled to the brim, and still won't hold but a fraction of them. The racks on the wall will display some of the rarer and more expensive items.

More of the comic section. The bins on top and the file drawers underneath will all be completely filled with comics. The ramp connecting the front and rear sections makes a good place to test out Hot Wheels cars.
More of the toy section. This is a lot more crowded since this picture was taken.
Okay, disclaimer here. Dean's an old-friend, I have some stuff in here on consignment, and there's also a section of my wife Chris' bead-art in a case up front, but heck, I'd think this place was cool even if I was a disinterested stranger. Plan your entire vacation around it. Yeah.

Power Team 1/6th UAV Set

2007-08-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Drones and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)are becoming increasingly vital in modern combat, but they've been little represented in action figure form. Hasbro announced a nice-looking GI Joe UAV set a few years back, but this was shown just as they canceled the 12" line, and to the best of my knowledge, it was never sold in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Well, this year, in the assortment of goodies just arriving at Big Lots stores, M&C Toys has stepped up to the plate with their Power Team line. They offer a set with a figure, a ton of gear, and a mini-UAV for about $20. It isn't perfect, but it's a good deal at the price, and a unique item that will fit in well with your more realistic modern soldiers as well.
(Click on most photos for larger versions)

Here's a look at the contents. You get a fully uniformed soldier with a "G3" super articulated body, rifle, grenade launcher, scope, pistol, helmet, goggles, battle-damaged wall, table, wooden crate, jerry can, backpack, tool box, laptop computer, full satcom set with antenna, and of course, the UAV itself.

The figure itself is the most familiar part of the set. Standard G3 body, for what's good and bad about that. Has black-gloved hands. No ungloved hands in this set, unfortunately. Mine had a bit of a floppy (in the arm rotation, not the elbow joint itself) right elbow but I've got no reason to suppose this is a common problem. The head sculpt in mine is one of their newer ones. Not the best one I saw in Big Lots that day, but not one of the really objectionable ones (with the goofy grins) either. I can't decide if this guy has a look of grim determination, or if he's just smirking a tiny bit. The former, I hope.

Though all the ones I saw on the shelf had the same head, I wouldn't be surprised to see different heads through the run. Check yours before buying.

Given that we've seen most of the stuff in this set before, let's first address the most interesting thing, the UAV itself.

My assumption, given that Power Team is definitely a toy line, not an adult collectible, was that the UAV was probably a generic item not based on any given prototype. The rather plain look of the top of the UAV visible in the window box does nothing to correct this. In fact, I almost didn't buy the set for that reason. Fortunately, I pressed on, figuring I could use the rest of the gear for my Minions at Work cartoons, if nothing else.

The surprise came when I flipped it over. The bottom is much more detailed. I could recognize on one wing the outline of what was most likely a satellite or communications antenna, and there's an open bay where camera and sensor equipment would be installed. The design of the antenna alone strongly suggested that this was based on a real prototype, and some searching on Google's image search verified that fact.

The UAV modeled is a Lockheed-Martin product known as the Desert Hawk, designed by the famous "Skunk Works" who also designed things like the SR-71 Blackbird and the U-2 spy plane! This is a rather mode modest affair, however. Constructed of rugged plastic foam, the real plane is effectively an aerial robot, flying a set of programmed GPS waypoints downloaded in the field from a laptop computer. There's no joystick (and so no supervision or piloting skill required of the operators), though the waypoints can be reprogrammed from the ground, and the plane can be set to "orbit" a specified waypoint of interest.

This is in use by the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan and other places around the world, and has also been used by the British in Iraq (but was abandoned after local mobile phones interfered with the radio downlink) and Afghanistan.

Let's have a look at the real thing:

(Photo Global Security)
As you can see, while the proportions and some of the details are a little off, this is a pretty darned close replica of the original. Also note that I've seen a lot of variations in photos of this UAV, and they tend to be damaged and field repaired with every use (it doesn't land so much as have a controlled crash, depending on the foam to protect the delicate inner workings). In the field, these are likely to be covered with dings, dents, and repair tape. So the Power Team version isn't bad at all.

Here's the camera bay of the Power Team version. My first thought was that something was missing, that there might be a removable cover that had fallen off in the box, but no, the real thing flies like this. The molded details inside appear to represent the visible light camera package. I think the camera is a small molded detail on the left center bay wall in this picture. The real thing also flies with a thermal imaging package. This has a large sensor mounted in the fore-body, pointing at a large, round gold-colored mirror that takes up most of the bay. Modeling this would be a fun modification for those into serious kitbashing.

As for the current version it desperately needs some detail paint to enhance the realism. In most of the pictures I've seen, the exposed bits (all the raised details in the PT version) appear to be flat black. This is an easy fix (though a steady hand is required). You could probably also just paint the entire bay black, and it wouldn't look too bad.

(US Air Force Photo)

This shot more clearly shows the camera bay. Notice the reflector for the thermal imaging system. Also note the clearly visible grain of the foam, and the tape holding things together. This is a launch photo. There's a long elastic cord attached to the nose, and the airman at right is holding the plane as the cord is stretched out.

When released, the plane is launched, and the motor automatically starts. The real deal has a 2 bladed propeller, not a three-bladed one as on the PT version. The PT propeller isn't that realistic anyway. It could easily be replaced with a 2 or 3 bladed propeller from a die-cast airplane would would really enhance the look. The launch cord could easily be modeled from string or sewing elastic.

(Photo: UK Ministry of Defense)

This shot shows the top of the real Desert Hawk. It seems that the photos Power Team worked from didn't show the top very well, as this is under-detailed in their version. There are lots more folds, joints, and panel lines. Note also the RC-model-plane-style control horns and push rods on the wing and tail control surfaces. Those would be easy details to make some some wire and scrap plastic, and would really enhance the look.

I haven't measured, and web accounts give somewhat conflicting specifications, but the PT version seems close to scale.

(Photo: UK Ministry of Defense)
This shot gives a look at the ground-support equipment. It all comes in a big, foam-lined, suitcase. There's a standard looking laptop computer (the PT one is just fine), plus a smaller unit (center bottom in this photo) that looks like one of those portable DVD players with the flip up LCD screen. I'm guessing this provides video from the aircraft in real-time. There are a couple of "black box" electronics modules, the gold one in front of the computer in this photo, and a second flat box located in a recess in the lid.

(Photo: Code One Magazine)

Here's another look at the ground support equipment. You can more clearly see the smaller LCD screen and the recesses in the lid of the case. In some photos (naturally, none I could locate to post here) there are two antennas that mount to the top of the open case lid. One is a black rubber whip antenna (like you see on an older walkie-talkie or police radio) about a foot long, and a white rod antenna (looks like a piece of white PVC pipe, about 3-4 feet long, and maybe an inch in diameter). Both would be easy to reproduce in 1/6th scale.

This setup isn't accurately represented in the Power Team set, but it wouldn't be that hard to create a fairly good representation. The flat satcom radios in the Power Team set would be serviceable as the two black-box modules in the real thing. I suspect that somewhere there's been a fashion doll portable DVD player that could work for the smaller screen. The case could be a fashion doll suitcase, or made from a small plastic box with a lid of some kind. Black craft foam could be cut to create inserts. (See my tutorial on making an easy fitted rifle case here for ideas on making those inserts.

I know, I'm suggesting a lot of modifications, but we're not talking Dragon Models here, and it's not like there are a lot of options for a 1/6th UAV. This is a toy, and it's very nice for what it is. It's worth the potential effort of modifying it into a more realistic representation of the real thing, if that's what you need.

Here's a closer look at some of the other gear in the set. Most of it is familiar to Power Team fans. The crate is hollow and has a removable lid. The backpack is flexible plastic with working straps, hard plastic frame, and a hollow interior. That table and jerry can are also standard issue.
Here's a close look at the electronics. The satcom boxes look pretty realistic, the antenna less so (but at least it's more durable than some of the other versions out there. There's a telephone handset, and cables to patch everything together. The computer is the newer one see in some previous sets. It doesn't look like much closed, but it's actually very realistic. The standard "thermal imaging" graphic sticker on the screen is especially appropriate in this case.
This is the tool box, previously seen in the combat engineer and possibly other sets, but no included tools this time. Molded in one piece of soft plastic with a removable tray. Not very realistic, and nearly impossible to paint. Not my favorite part of the set, but the thought is there.
A final look at most of the set (the electronics were all stashed inside the crate, and I forgot about them in this photo. Several of the items in the set, such as the wall, table, and crate, could have their realism greatly enhanced with a little paint. For less reality-obsessive play, this set is very nice.

This is a very unique set, even if most of the contents are familiar. With a little work, the UAV would work great with more realistic modern troops, especially in middle-east setting. It would also be a great addition to an Adventure Team type scenario. All it needs is an Adventure Team symbol on the wing. It's definately worth the $20.

If past experience is any guide, these won't last in Big Lots long, so if you want one, buy it NOW. Don't wait for Christmas, as they may be long gone.

Comicon 1 Hasbro

2007-07-27T18:14:00.001-07:00

(Lots of photos. Click on them for bigger versions.)

I'm currently in California working on a project and taking a few days to go to Comicon. Actually, two well seperated days, Thursday and Sunday. I've never been to a Comicon before, but this year we had other reasons to head south, and my wife Chris is up for the "Scribe" award for best young-adult media tie-in book of the year for her ALIAS novel, "A Touch of Death." So we decided to come down for the award ceremony (which is on Sunday) just in case she won.

I've never been to a Comicon before, so this was a way of putting our toes in the water, and learning enough to plan a full-on assault next year (or some future date, anyway).

Okay, if you've never been to a San Diego Comicon, you just can't comprehend how BIG this place it is, how many people are there, or how intense it is. I've been to five or six World Science Fiction Conventions, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to this. It isn't just the number of people, but the number of exibitors, the amount of stuff going on, the SIZE of the exibits, or the sheer volume of money, and stuff to be swapped for money, going around.

The above shot is looking the length of the exibit hall from pretty near the MIDDLE. There's almost as much stuff behind the camera as in front of it. This is looking south, towards the end of the hall where the major comic, toy, game, and media companies are located. Behind me are book publishers, comic dealers, toy dealers, swag dealers, cartoonists, and a zillion other things.

This is another shot looking across the floor. This place is geek heaven. It just feels like EVERY possible fannish thing you might possibly desire is out there somewhere. There are toys and statues of every description, clothing, jewelery, art, original comic pages, collector comics, magazines, books, hats, candy, you name it. The only problems: A, finding what you want, and B, finding enough money. Okay, there's also C, how the hell to get it out of there and carry it home. Parking is a huge problem (we parked at Qualcomm (sp?) statium and took a trolley the rest of the way to the convention center. Good for parking purposes, bad for hauling stuff. We only picked up three things, a "King Kong" 1/6th scale "V-Rex" skull (a steal at $15), one of the new-issue Perfect Body Females (Minions need women!), and a con-exclusive "vanishing cream" Bugs Bunny action figure. I had a cocktail thing with the Conan Properties folks that afternoon before leaving, so I didn't want to get too loaded down with stuff. I'll probably buy more on Sunday.

I didn't really see half the exibit floor, and of what I did see, we rushed past most of it. I did try to take a LITTLE time in a few key places, mainly the Hasbro and Sideshow booths. Sideshow was huge, with a ton of 1/6th stuff, with other goodies ranging from statues to full-sized prop replicas. I tried to photograph most of the 1/6th stuff, but I'm not going to try and post it yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe when I get home. But I am posting all the Hasbro stuff I have so far.

The GI Joe section was a pretty tiny part of a very large display. Transformers (note the large, fiberglass, Optimus Prime out front), Marvel, and other properties (most of which didn't interest me as much, if at all) got a lot more space.

There was at least a little 12" stuff on display. They had the Wal-Mart AT Joes lined up (which makes a pretty cool display), the Club member figure (which I already have, of course), and the box and a sea sled from the next convention set, photos below.

I don't know if the sea sled was vintage, a prototype, or the real production item, but it was sure clean and nice to see there. The box looks great. No giant veggie-clam on display yet. Sigh.

The rest of the Joe display was three double-sided glass cases. Sigma-6 and 12" shared one case. They had the S6 adventure sets on display, but I was disappointed the Joe Colton one with the vintage-style AT head was not on display.

Significantly, 3 3/4" stuff got two full cases. I don't know if they're making announcements about an RAH movie at this Comicon, but I would not be suprised.

If Joe, in all his forms, is in decline, then lets hope there is a movie. If it doesn't suck (and after Transformers, I don't think anybody isn't going to give it their best effort), then it could really give the brand a HUGE shot in the arm. Yeah, I'd rather see an Adventure Team movie, but if RAH will see the brand, GO JOE!

There was quite a bit of 12" Marvel rotocast on display (what Toy Biz called Marvel Icons, but the one box on display was marked Marvel Legends, just like the smaller figures). I've picked up a couple of these (Iron Man and Dr. Doom, plus I have all the 12" FF movie rotocasts) and I like them a lot. Some of these (like Thor) appear to be previously released figures, but there were several that were new to me.

Here you see Thor, Colossus (he IS colossal!) and Dark Phoenix. Good to see more female figures.

Here you have a brown and tan costume Wolverine (his best costume, IMHO short jeans and a brown leather jacket), Magneto (this didn't impress me as much as the others for some reason), and yellow costume "vintage" Daredevil.

Here we have red-costume Daredevil, Cyclops, Nightcrawler (I liked both the X-Men), Silver Surfer (I liked this one a lot, note his big, two-piece board for packaging purposes), regular Phoenix, and "flamed-on" human torch.

Another shot showing the packaging of a "flaming on" human torch variant, Daredevil and the two X-Men again.

Finally a shot of that whole shelf. Note the smaller 6" Legends figures on the shelf above for size comparison.

Finally, along with the Marvel license, Hasbro also has the license for the upcoming "Iron Man" movie, and they had a few actual props on display. Of most interest were a couple of very detailed prop boots. From the looks of them, these either represent part of Tony Stark's first prototype armor, or the under-construction interior of an incomplete suit. Either way, cool.

Sideshow photos (and anything else I take of interest on Sunday) to follow when I get time. Tomorrow busy, Sunday is Comicon again, and then two days to drive home and who knows how many to sleep this all off.

New Star Trek Cover

2007-06-16T00:22:00.000-07:00

Over on my writing blog I just posted the cover for my upcoming Star Trek the Next Generation ebook "Sea of Troubles," and the upcoming paperback reprint of our Star Trek Corps of Engineers ebook "Spin." See them here.

A Top for the Schwimmy

2007-06-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the thrift store I spotted one of these Land-Rover-like Bratz "Safari Cruiser" vehicles. It was missing some key parts (most notably the doors and windshield) but I didn't complain because it was only a $1.99! I figured that at this price I could scavenge a few parts and throw the rest away if I wanted. I was especially intrigued by the soft-top, and wondered if possibly I could adapt it to some other vehicle.

Once I got it hope, I carefully separated the top, which somebody at the store had helpfully attached with several complete wraps of clear packing tape. Looking around the room, my eye happened to fall on my AT-converted 21st Century Schwimmenwagen. I plopped the top on there, and to my amazement, it was a near perfect fit!

In these front views, it may look like the top hangs off the side, and in the back it does a bit, since the top is straight-sided and the side rails o the schwimmenwagen curve a bit, but I don't find it objectionable. Though it may appear to hang out a bit in the front too, the bottom rails of the top-frame are almost exactly the width and size of the schwimmy's side-rails at that point.

It sticks out a bit farther in the front than it really needs to (though having a sunshade over the windshield in the tropics is logical) and it looks wide, but that's mainly because the schwimmy windshield is so darned narrow. It isn't the width of the interior cabin space, which in turn is much narrower than the vehicle itself.

The top has a rigid plastic frame over which is stretched a removable fabric top with clear plastic windows. It is quite nicely done. The side and rear flaps are held down with plastic snaps, and can individually be opened and rolled up. Three tie-back straps with their own snaps are provided to hold the retracted flap.

The only real issue is how to attach it to the vehicle. Actually, it sits there pretty well, but it's easy to knock off. At the very least, some kind of positioning pins or tabs would be nice. I'm also planing to paint the frame black (it's currently dark green).

Of course, as you can see, the AT Schwimmy still doesn't have headlights or tail-lights. I plan to add operational ones with a slightly more modern look than the original, but I haven't worked out the best way to do that yet. I plan to use high brightness LEDs, but it's the housings that I can't quite work out. One of these days.

As for the Safari Cruiser, fear not that it will end up on the scrap-heap. Though it would certainly provide a load of cool parts, once I got the top off, I realized that without the doors it reminded me of the Mini Mokes that were used as Village taxis in the classic TV series, The Prisoner. That caused me to take a liking to it, and I decided that it may become yet another Minions at Work vehicle to go with the two golf-cart-style Minionmobiles.

My solution to the RC Yamaha Rhino head-room problem

2007-04-14T03:27:00.000-07:00

A lot of people earlier this year were lucky enough to pick up radio controlled Yamaha Rhino utility ATVs that Wal-Mart had clearanced out at fire-sale prices (I got mine for $25, but I've heard of them going as low as $15).

This is very close to being a 1/6th vehicle, but the head room allowed under the roll bar makes getting a figure in there a tiqht squeeze. To fit, a figure needs to be short and well articulated (like an SA-body GI Joe). Taller figures, or with legs that aren't as flexible, or that had large head-gear just didn't fit.

There have been many solutions to this. Some people have removed the top cross-bar completely, or removed it to the rear, or raised the entire cage. Well, here's my solution, using hardware taken from a "Steel Tec" building set that I got at a thrift store for just a few bucks. Steel Tec sets and collections of parts often go for cheap on EBay (shop wisely, and you'll spend more shipping it than buying it) and all those little brackets and beams are great for work on 1/6th vehicles.

I used a couple of triangular brackets which raise the bar a little in the front, and a lot in the back. I think this configuration blends in well, and allows more head room while still preventing an un-belted figure from flying out of the vehicle during violent maneuvers. I had to drill out the side bars of the roll cage to take the larger Steel Tec screws, and I had to use my drill to slightly elongate the rear hold in the bracket to line up with the spacing of the existing screw locations in the side bar (find some small nuts and bolts, and you might avoid both steps, but I used what I had at hand).

The figure in the vehicle is one of my Minions, which is based on a G3 Power Team figure (tall body with a big head) and has a bulky combat helmet, making him pretty close to a worst-case for me. He fits just fine, so this can double as a Mk 2 Minionmobile.

Oh, and that's our cat Sydney. She seems to think she needs to be in every picture we take around here. Well, here she is in another one.

What ever happened to Angry Joe Day?

2007-03-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

Well, March 1st has come and gone, and no Angry Joe Day this year. It's a little bit of a bummer that there's no photo contest this year, but frankly, I'm just not that angry about Joe at the moment. First, we have some great Adventure Team figures from the GI Joe Collector's club, last year's member "Foreign Adventurer," and this year's new arctic figure. Then there are the exclusive KFG figures from Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters. The new 9" Adventure Team figures from Hasbro look disappointing, but perhaps there will be something to salvage from the line. So that situation isn't wonderful, but it's a lot less dark than two years ago when I started this blog.

I'm not saying Angry Joe Day is gone. It could come back if the situation goes the wrong way. But I really don't feel like doing a "Grumpy Joe Day" just yet, so I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude...

Houston, we have winner.

2007-02-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

We're going to stray from our 1/6th mantra today.

Besides GI Joe and other 12" action figures like the Marx Mike Hazard and Captain Action, one of my favorite toys as a kid was Major Matt Mason. For those who aren't familiar with Matt's short but glorious run, he was a 6" bendy astronaut with removable helmet. The figure was fine, but what made the line so great were Matt's huge range of accessories, from nifty bubble-carded playsets to huge battery operated Moon vehicles, a working space glider, and the grandaddy of the line, a three level "space station" that stood several feet tall. He also had a number of astronaut friends (including an early black action figure, though GI Joe apparently had the first), and several aliens.

I've got a more-or-less complete space station in my collection, a space crawler, a few replica figures and a few smaller accessories, but this stuff is spendier and harder to come by than GI Joe stuff, so I've never tried to amass a full collection. But I do follow several discussion lists for MMM collectors, and there's always discussion about Mattel reviving the Matt Mason line in some form, either as a replica of the original toy, as a new toy line, or both.

Of course, with old-time collectors the sentiment is on a new bendy toy. And while that's possible for a nostalgia replica, I doubt it would happen with a new toy line. (Given modern safety laws, it might even be impossible for it to happen.) On the other hand, people seem opposed to the idea of a hard-plastic figure. Maybe one feeling is that it won't be realistic enough, or more probably, that it will lack articulation.

Well, in that department, I think the original Matt is somewhat overrated. His waist, wrists, and ankles didn't bend (though the ability to twist the leg somewhat compensated for the last), and his "bellows" knee, elbow, shoulder and hip joints couldn't hold a tight bend very well. He couldn't sit well, or bend well, or do much of anything well but stand there with limited bending of his arms.

The original had other problems as well. Those wires always broke eventually, and they could break sooner if the figure was dropped or flexed too hard. The rubber had a tendency to "melt" in the hard plastic of his accessories (try finding a space station seat without melt marks), and his paint peeled off.

Fortunately, modern toy designers have other options, and I think nothing illustrates this better than the above pictured figure. Surprisingly, it's from the second series of Fantastic Four movie figures. It's the "Astronaut Ben Grimm" figure. (You can click on all these pictures for a closer look).

Like Major Matt Mason, this is a roughly 6" astronaut figure. Like Matt, the design is closely based on real space suit designs (this closely resembles hard suits planned for future Mars and Moon missions) and seems to include the rear-entry hatch design used in current Russian suits). But there, the comparison ends.

This is a hard plastic figure, and unlike MMM, this faithfully represents the bulky look of actual EVA space suits from Apollo forward. As such, you'd think the articulation on this figure would be very limited. You'd be wrong.

This guy is very limber. He has ball and socket joints at hips and shoulders with a large range of movement. The knees are double jointed so the legs can bend almost double. The elbows only bend about 90 degrees, but that's probably as good as Matt could do, and he also has a hinged wrist (no rotation, unfortunately, though there's no reason a similar figure couldn't have this designed in), and hinged fingers for grasping. His waist swivels, and his feet not only bend back and forth, but have hinged toes for kneeling, and swivel from side to side to allow him to stand flat-footed in a variety of poses or on irregular terrain.

In addition, there are also rotary cut joints at the upper arms and legs, giving him even more flexibility. He can be posed walking. He can kneel. He can jump. He can dance. He can float He can sit, though not bolt upright with his knees close together. His poses are very natural and life-like, not stiff and robotic.

He can touch the top of his helmet, and hold things in front of his faceplate.

Heck, he can even scratch his butt (those space diapers they have to wear are itchy!).

With all this, he still has an "action feature" built in. Press the button on his backpack, and his head spins around in his helmet, changing from a human face ("look, it's that guy from 'The Shield!'") to a rocky "Thing" face. Of course the action feature means his helmet and backpack aren't removable, nor can the head turn in the conventional way. But these features could certainly be built into a purpose-built modern astronaut figure.

With all this, Astronaut Grimm seems to be a solid, sturdy, playable toy that I wouldn't hesitate to give to a younger child.

If you like space toys, this little baby belongs in your collection, even if it is (no pun intended) a stand-alone piece. These came out a long while back, but I've seen them in KB Liquidator stores not to long ago, and given the wide distribution of the FF toys, you never know what drug store of Big Lots might have one of these warming the pegs.

But the bigger point is, it is possible to do a good astronaut figure using modern hard-plastic construction, one that would be a worthy heir to our beloved bendy Matt.

How Big is your Image File?

2007-02-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, not intended to be a personal question. Over on one of the Yahoogroups I frequent, Power Team, there's been a discussion related to the groups filled-up photo albums, and what to do about it. I made the statement that most people don't care to learn the technicalities of managing the size of their image files. Somebody called me on it, so here I am, giving you a chance to learn a little more about this esoteric subject, if you're interested.

Fact is, the issue of image sizes is often counter-intuitive. We're used to "megapixels" as marketing speak, but most of us have very little idea how images are stored in our cameras (and in turn on our computers), or why a picture from one 6-megapixel camera can look much better than another 6-megapixel camera.

Okay, I don't intend to get side-tracked into a camera discussion, but if you follow and understand what I tell you here, it does apply to your camera and may help you better understand how to use its features.

I'll try to keep things simple and non-technical, and that means (for you techheads out there) that I may make some simplifications and generalizations about things. Just relax and cut me some slack. If what I say here isn't always absolutely true, most of the time it's true enough.

As I said, the number of pixels that a camera can detect doesn't always translate into a better image. Likewise, two images on your computer of the same absolute size (say 800 pixels wide, and 600 pixels tall) may have much different file sizes. In both cases, the major issue is something called file compression.

Okay, you've probably noticed in one way or another that image files take up a lot of memory (space on your camera's memory card, space on your hard disk, and so on). What you maybe don't know is that it could be much worse. Almost every image on your computer and in your camera uses some form of compression to make it smaller than it would be otherwise.

What is an image file?
To understand how an image file is compressed, you need to understand first what an image file is.

I used the word "pixel" back there and took it for granted that you'd know what I was talking about, but I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. In general terms, a pixel is a dot. Each dot has characteristics of color and brightness that are recorded in digital form (those ones and zeros you keep hearing about, which can be ignored for our purposes) on your camera or computer. Depending on the type of file and the options chosen, various amounts of information can be stored for each pixel.

The simplest kind of image just has two conditions for the pixel, on (white for instance) and off (which could represent black). But in this day and age, it's rare to see an image that doesn't have color. Some images have just a few colors available. Most photos have a LOT.

Think of it as box of crayons. If you have a box of eight crayons, you're pretty limited in how realistic a picture you can draw. If you have 256 crayons, you'd be able to draw a better picture. Well, many of the images you have on your computer have tens of thousands of crayons to chose from, and most images will use a fair percentage of those. The more crayons you've got, the more information has to be recorded to show which crayon is used to draw any given pixel.

So in basic terms, an image file is something like this.

Pixel 1 (Starting in the upper left hand corner): Pixel 1 is color 11,320 from our box of about 32,000.

Pixel 2 (the next pixel in the top row, but one to the right of pixel 1): Pixel 2 is color 11,321 from our box of about 32,000.

And so on, repeated (in our 800 x 600 example image) 800 times, until we skip down to the left of the second row, and repeat, the whole process repeating 600 times until you reach the bottom right of the picture.

So in a raw, uncompressed file, file size is pretty simple. It's the amount of space each pixel takes up multiplied by the number of pixels. Two pictures of the same size will be the same size, no matter if one is of a blank, white, wall, and the other is of a forest. That's simple, but it's wasteful of storage space, and as I said, image files are inconveniently large. Anything we can do to make them smaller is a good thing. But how do you make the file smaller, without making the image itself smaller?

Squeezing it Down

The funny thing about pictures is that, while a picture may have a lot of pixels, in many images a lot of those pixels are in patches that are exactly the same, and if they aren't the same, they're darned similar. For example, image a picture of your favorite GI Joe sitting on a table outside. Below him is grass and other "ground clutter," but behind him is a clear, blue sky.

Imagine looking at a pixel in the middle of that sky. Let's just call it's color, "blue." Maybe the next pixel to the left is the same blue, and the one beyond that just a TINY bit lighter blue, and the next beyond that back to the original blue again. In fact, you could go a fair distance in any direction from our pixel, and no be able to find a color that was much different than that original pixel.

Sure, some of them are different, but most are so close that they're difficult or impossible to tell apart with the naked eye. If you can't tell them apart, then the computer (or camera) is wasting a lot of space storing information that really doesn't serve much of any purpose. A computer (or the software built into a camera) could look at those similar colors and decide they were too close to tell apart, and set them all to one, average color.

Having turned a bunch of almost identical colors into really identical colors, imagine that, instead of storing "pixel 1, pixel 2, pixel 3" we could instead store "starting 100 pixels from the left and 120 pixels down there's a rectangle. It's 150 pixes tall and 500 pixels wide, and all those pixels are color 11,320 of around 32,000, AKA 'blue.'" We just defined 50,000 color pixels with one sentence. In computer terms, we just saved a butt-load of storage space.

Okay, now imagine the software takes your entire picture and divides it into a whole bunch of rectangles, and defines each one in the same way. Some of those rectangles, say a piece of blue sky, or a white-washed wall, or the big yellow side of the Mobile Support Vehicle may be pretty large, and defining them will save a ton of space.

But other rectangles will be smaller, say the skin on a cheek between the eye and the crease around somebodies mouth, or the middle part of an orange on a table, or the white in a little patch of cloud floating in that blue sky. Defining those areas will still save space, but not nearly so much. It may take just as much storage space to define an area 10 x 50 pixels as it does for one 100 x 500. Some places on the image, in a bed of gravel, or a patch of grass, or in the leaves of a tree, or in uncle jack's herringbone sports-jacket, the rectangles may get so small that it isn't worth making them at all. You'll do just as well to record the individual pixels.

It's easier to see how this works if you look at an image that's been over-compressed to the point of looking "jaggy." Like this one. You might want to click on it for a closer look. Notice that a blue sky isn't just ONE shade of blue. There may be hundreds of shades in the original image. But maybe you can turn it into ten or twenty shades, and your eye usually won't notice. Even in our super-compressed example here, there are still four bands of different blue in the sky, but obviously you do notice.

Notice the smaller blocky areas of the same color, the parts of his uniform, the table he's sitting on. Then look at the really "noisy" parts of the image, the grass, his his detailed boots, the rocket launch pads in the background. Of the total image size here, very little of it is that blue sky, or the white table top. Most of it is in those "dirty" areas. Life is in the details. So is file size.

Most cameras, and most photo editing programs on your computer will somewhere have options on how aggressively to compress images. More compression lowers quality, until you eventually get the "paint-by-numbers" mess you see above, but less compression means bigger file sizes. There's a happy sweet spot somewhere that you can live with. Generally, I go for less compression on the camera, but more compression when I save things for uploading from my photo-editing software (Paint Shop Pro, in my case). As long as you keep the original, high-quality images from your camera, you can then create all the cropped and compressed copies you need. The original is still there if you ever need it.

Dirty Details
So compact image sizes start in what you're taking pictures of. That doesn't mean you should never take a picture with grass or a tree (or your rough concrete driveway, or your hardwood floor). If that's part of what your picture is about, then do it. It's hard for the Adventure Team to have a jungle adventure without the jungle, for example.

But if, on the other hand, you're taking a picture of something to sell on EBay, you may not want to photograph it against you pin-striped sheets or sitting on top of your jelly-bean collection, because that isn't what the picture is about. All that clutter in the background is just wasted file space.

Bringing in the Crops
One easy way to reduce the file size of images before you upload them is to crop unnecessary stuff from the edges. Figure out what the picture is about, and cut off the rest. Yes, a well composed image is going to leave some open space around the subject, but when in doubt, crop.

The point here is not just to make the dimensions of the image smaller, though you'll probably do that. The point is that often the most "noisy" parts of an image (and thus the hardest to compress) are on the edges. For instance, in a picture of an action figures standing in the back yard, do you really need all that grass on the bottom of the picture? It's kind of a law of nature. Gravity pulls clutter down to the bottom of the picture. Nature grows it up on the edges (plants, trees, mountains), and the atmosphere sometimes tosses it in at the top (clouds). The action figure or vehicle in the middle of the picture may be the easiest thing in the frame to compress. Cut off ten percent of the grass at the bottom, and you cut off thirty percent of the file size.

Size Does Still Matter
I said that image size was not the biggest consideration to file size, but it is still a consideration. Just because your camera can record 5 megapixels doesn't mean you necessarily need to share them all with the world. In fact, if the intent is for people to look at it on their screen, the vast majority of that information is just going to be wasted.

If you learn nothing else, learn how to use your photo editing software to resize your images. Remember that you'll probably want to save the reduced-size image as a separate file, and keep your camera original untouched. Once you lose that information by saving a downsized image, you can't get it back. Yes, your paint program can resize the smaller image back to the original size, but it will end up looking like our blocky example about, and not your beautiful original.

How big should your images be? Well, probably no bigger than your average viewer's screen, and probably not even that. Remember that most web browsers clutter up the screen with scroll bars, menu bars, and so on. You just get the smaller space left in the middle. I'd say that 800 x 600 is a good "big" image size, and that many images can be much smaller. Remember that if you've cropped your image as I said, many will be tall and skinny, and some will be short and wide. Just resize it so that the width is no more than about 800, and the height no more than about 600, and you're pretty safe. Much larger than that is wasted on most people's screens, unless you think they'll need to be able to zoom in to view details for some reason (as might be the case in a "how-to" illustration, for example).

Reducing the size of the image, even a little, can be more important than you think. The information that makes up an image grows much faster than the linear dimensions do. For example, a raw 500x400 image doesn't have twice as much information in at as one 250 by 200, it has four times as much. A 1000 x 800 image has 16 times as much information as one 250 x 200, and so on. Compression can offset that to some extent, and usually does, but when you can, smaller is better.

When creating web pages, a common mistake is to confuse options in your web editing software that set display sizes for actually resizing the image. That is to say, somebody will upload a 5 megapixel camera image to their web site, and then tell their web-page editor to display it as a 100 x 200 pixel image on the user's screen. But they're still storing the full 5 megapixel image on their site, and every user who views the site his to download that huge file (with the bandwidth use that goes with it), even though it only displays as a tiny picture on their computer.

Always resize the image using a photo editor program to the final size, then upload that file to your web page.

Goes Down Smooth (for advanced users)
One other trick to reduce image file sizes is to remove some of the random noise that appears in images. Some of this noise can come from "grain" in the image. Noise like that can turn an empty sky or a solid color wall into a compression nightmare, but not add much of anything to the image. Likewise, all those pores and tiny wrinkles in your portrait are not only making you look old before your time, they're also making the image file way bigger.

One way to reduce this noise is simply to soften or blur the images, like when old Hollywood movies used soft-focus lenses to make aging actresses look better in close-ups. You can try this (usually using editing functions in your photo-editing software, not by changing camera focus), and there are sometime reasons to do it, but often this is throwing the baby out with the bath-water. You not only blur the solid areas of the image, but the lines and borders that separate them.

Some photo-editing programs have ways around this. For example, Paint Shop Pro has a function called an "edge preserving smooth." This effectively blurs the solid areas of an image that may contain useless noise, while keeping the lines and edges crisp and solid. It can take out your wrinkles and pores without turning your nose into a blob or your eyes into smudges. It can smooth the sand on a beach but still leave the ocean horizon a razor-sharp line.

The more creative among you may want to consider more labor-intensive methods, manually retouching parts of a picture, or selecting areas to blur or soften, but that's beyond the scope of the casual user making an average picture for upload.

As Big as it Needs to Be
Just remember that your images, and your image files, should be just as large as they need to be to show your subject and deliver your message, and no more. Beyond that, trim the fat. Cut clutter off the edges of the image. Resize the images to be just a big as it needs to be, and no larger. Consider reducing noise and clutter that add nothing to your picture. Set your compression settings enough to reduce the size of your files without detracting from your delivered image.

Doing these things will save disk space, cut upload times, cut download times, reduce bandwidth charges, and make your web pages load faster. They'll make both you, and the people viewing your images, happier, and what's not to like about that?

A Fossil T-Rex for the Adventure Team

2007-01-20T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've been so involved with the Minions lately, that I haven't had much time for my old friends the GI Joe Adventure Team. But today, while picking up a bag of cat food at Petco, I spotted this great T-Rex fossil skull in the aquarium department, and had to have it. I love 1/6th "artifacts" for the Adventure Team to dig up and bring back to the Adventure Team headquarters for display, and this is a doozie.

I always thought that Hasbro missed a bet not making AT "Dinosaur Hunter" figure sets, each of which would include a fossil skull or skeleton accessory for a kid to dig out of the sandbox. This gives you a pretty good idea of what I had in mind, though a toy version would obviously be made of lighter and more durable materials.

The skull is made of hard resin (heavy!) and has an air hose on the back that I'll cut off (even the tag is still attached in this photo). The top of the skull is hinged (so it can open and close as it fills with air). Price was about $10, and money well spent. Actually, big as it is, it STILL isn't full scale for an adult T-Rex skull, but I figure it's close enough.

It looks pretty good in the greenish-gray paint it came with, but I'm at least going to use some acrylic paint to darken the eye sockets, nostrils, and other openings in the skull. I'll post some more photos when I get around to it.

1/6th working engine hoist

2007-01-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

I picked up this nifty cast-aluminum engine hoist with working hydralics at a Harbor Freight store. I've never seen it in their catalog or web page(though they have listed the 1/6th jack stands, mini-floor jack and 1/5th tool cart). I think it cost me about $15, which was shockingly cheap (the floor jack is closer to $30). It didn't come with a hook. Instead, there's a metal weight shaped like a tiny engine. I used some hardware store chain and an "S" hook from the same source to hook up my Lincoln Mint 1/6th Ford V-8. Seen here with a GI Joe Collector's Club "Foreign Adventurer" for scale.

Amazing 1/5th Scale Ferrari 250GTO

2007-01-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I posted here. When I've had a few moments of Joe-time lately, I've been pretty busy with my weekly 1/6th photo-comic Minons at Work. If you haven't visited for a while, check it out. New cartoons every week, and we just opened a Cafe Press shop so you can buy Minions at Work shirts, mugs, and other gear.

But I just had a hole open up in my schedule, allowing me a little time to catch up some things. Last year we made a stop in Las Vegas and I got to do a little sight-seeing. While wandering through the Grand Canal shopping area of the Venetian Casino and Resort, I spotted this incredible near-Joe-sized Ferrari in a shop window and took a couple shots. It was late at night, and the shop was closed (things DO close in Las Vegas, despite what they tell you) so I couldn't see the price tag or description. My best guess based on the level of detail and craftsmanship was "if you have to ask, you can't afford it." From what I've been able to find out, that's close. Here are some more details here. 3,600 Euros folks, shipping NOT included. Still, it was cool to see.

Making an easy weapon-rack

2006-08-23T03:29:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've seen those cool grid-type weapon racks in 1/1 size. If nothing else, you might have seen them in the ballistics lab set on CSI: Las Vegas. I've always liked those, and I even think that somebody (BBi or Hot Toyz maybe?) made a 1/6th version, but somehow I never ended up with one.

Now maybe you've heard about the concept of a "one-sixth eye." It developing the sense of looking at everything you see as a potential 1/6th prop, and evaluating it accordingly. The other day I was in my local Ace Hardware store looking around (while fending the over-helpful sales people off with a stick, as usual) when I spotted something in the paint department that sent my One-Sixth-O-Meter right to stop.

It was a cool little plastic grid molded in off-white speckled plastic, part of some sort of fancy roller system, the Whizz Roller System It wasn't even in a package. It was just a plastic grid with a sticker on it, hanging on a peg. Price: 99 cents. At first I couldn't be sure what it was good for, but I knew there would be something I could do with it. I almost bought just one, but on impulse, I picked up all four that they had in stock.

It didn't take me long to realize that they'd be interesting attached together edge-to-edge. I looked around for an easy way to do that, and ended up settling on small, black-plastic wire-ties that I already had on hand. I used two along each edge, pulled tight, and cut the excess off with scissors.

By now, I was starting to think weapon rack. My intent was to make a free-standing, four-sided rack, but for maximum flexibility as a prop, and for easy storage, I didn't tie the final corner together. That way, it could be folded into a square footprint, fanned out as a screen-type rack, or even be used as a safety or crowd-control fence.

The next issue was how to make hooks to hang weapons on the rack. Whatever I did had to be cheap and easy to mass produce. After several dead-end ideas, I settled on using light-duty, wire, paper clips. I used the inner loop of the clip intact, bent the larger loop out about 45-degrees, then cut it off (using wire cutting pliers) leaving about a half-inch stub, I then bent up the last eight of an inch or so using pliers, to make it more of a secure hook.

The small loop from the clip goes over the grid. The weapon itself hangs on the cut-off stub. (It occurs to me that another alternative that might work would be to use wire Christmas ornament hooks, and they'd probably work unmodified)

Here's the final result, with only a few weapons installed on one side. This would look equally at home in the firearms locker for an assault team, in a ballistics lab, a police property room, or an arms-dealer's show-room.

Tree how-to follow-up

2006-07-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

I was gratified, and maybe a little surprised at all the positive feedback in email and many forums, you're only seeing a tiny fraction of it here) I've gotten on the "make a tree" post. Given all the quick-and-dirty set and prop building I'm doing for "Minions," you'll probably see more in the future. Please let me know what particular things you'd like to see, and what you like (or don't) about the posts I do make.

As always thanks for reading! (And viewing!)

Only God (and now you and me) can make a tree

2006-07-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

In my photo dioramas I've been making lots of use of pre-printed papers sold in the scrapbooks sections of craft stores. I've successfully used them to represent grass, sand, brick walls, and even water. But after doing last week's park-scene for Minions, it got me thinking about other "stock" props I could build for future use.

One thing it occurred to me would be nice to have would be a bunch of tree trunks for forest scenes. Yes, you can use real wood, but the stuff is heavy, dirty, hard to store, and sometimes just doesn't look right. Maybe there was a better way.

I started to wonder if I could find a "bark" paper to use, but I trip to the craft store turned up nothing. Then I had another thought: why not print my own?

I used Google's handy image-search function (searching on "bark") to come up with a couple of likely source images. Then I picked my favorite and used Paint-shop Pro to "clone" the image three across to make it wider. Finally, I printed it on my inkjet printer using the "stretch to fit page" option. I printed three copies, to give me enough sheets to work with.

My thought was that I could glue them around cardboard tubes. Yes, they'd be smooth, but my experience is that realistic textures usually don't look flat to the 2-D eye of the camera. I figured if I just wrapped it around a tube or dowel, it would look good enough, especially if it appeared in the background of a scene.

This is the same trick that computer game makers use when they "map" a detailed texture onto a fairly simple 3-D object to achieve a realistic look without bogging down the computer or console rendering the scene. In this case, I was "mapping" the flat bark texture onto my simple tube shape.

Thinking about it, however, I realized that I could go the computer one better, and easily add some real texture to my printed sheets. Here's how I did it...

First, I selected my core form, a 3-inch mailing tube that I had laying around my shop. You can see a piece of the "naked" tube on the right side of the pictures. Most any cardboard tube would work, from a couple of paper-towel tubes spliced end-to-end, to a piece of carpet-tubing to create giant redwoods.

I determined that it would take most of three sheets to cover the tube, and that the long direction of my printed sheet would go around the tube with minimal overlap. For ease of construction, I decided to use transparent tape instead of glue. I carefully lined up all the joints so that the tape and seams are all hidden on the back side of the tree. (This is a key trick for pulling this stuff off easily. Don't build or detail things that people aren't going to see. The viewer's mind will fill in the rest of the bits that you leave off.)

I started at the bottom, trimming the white edges off the sheet where they'd show. This is where the real texture comes in. I then took the sheet and rolled it up into a small tube, then crushed it, rolling the resulting mess between my hands to add more folds and creases. Then I carefully flattened the sheet, which now had nifty texture that would pick up highlights and make the profile edges of my tree trunk look more realistic.

Razor-straight lines are a dead-give-away that something is artificial, and the human eye is very good at spotting straight-lines.

I took this in consideration when rapping the second sheet around the trunk. I planned to overlap the sheets slightly anyway, so I hand-trimmed the bottom of the sheet in a kind of "wave" that would help disguise the seam. After taping the sheet (both the lower sheets were also taped to the tube at the top, where the tape would be hidden by the overlap from the sheet above) I finished off with the final one.

I've got some ideas on how to add roots and limbs to my tree, but I haven't tried them out yet, and for a forest scene, the trunk is the most important part. You can whip up a whole grove of these in an evening while watching TV. Remember to used a variety of tube sizes and bark textures and colors for a more realistic "forest" You could even print out some "knot holes" and other tree features, cut them out, and paste them on for a more realistic look.

One other advantage of using multiple tube sizes is that you can store them compactly nested inside one another. Try that with something you rescued from your wood-pile!

Making a MinionMobile

2006-07-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

For some time, I've been considering making a custom vehicle for my "Minions" photo cartoons. I thought about a Barbie camper conversion or a Jeep or something in that size range, but it occurred to me that I had a possibly more useful candidate on hand. After all, any super-secret complex back in the 60s and 70s (good or evil) used industrial golf-carts to shuttle through its cavernous depths.

A while back, KB Toys had a nice looking toy golf cart for sale. Unfortunately, they were maybe 1/10th scale, just too small for 1/6th figures, so I passed on it. Then, some months back, I spotted one for cheap in a thrift store and couldn't pass on it. The body and roof are plastic, and the roof supports are heavy metal rod, and I thought perhaps I might be able to modify it for use with GI Joes.

I completely disassembled the toy for inspection, cleaning, and painting. I decided the original green body panels weren't industrial enough, so I went for a sterile, Krylon Fusion "satin white." The roof was already white, but I painted it as well, to make it more opaque and hide the plastic sheen.

My initial thought was that the cart could be stretched between the front and rear body sections to provide more leg room, and then the roof raised slightly. But as I looked at it, I realized that would be very complicated, and weaken the structure of what was actually a pretty rugged little toy. There was also the matter of the roof, which would either have to be stretched, removed, or have heavily modified supports.

It was my wife, Chris, who came up with a better solution. She suggested that if the seat were simply raised so that the figure's knees weren't up in his chest, it would look much more in scale. It seemed possible that I could put some washers on the screws holding in the seat to raise it a bit, or perhaps even build a riser of some sort for it to sit on. The job was made somewhat more critical by the fact that the screws that hold on the seat and seat back assembly also hold on the rear body and contribute to the strength of the entire structure.

I decided that some kind of riser was going to be necessary, and before I started fabricating something new, I started digging through my parts boxes for something sturdy and ready made. Just for sizing purposes, I dug out some Lego blocks to see how high the seat should go. But after looking at the blocks for a while, I realized that they'd be ideal as the risers themselves.

I have to admit, adding Legos to a permanent construction project seemed somehow "wrong," especially since I had to drill a hole through the centers of the blocks for the screw, and modify the "buttons" on top of the rear risers so the seat-back/cargo holder assembly would sit flat. But Legos are cheap, and I have a ton of them (I can't resist buying them when I see them cheap in thrift stores, so I've got quite a collection). Not only were they sturdy and perfectly sized, but I was even able to get black ones so no painting was necessary!

The seat sits on a pair 2x4 block risers, two-blocks tall. Same for the seat-back assembly. I replaced the original screws with longer #6 sheet-metal screws selected from the hardware store.

That done, it was time to raise the roof. This was complicated in that not only did it now need a "scale" adjustment to allow for the taller figure, but now the seat itself was higher. I used threaded rod from the hardware store to make pins that fit in the original roof mounting holes, then cut sections of brass tubing (hobby shop metal stock) to slide over the pins and the bottoms of the original supports, connecting them together. These are just friction fitted at the moment. Some epoxy may eventually come into play, and I'll paint the tubing black to match the existing support posts.

The very tall appearance has a bit of "clown car" aspect to it, but it isn't bad, and the Minions ARE supposed to be funny, after all. I looked around for some accessories to fit in the club rack in back, and found first a scuba-tank from one of those cheap 14" Action Man knock-off figures that Wal-Mart used to sell. Poison gas, maybe? Something radioactive? Then I noticed a Hasbro javelin anti-tank missile, and sure enough, it was a perfect fit in the other side of the rack! The Minions are loaded for bear! I thought the idea of this silly little cart with a missile on it was just funny in itself.

I'm still not finished. The steering column needs to be longer and more vertical, and I may add a larger steering wheel while I'm at it. Not sure. I'll probably add a few markings as well, but I'm still thinking about that. "Official Lair Business Only," maybe?

DVD Extras for "Minions: Walking the Dinosaur"

2006-07-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm really pleased with how this installment of "Minions," titled "Walking the Dinosaur" turned out visually, so here are some "behind the scenes" shots of the set.

I made extensive use of printed papers sold in craft stores for scrapbooking in this set. The ground is simply overlapping sheets of a "stucco" print. There are also some small scraps of a "grass" print to break up the lines. The backdrop is a cut-and-paste job onto a sheet of foamcore, using pieces of two different sheets, a "cloudy sky" sheet, and a "pine forest" pattern. I covered most of the sky with overlapping sheets of the sky pattern, then filled in the horizon with hand-cut pieces from the "forest" sheets. I probably used about four sheets of each.

The "dirt" area is actually a sheet of scrap packing foam hit with brown spray paint. I didn't use foam-safe paint, so it melted the surface into an irregular texture, and bits of white foam are showing up through the foam. I wasn't sure how it would work, but seen from the side, the white actually breaks up the dark brown and makes it look more like a natural ground-cover.

The plants are all plastic, consisting of bits of aquarium plants (bought cheap at a thrift store), and some dollar-store mixed greenery that I took apart to make smaller plants. The rocks are just some driveway gravel I picked up right outside my office door. The brown "log" is actually a piece of driftwood, the only real plant mater in the shot.

The park bench is metal. I found it in a thrift store (in metal housewares, not in toys) for about two bucks. The shovel is a craft-store item. The chain was purchased by the foot at the hardware store. The dinosaur is a "Jurassic Park" T-Rex, possibly one of the nicest toy dinosaurs ever made. I currently own three of them, and I'm always keeping my eyes open for more.

I did do a slight bit of digital retouching in Paint Shop Pro, using the "clone" tool to hide the edges of the foam sheet, and the "smear" tool to break up the edges of my cut-out trees and make them look more realistic.

The whole thing only took me twenty minutes or so to set up using things I had on-hand. I pays to think ahead and stockpile basic backgrounds and props like these.

Cut and Paste

2006-07-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Astro-Dan has been posting a series of figures computer blended into historic photo backgrounds, and over on the Sandbox we've been discussing tips for realistically blending a figure with the background. This is more art than science, and requires supplying the eye with cues that trick it into thinking the overlaid foreground is part of the photo background. You could write a book about it, but here are a few tips from this non-expert:

1: Match the shadows and light sources. The eye and brain are really good in picking up these cues, especially in photos, where this is how we judge the depth and size of the objects in the 2D picture. At the very least, try to match the primary light source.

Look at your figure. Where are the shadows on the face? If they're on the left, the light source is on the right. If they're on the right, the light source is on the left. If they're under the brows, nose, and chin, then the light is coming from above. This should match your background photo as close as possible. If there are no distinct shadows, or the shadows aren't pronounced, then the light on the figure is diffuse. If there are strong shadows in your background, it won't match.

One trick that sometimes works: if your figure has the light source on one side, and the background has the light on the other, its sometimes possible to flip one or the other (mirror image) and make it match. Obviously this doesn't work if there's something in the image to establish the "handedness" of the image. Any flipped writing will be backwards. Car steering wheels will be on the wrong side (but hey, we could be in England!). And Joe's scar could be on the wrong cheek!

2: Match the contrast of the background. Nothing will give away a "paste job" faster than a high-contrast figure against a washed-out background shot. Your photo editing software will probably have a brightness and contrast tool. It may have other brightness tools that are even more powerful (though they can be more difficult to figure out and use).

3: Match the color tone. Figure photos taken inside under incandescent lights are often "warm" in color tone. Fluorescent light sometimes results in a greenish tone. Photos taken outside under sunlight usually have a bluish tone. Your photo editing software probably has tools to fix this.

4. Match the color saturation. Modern photos taken under artificial light often have bright, over-saturated, colors. Historic photos taken outside often have muted, washed-out colors. Foreground should match background.

5. Match size and perspective. It's pretty basic that things that are closer are bigger, and that things which are farther away look smaller. In a photo scene, things contract towards an imaginary "vanishing point," which (on a flat plain, anyway) will lie along the horizon.

I could go into a big, not very informed lecture about perspective here. Trust it to say that your eyes and brain judge the size and distance of an object in a picture by its position in the picture in relation to other objects.

Take a look at this example I whipped up. The lines on the football field converge on our "vanishing point," illustrated with the red lines converging on the (hidden) horizon). On the left, I've arranged four figures positioned to appear the same height, even though each is about 20% smaller than the next. Note that as they stand on a line towards the vanishing point, another such line connects the tops of all their heads. Yes, I know that they look about 12-feet tall, but they ALL look 12-feet tall. That's what's important.

Now look at the figures standing along a similar line on the right. Believe it or not, these are the SAME four figures. I've just reversed the order. The monster standing back-rightis EXACTLY the same size as the more normal-looking guy standing front-left. The tiny shrimp front right is EXACTLY the same size as the fellow back left.

Likewise, any figure you paste into a photo background has to relate properly to the objects around them, or they're going to appear to be a giant, or a shrimp, or just hanging in the air in front of a distant scene, or worst of all, just pasted on a flat background like a stamp on an envelope.

Experiment with size and position relative to the background, and trust your eye on this. One trick I find useful is to look at the figure's feet. Though the imaginary plain leading off to the horizon may be flat, to your eye it SEEMS steeper as it's closer to the observer, and flatter towards the horizon. If you're looking down at the tops of a figure's feet, then it probably belongs close to the front of your image. If that makes him look gigantic, then he needs to be made slower. If, on the other hand, you seem to be looking at the sides of the shoes straight-on, then he belongs off in the distance, and should be positioned and resized accordingly. Use people, doorways, and other such details as reference in positioning your foreground picture.

Notice how the giant on the right rear seems to be up on his toes, about to topple forward, or to launch himself into the sky. That's a foot position cue at work. He needs to be closer to the bottom front of the picture.

Okay, this is a quick example of putting these rules into practice, hijacking one of Dan's own images, his 1912 lunar astronaut. I've dug a NASA lunar photo out of my files and added him in.

This first example is done wrong. First of all, the position of the figure is wrong. He's too close to the front, and seems to be tipping backwards on his heels. One would expect light on the moon to be bluish and colors somewhat subdued. Instead, the figure is very saturated, and the colors warm. At best, he looks like he's standing in front of a photo backdrop. At worst, it's the stamp and envelope effect.

Now this next one isn't perfect, but it's not bad. I've cooled off the colors in the figure, increased the contrast, and reduced the color saturation, to make him fit with the background better. A couple of additional tricks. I added some blotchy shadows under his feet and to the right of him and the flag. These don't exactly match either the sharp shadows on his suit, of the washed-own and almost shadow-free background, but they do help to "ground" him in the scene. One other little trick, I copied a rock from the background (and reshaped it a bit, but that isn't necessary) and put in in FRONT of the toe of one of his boots. Again, that helps to "stick" him to the scene.

Again, though the figure in the "bad" image seems bigger, it's exactly the same size relative to the background as the "good" image.

This post really just scratches the surface, but hopefully it will provide some useful tips to apply in creating your own photos.

True undersea adventure

2006-07-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm going to break from the usual around here to review a book I just finished. It's called Dark Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's Undercover Nuclear Sub, by Lee Vyborny and Don Davis.

The 1960s were a period of stunning technological change and exploration, both in space, in the air, and under the water. It was the era that excited the young imaginations of so many of us, and inspired the GI Joe Adventure Team. But while many of these developments and adventures took place in the public eye, some went on in near secrecy.

A prime example of this is the NR-1, a one-of-a-kind, deep-diving, nuclear powered mini-sub developed by the US Navy. Announced under the cover of being a scientific vehicle, in truth the little sub was primarily designed for military applications (though in later years, its unique capabilities would lead to many scientific discoveries).

The NR-1 could dive at least 3000 feet, hover above the bottom like a helicopter, roll along the ocean bottom on a pair of retractable wheels, view the bottom through cameras and manned viewports, and manipulate objects using a robot arm, and lift heavier objects with tines like a forklift. Most significantly, it's nuclear power plant could supply its small crew (no more than a dozen men) with air and drinking water indefinitely, drive powerful lights, and allow stays on the bottom for up to a month (though in cramped and inhospitable conditions).

Many of the NR-1's missions remained classified, but this book still provides a fascinating and thrilling account of the little sub's creation, testing, and many of its adventures. Seemingly every mission of the NR-1, even the seemingly most routine, was filled with peril and the constant threat of disaster. Access to the interior of the sub was through a single, tiny, hatch, it routinely dived into depths and locations where no other sub on Earth could come to its rescue. It challenged uncharted canyons, unknown currents, abandoned mine-fields, and lost fishing nets in its missions, and being the first-ship of its kind, the crew was literally making up the rule-book as they went along.

One of the most fascinating accounts deals with the recovery of a lost American fighter-plane and the then-new and top-secret Phoenix missile from the bottom of the Mediterranean. Not only was the mission dangerous and technically challenging in itself, but it was complicated by the layers of secrecy (the men on the submarine were not even told what the missile they were looking for looked like!) and aggressive Soviet spy ships that circled like hungry wolves, desperate for any opportunity to snatch the missile for themselves.

Though the NR-1 often operates under the cloak of secrecy, since the fall of the Soviet Union it has increasingly cooperated in scientific missions, and among its high-profile assignments was recovery of wreckage from the Space Shuttle Challenger that lead directly to solving the cause of that terrible disaster.

This is a wonderful book, much of it derived from Lee Vyborny's own experiences as a member of the NR-1s first crew. It sheds light on a fantastic machine and the men who created it, a machine in its own way as bold and advanced as the Apollo Moon missions. But unlike the Apollo program, the NR-1s missions are ongoing, and it continues to sail today.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this book is still in print. I discovered my copy in a book liquidator, and Amazon claims to be able to order a new copy in "1-3 weeks" of which I am doubtful. But it's well worth tracking down on Amazon or through a library or used bookstore.

Speaking of flying Joes

2006-06-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

(Posting on the road from Lake Elsinore, California)
Did you know the GI Joe Irwin Helicopter from the 60s painthead era was based on a real aircraft? The Hiller Hornet was one of a family of simple and light helicopters built by Hiller aircraft in the 50s, with rotors driven not by an engine inside, but by ramjet engines in pods on the rotor tips. So not only is this aircraft the basis of the Irwin helicopter, but also the Adventure Team Turbocopter and, to a lesser extent, the AT Helicopter. Earlier this week, our vacation took us through the bay area where I visited the Hiller Museum, where I took these (and many more) pictures of the Hornet and it's near-kin. Hopefully these will be the basis of some articles I hope to write for the GI Joe Collector's Club newsletter.

You will believe a Joe can fly!

2006-06-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

I broke down and bought a "Ken as Superman" doll at Wal-Mart the other day for the costume. It galled me a bit to buy a suit of unknown quality and fit for $14.95, but now that I have it home, it was a bargain. I tossed the Ken and replaced it with an SA Joe. The Gung-ho Grip hands are good for flying poses, and he has the small feet, which fit the boots just fine. The bottom of the Velcro doesn't quite close, but it's well-covered by the cape.

I like the textured logo and the logo-belt-buckle, and while I was initially put off by the dark red, it's really growing on me. This is just a really nice Superman costume, and I doubt an expensive collector's figure could have done much better.

So how did Superman get a scar on his face? Well, he cut himself shaving, of course!

Catwalk construction details

2006-06-12T02:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some detailed construction shots on my catwalk accessory. It's constructed totally out of standard hardware-store materials. The most exotic stuff is the plastic "gutter guard" grating (meant to keep leaves and trash out of house gutters) that I used as the base of the catwalk.

You can see in this photo that there's a bit of sag at this point. I hadn't decided if I should add the second railing or not, and if it should be a complete railing, or have a pass-through. The sag decided it. These railings contribute a huge part of the strength of the catwalk, turning it into a "U" shaped beam and keeping it stiff, despite its fragile appearance.

From this angle, you can see the railing and lower supports, all made from rectangular molding picked up in the lumber department. This stuff is cheap, easy to work with, and has all sorts of 1/6th applications. Most of the cutting (for precision, and so I didn't have to keep going back and forth to the shop while I worked on this) was done with an Xacto razor saw and miter box. I used the same tools to cut the threaded rod used for the railing uprights.

Here's a detail of the railing support. Threaded rod, nuts, washers, that's all they are. Note the nuts above and below the railing, and also above and below the bottom rail. To make sure the holes lined up between the bottom rail and the hand-rail, I clamped them together and drilled them both at once.

Here's a detail from underneath. As you can see, I can shoot photos from below as well as above or the side. The perforated plastic also casts interesting shadows, making for dramatic lighting. The plastic itself is thin and rather flexible. The wooden railings along both sides, as well as the wooden handrails, provide most of the strength.

Another view from below. Notice the cross-pieces (one at each end, one in the middle), and the fact that one railing sits on TOP of the plastic, while the other fits inside a molded grove on that side. You'll be able to see this better in the end-detail shot.

Here's the end. You can see how the molded-in grove grips one of the lower rails, and how the other is bolted on top of the flat plastic.

The whole thing was done in just a few hours working in front of the television. The tools included the afore-mentioned saw and miter-box, an electric drill, a tape measure, a few spring clamps, some pliers, and a box-end wrench to tighten the nuts. I finished it off with a few spray-coats or reddish-brown primer.

Most anyone should be able to duplicate this project with pretty minimal effort. If you don't need a catwalk, think of it as a balcony, ship railing, boarding gangway, or foot-bridge.

More Minions Extras

2006-06-12T01:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, life and Minions have been keeping me busy enough that I haven't posted here in FOREVER. Here's a little Minions DVD extra from the current panel. If you haven't already seen the strip, I suggest you go check it out here before continuing.

This week's setup guest-stars three "Jurassic Park" T-Rexes. Actually, to be technical, two are "Jurassic Park," and the third is a lurid repaint from the "Mutations" line. While these are sub-scale for 12" figures, they're still plenty big enough to photograph well with them and look plenty scary.

My problem was how to get them posed the way I wanted. These are fantastic, very realistic, soft vinyl figures, but they have no articulation at all. They're rubbery statues. So how to get THREE of them standing up and snapping at my poor Minion's heels?

I tried various ways of interlocking their feet to create a kind of tripod. Didn't work. I tried propping them up with boxes, or holding their tails with spring clamps. Didn't work. Finally, I went out the back door of the office into my sun-porch and found a large, unused, flower pot. By folding the flexible tails on two of them and jamming them in, then hanging the third over the edge and propping up one foot with a box, I got more or less the look I wanted.

Otherwise, this is a very simple setup, and the first appearance of my new "catwalk" set-piece. It's supported on a couple of mailing tube covered with a stone-pattern self-adhesive contact paper. The chain came from the hardware store, along with all the goodies to build the catwalk. I think, actually, that the catwalk deserves its own post...

What, me post?

2006-05-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting here a lot lately, in part because I've been busy working on Minions for Hire shoots. Of course, I have some behind-the-scenes shots, but since these shoots are for toons that won't be posted for a while yet (I'm trying to hold myself to posting one a week under normal circumstances, in hopes that I'll build up enough of a backlog so I can pull it off like clockwork) I don't want to spoil the toons by posting the back-stage stuff yet. So look for some Minions DVD-extras here on Monday.

The requirements of Minions are inspiring me to create some stock sets and props that you'll probably see over and over as time goes by. Of course, you've already seen the cell-door I built, but there will be others. A major one I'm working on right now is an industrial-looking cat-walk with an open-grid floor.

The catwalk is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I'm building it around an extruded and stamped plastic screen designed to keep leaves out of gutters. The stuff comes in three-foot sections, and so I'll build a three foot section of catwalk that can be suspended over a set, or used as a setting itself. The plastic screen will be shored up with strips of flat, rectangular molding attached to the side with screws and nuts, and by the hand-rails uprights, which I plan to make from sections of threaded rod.

I'm hoping the final result will be generic enough to look at home in a super-villain lair, a factory, a refinery, or a rocket gantry. If you've ever watched a James Bond movie, you know there are always Minions in the catwalks, where they have spectacular fist-fights with the heroes, be shot and fall over the railing, or just be blown off by explosions. I think I can get a lot of use out of this little prop. I'll post some construction photos, and hopefully this is something that anyone with access to a hardware store and a few hand-tools will easily be able to replicate.

One important development here is that I've replaced my trusty Canon Powershot A40 with a new Canon Powershot A530. It's smaller lighter, has more shooting modes, better movie function, a 4X optical zoom instead of 3X, and most importantly, 5 megapixels instead of 2. I've been very happy with the Canon Powershot family of digital cameras, and I recommend them highly. They take good pictures, and have a lot of control and versatility for compact cameras. I've been impressed with the quality of the optics, the image sensors, and the all-important software that backs the sensor up. They take good pictures. 'Nuff said.

The old camera still works great, and I'll pass it off to my daughter so she has a decent camera to photograph merchandise for her web-store (she does sewing and costume work). 2 megapixels is more than enough for typical web-ad photos.

Meanwhile, to fill the time until I can post some new stuff, here's a golden oldie in honor of the coming summer, to remind you to always wear your bug-lotion.

Minions Extra Feature

2006-05-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

As promised, some behind-the-scenes stuff from the latest "Minions" toon posted over at Minions for Hire. This is my employment office set. I thought this came out pretty well, considering how quickly I threw it together. Some notes on the props and set-pieces.

I've used my "universal wall/floor" for the backdrop. This is just a sheet of foamcore board with some shelf-paper stuck to it. I'm getting pretty tired of it, and so are you by now, so I need to make up some new ones for variety. The wood flooring is just a couple of cheap floor tiles I picked up at a dollar store (three for a buck). The "glass" walls are actually a couple of Plexiglas sign holders, a couple of pieces of Plexiglas held in a self-standing wooden base. You can buy these in any office supply, but I got mine for cheap at a thrift store.

The desk is actually a couple of pieces of scrap wood that were used as packing material on some unassembled bookcases I bought last year. They were pre-finished, so all I had to do was find something of the right height to support them. One goes on top, and the other leans against the front. Instant desk. Mind you, I didn't want to take the time to cut down the front one and used it as-found, which is why the desk is so darned tall.

The window is actually a small picture frame, sprayed black, with a photo-copy skyline taped to the back. It hangs on the background using a thumbtack.

The briefcase actually came with a novelty manicure kit (I removed the contents, naturally). I got mine from American Science and Surplus. Item 32646, $3.95 each. (Mind you, you'll need to spend $20-30 on an order for the shipping charges not to eat you alive, but they have lots of cool stuff, so that shouldn't be hard. Or just buy a whole pile of briefcases!)

The phone is a fridge magnet. The in-basket is the lid from a novelty box I got on clearance at a craft store a while back. The wastebasket is a desk-accessory cup I got at Staples office supply. The filing cabinet is a novelty business-car file. These are sold mainly as premium items (there's a business name printed on top) so they're hard to find at retail, but they show up at gift and office supply stores sometimes.

Several items here were just made on my printer. The cut-and-assemble storage boxes with removable lids can be downloaded from Jim's Print-minis. You'll find all sorts of printable props and goodies there. I simply made the sign and desk sign in Microsoft Word and printed them on card-stock. The papers on the desk and in the briefcase were printed in Word as well (three point type), on regular paper, then cut down to size with scissors.

The Minions get their own blog!

2006-04-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

(Update: Since posting this the URL for the Minions has changed. Find them a www.MinionsAtWork.com .

Since I know plenty of people who would doubtless enjoy the Minions toons I've been posting, and since many of them wouldn't necessarily be interested in the rest of what goes on around here, I've decided to give the Minions their own blog. Visit Minions for Hire to see the latest one, just posted.

You'll continue to see some behind-the-scenes Minions material here, such as this. I've decided that there are certain props and set-pieces that would be useful over-and-over in Minions toons, and thus it would be worth putting a bit of effort into making them. I finished the first one tonight, a cell-door for the Minions to (unsuccessfully) guard.

The door is constructed simply enough from a piece of foam-core board. It's trimmed out with wooden coffee stirrers that I snagged for free at the Safeway deli, some of those plastic twist-tie packers from toy packaging, a handle and hasp bent from small aluminum tubing, wooden dowels for bars, some small hex-head screws, and a "padlock" metal charm picked up at a craft store. The whole thing is painted and weathered with acrylic craft paint in various colors to give it a "rusty" look. The flash photo here is just to give you a clear look at it. You can see it with more realistic lighting over on Minions-for-Hire.

In-joke: You may be wondering why the hasp and lock are so shiny when the rest of the door is so rusty looking. Well, I figure people escape from this cell on a regular basis, so they get replaced -- a lot!

Good day for a repaint

2006-04-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to pick up a Power Team guard tower at Goodwill. Much as I liked it, the monochrome dark-green look wasn't working for me. It made it look too plain and toy-like.

Today it was sunny and warm (a rarity around here lately) so I decided to take it out for a quick paint job. Used a combination of red and gray primer along with some dun-colored flat-camo paint. Here's a photo after I put it back together, along with an outdoor shot featuring some AT Joes, old and new.

I'll probably do some more detail painting using a brush, most likely painting the top of the roof-piece weathered silver, to represent corrugated metal.

Talk about lighting

2006-04-11T22:58:00.000-07:00

There's been some discussion over on the Sandbox lately about photo lighting, prompted by a photo-lighting article in the magazine Fine Scale Modeler. Their techniques emphasize seamless backdrops and defuse lighting. My take was that while this technique works well enough and shows well the details of whatever you're photographing, Joe-photos often benefit from more dramatic lighting.

One friend e-mailed to tell me that the FSM techniques were used by the "Twisted Toyfair Theater" feature in Toyfair magazine. Good enough. But those features are played for broad comedy and emphasize that the things being photographed are toys.

Different lighting techniques can increase realism and enhance mood. To illustrate, I set up some very quick examples of how lighting can greatly change the mood of the shot. I set up a random assembly of my "Minions" figures and some props. (Actually, most of them were already there. I just removed a few things and reposed the figures a bit.)

This first shot shows the setup on my bench. There are two main light-sources, a high-intensity arm lamp on top of the cabinet to the left (yes, it looks like a back-hoe) and a small incandescent (60w) goose-neck lamp clamped to the table. The lights are on in this shot, but largely washed out by the on-camera flash.

The flash was turned off for most of these shots, as here. You'll see why we turned off the flash in a minute. Since my lighting sources aren't very bright, all of these shots are long exposures (which my Powershot A40 handles very well, though not all digital cameras). For that reason, I used a solid tripod and a ten-second shutter delay (so as to avoid camera-shake when I pressed the button). I like time exposures, as they keep the lights low-power and low heat. They also allow for some nifty tricks if you know what you're doing.

As for camera settings, other than the things I've mentioned (flash-off, shutter-delay), I let it handle its own exposure settings. It does a good job, though you could get different results by fiddling with them manually.

This first example simply uses the on-camera flash. Note that the lighting is very flat, in more ways than one. There's no sense of depth here. The background could be right behind the front characters instead of the foot or so that it really is. There's no texture in the uniforms, and the faces look plastic and artificial. There's also a reflected flare off the glass door in the background. Though you could use something like that as an effect, it's generally not something you want.

This next shot uses only the high-intensity arm-light, located above and behind the main-figures. This gives us a strong back-light with a lot of soft fill reflected off the white wall and props.

You can see there's a huge difference. Suddenly we have depth. The shadows and reflections make things "pop" as 3-D, and add plenty of drama. Trouble is, the HI light is harsh, making plastic look like plastic, and the position leaves faces in shadow. Maybe we want them in shadow, if these are supposed to be anonymous folks skulking about, but let's say we want to put emphasis on them as characters.

We'll get to that in a minute, but one more thing about this. Notice how the strong "light of god" attracts your attention up to the source of the light. Is there a hole blown in the roof? Is there a helicopter up there? There's a feeling that what's really important here is somewhere else, off-camera. Again, if that's what you want to do, great. If not...

This shot uses only the clip lamp on the right of the bench. Again, depth. Again, dramatic. But this is totally different.

The incandescent bulb is more defuse and warmer than the HI light, making the plastic look less plastic. The faces are not only lit, but the dramatic shadows really add depth, mood, and character to the faces.

Because the light is close and bright though, it "blooms-out" on the right of the picture. It draws your attention, but less-so that the overhead light because your eye is drawn to those faces. Notice too how the angle of the light really brings out the textures in the uniforms and adds to the realism.

Now we start mixing light-sources. We're still using the clip-light on the right, but now I've turned the overhead HI light on and turned it to shine on the white wall behind it and a white shelf-overhead. The result is a dim, soft, fill-light that is mainly visible in the background and in the shadowed areas.

Notice that the figure in the background suddenly seems more important, and what they guys in the foreground are doing, less-so. It's much less spooky, but this shot still has nice texture and depth. If you were playing for comedy or casual drama, this might be a good setup.

Now we're going to play with two other light sources that I haven't mentioned yet. Here's the first one, a small (two AA cell) incandescent lantern-type emergency light hidden behind the door of the locker. Basically it's a bare bulb with a tiny bit of diffusion. There's also a tiny bit of fill light on the background here, basically reflected lights from the dimly-lit office. The bit of greenish light in the upper right quadrant of the picture is the far wall of the office reflected in that glass door.

Obviously, this puts all the emphasis on the figure opening the locker, though there's just enough light to show you that there are things and people around him.

This is part of why I like time exposure. A light like my little lantern would likely be way too dim for a normal hand-held snapshot.

Now we add one more new light-source, a small single-LED flashlight. It provides a somewhat focused circle of bluish light that suggests it could be coming from an in-the-scene light source, such as a flashlight or spotlight, invisible just off camera.

The flashlight is actually near the camera and just to the side, so the lighting is rather flat. By aiming it low, it reveals the figures behind without drawing undue attention to them (the faces are in shadow).

Here's the LED flashlight again, but this time I've moved it off to one side for more dramatic shadows, and aimed it at the face of one of the figures standing behind the lead-Minion. Again, the emphasis shifts to him watching. Is he delighted at what he sees? Alarmed? Is he planning to steal it? Clearly, something is up. The lighting says so.

Finally, we add a soft bounce-fill from the overhead light to the previous elements. The emphasis is still on the two foreground characters, but we're aware of their surroundings (which are far less frightening) and the people around them. Still moody, but far less sense of dread. One nice touch is the variety of colors provided by the different light-sources, though all are what you'd think of as "white" in other circumstances.

So there you go, a lot of different results using some pretty simple equipment that most anyone would have around. This isn't intended to be an instructional feature, just some examples that my inspire you to experiment on your own.

Minions #3

2006-04-04T04:42:00.000-07:00

Minions #2

2006-04-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

Minions

2006-04-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

The first in a possibly on-going series...

Weekend finds

2006-03-26T22:16:00.000-08:00

I confess, I do love to shop. This Saturday I drove into Salem, Oregon, to see my niece's last high-school play (she's about to graduate) and managed to slip in a few hours of shopping time. Not only did I find the solar yard lights and the new TV stand I was looking for, but I also snagged a couple of good 1/6th deals.

The first was a Goodwill find, a huge set of plastic bags taped together which obviously had all or most of a Power Team lookout tower. I've been looking at these for a while, but they've never quite seemed worth the expense to me. But when I saw this bag marked at $12.99, I obviously couldn't pass on it. I grabbed it and ran for the checkout without examining it further. There were clearly some helmets and weapons and other items in there, but I just considered it gravy and didn't inspect closely.

Only later did I untape the two bags for a closer look, and discovered that, not only did I have the tower, I also had a Power Team "Military Life" play set! While the tower seems to be missing a couple pieces (the weapons, which I probably wouldn't have mounted for AT duty anyhow), the Military Life set seems complete, and many of the accessories were still in unopened bags! The bunk had never been assembled, and a clear rubber band still held the locker closed (with the bag of soft-goods still inside). I already have two Military Life sets and have been thinking about getting another, so this is excellent. The local AT now has a serious bunk-room available.

My other find was at Big Lots. Most of the Power Team (except for some Trailwalker sets on a high shelf) stuff was gone, and Joe was missing in action. But I did spot a stack of boxes, and the name "Dennis Miller" caught my eye. Sure enough, it was a stack of 12" talking Dennis Miller figures, all marked at $5. The figure looked like crap (a decent head on a sub-Ken doll body) but for $5, the suit looks good. I took home two.

Add this to the "Unknown Soldier" and Donald Trump I picked up at Tuesday Morning, and suddenly I have a bunch of excellent suits available for kitbashing.

The Dennis suit isn't as nice as the Donald's (not quite as crisp, Velcro closures, and the shirt has no sleeves under the coat) but it's decent, and unlike Donald, Dennis has real socks and shoes (Trump's are molded on). But both are excellent for the bucks, even if you toss the figures straight into the trash.

Overall, a good Joe day.

A V-22 Osprey for Joe?

2006-03-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Today I've decided to talk about the scaling of Joe-sized vehicles. In more contemporary terms, this is a source of great controversy. Many fans of accurate military Joes have complained about vehicles sold as "1/6th scale" which are in fact a good deal smaller. Some of the more notorious are the 21st Century Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Hasbro M8 armored car, and the 21st Century Little Bird. Most of these vehicles were 1/8th scale or smaller, and that made a lot of people unhappy.

But the fact is, most military (and civilian) vehicles are simply too large to be practical as mass-market items in true 1/6th scale. An F-22 Raptor scales over ten feet long. An M1A1 Abrams tank would be over five feet long and two feet wide. A Chinook cargo helicopter (including rotors) would be sixteen and half feet long! You aren't going to find these on the shelves at Wal-Mart any time soon. So something has to give. Either the vehicles have to be made smaller than scale, or they don't get made at all.

Fact is, shrunken vehicles are part of the great history of our hobby. Yet there's more than one way to shrink a vehicle, as we'll soon see. Other than just anal attention to scale, one of the major complaints about the not-quite 1/6th vehicles I mentioned above is that they didn't work well with figures. Pilots have to be jammed into the front of the Little Bird (which didn't even have room to include the pedals). The M8 really doesn't have room for a driver with legs attached, and troops don't fit well in the Bradley.

Fact is, near as I can tell, these vehicles are more or less scale, just not the scale people wanted. They were reduced, in all dimensions, to fit some arbitrary specification (to fit a box, or to be produced at some price point, or to fit a shelf, or to be shippable).

But that isn't the only way to do things. The other way, the better way I think, is "selective compression." Selective compression reduces dimensions individually with an eye to both the requirements and the intended use. For instance, if the goal is to make a vehicle fit in a box 48" long, the engine compartment might be reduced in size, leaving the cab area unchanged and large enough for a full-scale figure. Of the dimensions of the vehicle might all be reduced, and then the roof-height increased enough so the figure will fit.

When done well, one can hugely change the dimensions of a vehicle and still capture "look and feel" of the original. One classic example, even if it takes things to extremes, is the vintage Irwin Panther jet airplane seen below, along with the real-life Grumman Panther jet on which is it based.

Mind you, not a single dimension or line of the jet remains unchanged. In fact, a scale Panther jet would have a length and wing-span both over six feet! I don't have the dimensions of the Irwin Jet, but I'd guess it's under a third of that. Yet there is no doubt that one plane is based on the other. Irwin designers boiled the panther down to a form that preserved its essence, but that a child could pick-up and fly around the room. On top of that it would hold (just barely) a 1/6th GI Joe figure.

Let's try applying these principles to a modern military vehicle that seems very Joe-worthy, the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. The Osprey is a cutting-edge hybrid vehicle combining some of the best features of a helicopter and a fixed-wing cargo airplane. It can fly rapidly and smoothly to a distant target, hover or land vertically to deploy or recover troops, and then fly rapidly back to base. It's an ambitious aircraft that's had it's share of problems, but if the bugs can be worked out its truly revolutionary.

Trouble is, for Joe purposes, it's just way too big. Each rotor alone would be over six-feet in diameter! The fuselage would be nearly six feet long. The span, including rotors, would be almost 14 feet! Young Hercules himself couldn't lift this monster and fly it around the room, even if he had a room big enough.

So, how to make a "kid friendly" version that would fit Joe and still be recognizable ? Well, my first move is to drop the V-22 entirely, and go to its predecessor, the experiment XV-15. Though the two vehicles look a lot alike, the XV-15 is already 20% smaller. Still not nearly small enough, but that 20% is something we don't have to cut.

Here's a 3-view drawing of the XV-15, courtesy of NASA. I used this (specifically, the top view) as the basis of my compression. My first move was to load it into my paint program and chop it into individual parts: cockpit, wings, rotors, tail-cone, tail surfaces, rotors.

Then I started eliminating anything that wasn't necessary. The straight sections of the fuselage fore and aft of the wing were cut out and discarded. The tail was still too long, so I shortened it a bit, and then shrunk the tail surfaces. The wings were made smaller as well. The engines weren't reduced quite as much, but the rotors were made much smaller. The original V-22 has a large cockpit for two flight crew sitting side by side, but I'm assuming the Joe version will have a single seat in the middle. Suddenly, things overall can be MUCH smaller.

What's left still has the recognizable flavor of the V-22, but it's a fraction of the size, I'm guessing about three-feet long. That's still big by kid-standards, but perhaps not impossibly so. (A Sigma-6 or 3 3/4" version would make a very attractive retail product.) The tail and wings would be removable for storage (or for the retail box).

Of course, by now the question that must be burning in all your brains is, "Steve, what does the Adventure Team version look like? Glad you asked...

What's the point of all this, designing a toy that will never be made for a line that no longer exists? I'm not sure, really, except that it's in the spirit of the toys I loved as a kid. Maybe I can't be ten again, and find this thing under my Christmas tree, but I can at least imagine...

Minions! We got minions!

2006-03-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted here. Sorry about that. We had a new front door installed last week, and that's put me on a bit of a home improvement kick. I put up new curtain-rods in the living room (and curtains, that my wife picked up), installed new fire alarms, and have been doing some serious reorganization of the clutter, much of it Joe-related.

You see, while I was in deadline hell over the last year-and-a-half, one of my few escapes was retail therapy. I'd go out and hit the local Goodwill, looking mainly for Joes or 1/6th scale props and accessories. Several times a week, I'd find something and bring it home. Once I got home, it was straight back to work, meaning that the thing I'd bought just got tossed somewhere. I also did trades and shopped on-line. Same deal. Get it home, put it -- somewhere. Ignore it.

This stuff if the cholesterol of our household circulatory system. My wife didn't know what to do with it, her attempts to do something with it just made things worse (lots of poorly packed boxes of unsorted stuff), and then we got into double deadline-hell mode with both of us on book deadlines (me on Conan and Mechwarrior, her on Alias). With Chris also working a full-time office job, housework around here has become more rumor than fact. For the most part, we couldn't even afford the interruption to pay somebody to come do it. So the place is a disaster area, mostly thanks to me and Joe. The worst areas have been my office and the dining room, which have become catch-alls, and look more like warehouses than rooms in a house.

So, we've given away some over-large furniture to make some maneuvering room, bought a new, smaller dining set that I haven't had time to assemble yet, and I'm just tunneling through the clutter. I've made huge strides in the office ("look, there's floor under there!") and the dining room, and I'm finding stuff I'd forgotten I'd bought. Through a process of sorting and repacking, I think I can probably halve the volume, and hopefully I'll get the construction materials out of the garage so I can put most of this stuff out there where it belongs, not in our living space. That's my goal for the summer anyway.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't take a few minutes out to play with your Joes. As one pauses, looks around at all the work to be done, one starts to think, "I could really use some mindless, expendable, and interchangeable minions..."

What world-dominating super-villain, be they Goldfinger, Darth Vader, or Cobra Commander, can get by without minions? Darned useful they are, and as any hero can tell you, they make better targets than ducks in a shooting gallery. But minions are hard to come by in the 1/6th world. Oh, there are some troops in Hasbro's 12" Cobra lines, but it was hard to put together enough of them to really be effective as minions. Maybe better you should make your own.

Here's the thing about minions. Minions don't need to be cool. In fact, a bit of dorkiness is a good thing for the drones that keep your secret missile silo or nuclear reactor going. They don't need the best gear, because most of the time they're seen only in passing, or from a distance, or in a crowd, or flying through the air because the missile silo/nuclear reactor just exploded thanks to our hero. What's more important is that they be somewhat uniform. Heck, if they had much in the way of individuality, we might actually have sympathy for them as we blow them away, and that's not a good thing in this formula.

So, my suggestion when making minions is to look around and figure out what it is you have too many of, and especially what you have too many of and don't like or will never use. Not realistic? Looks goofy? Doesn't matter. If you've go multiples, it's minion material!

First, you need base figures. Just about anything will do, and you could use the cheapest Action Man knock-offs you have laying around, but I went a different way. I had an number of G3 Power Team bodies with black gloved hands and less-than-wonderful head-sculpts. The gloves were a good minion accessory, and there was a good chance I'd be hiding their faces anyway. So my minions sacrafice nothing in the way of articulation.

As for the rest, during my clean-up, I realized that I'd bought a lot of storms Shadows at Goodwill. I mean a lot. At the moment, I count eight nude storms Shadows stacked up in my office closet waiting for some unknown future project (or trade).

Why so many? Well, ask Rudy. Hasbro made huge numbers of those Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow two-packs and they were sold as loss-leaders. For the last six to eight months, those have been cycling out of kids rooms and into thrift stores. Mind you, you may find an occasional Snake Eyes, but they don't show up in equal numbers. At some point the kids pick their favorite, and Storm Shadow has to go. Good move kids. What kind of idiot ninja dresses in white anyhow?

So anyway, enough were dressed that I have five or so jumpsuits, and several of those still had their gun-belts, so that became the basis of my minion uniform. For boots, I picked the basic, early release Power Team, black combat boots. I just don't like the looks of these, but for minions, they're fine. Finally, all but my "officer" get black balaclavas, another thing I have lots of and rarely use. Minion often have their face covered anyway. Beyond that, several of them have been issued gas-masks of various sorts so as not to be killed by the fumes from the rocket fuel/reactor coolant.

The minions are still a work in progress. My officer could still use some kind of head-gear (maybe headphones, I like his widow's peak and hate to cover it), and none of them are armed (still looking for my box of pistols, though I suspect this will be a good use for over-sized Hasbro .45s). I may add a few other accessories if I can find the right stuff in bulk, and it would be nice if they all had matching gas-masks.

So, got any minions? Want to make some? Send me pictures, and I'll post them here.

Temple guardians (a how-to)

2006-03-14T23:08:00.000-08:00

If you read my writing blog, Multiplex of the Mind, you may have seen this recent post about my intention to build an interesting garden feature as a tribute to my departed kitty-friend Banzai. My idea is to build a (roughly) 1/6th scale "lost tomb of Banzai" out of paving stones, earth and plantings. It actually will be built over his burial-place, currently just marked with some old bricks.

Some friends of mine bury all their cats (and they've had lots over the years) in

their yard, and mark each with a special plant. But plants die (as they discovered to their distress recently when the plant marking a favorite cat's grave went south on them). Besides, a plant is just a plant as far as I'm concerned. I'm thinking about the far-future here.

So I've been staring at various kinds of stone and brainstorming what this would look like and how I'd build it. Once thing I wanted was for it to have some statuary and carvings. But how to do that? There are all kinds of lawn statuary, but most are the wrong scale for my tomb, and most are painted in a way that I'd have to undo anyway. I also needed something that looked like it could have been carved thousands of years ago by some lost civilization of cat-worshipers. Here's what I came up with:

I think these look pretty good, but I'm almost ashamed of how little they cost. In actuality, my stone statues are actually a couple of cheap and garish resin-cast statues that I bought at a dollar store. See the second picture for what I started with.

I almost passed on these, but something about the shape caught my eye, and I gave them another look. Resin, cheap or not, should be durable enough to last a good long time outside, and the scale was good. I bought six of them, thinking that would allow me to mess things up experimenting on a few of them, but the first pair turned out pretty well I think. Here's how I did it, in case you'd like to turn some cheap resin of your own into ancient statuary.

First, I sprayed them with gray primer to make sure the shape was as good as I thought it was. I was quite satisfied with the result, but it looked nothing like stone. So after searching around, I got some camouflage color spray paint in a color called "Khaki."

A good coat or two over the gray gave it a much better color, but it still didn't look like stone. To do that, I took a can of brown spray paint and sprayed it into the air several feet over the cats. A cloud of brown particles drifted down, adding dark flecks that suddenly make them look like stone. New stone unfortunately. They needed to be aged.

I boiled up some water in the kettle, threw a couple of Lipton tea-bags in a cup, brewed up the thickest, nastiest cup of tea you've ever seen, and broke out a small paint brush.

First, I washed a coat of tea over the entire cat and set it aside to dry. I repeated it, with a special emphasis on the crevices and folds in the statue. Then I repeated it several more times, concentrating on cracks, folds, and imperfections in the resin. Sometimes I'd slop the tea on, then wipe it off when it was partially dry. Finally, I had the ancient look I was searching for.

The cats you see here aren't quite through though. I'll give them a final clear coat of spray matt medium to protect the tea stains while keeping it dull. Then they'll be ready to decorate the steps of my temple, whatever it looks like.

That still leaves me four cats to play with. I'm thinking about taking a saw to one and find out if I can cut the head off. If so, I may be able to embed it in a mortar wall, or use it to top a pole or column.

I'm still trying to think of other decorative touches that are appropriate. We used to call Banzai the "monkey cat" for the way he'd swing down his cat ladder rather than jump, so adding some monkey figures to the temple would be appropriate too. I'd also like to work in his name somehow, disguised in some kind of ancient writing. I'll keep you posted on my tribute to my little friend.

Banzai always enjoyed sneaking into my Joe photos, so I think he'd like being able to stay in them for years to come.

Real Life AT

2006-03-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

From time to time, I plan to post some photos of real-life Adventure Team vehicles.

This very nice gyrocopter was photographed by my wife in Tillamook, Oregon a few years back. Not only is it an interesting little aircraft, somebody (consciously or not) has already painted it AT yellow!

For those who don't know, a gyrocopter, or gyroplane as they're sometimes called, is not the same as a helicopter. A helicopter has a powered rotor (or two) that is powered to lift and propel the vehicle. (There are also "compound" helicopters which may add auxiliary propulsion from propellers or jet engines, and sometimes auxiliary lift from small wings, for better high-speed performance, but these are rare, and I don't think any have seen actual service beyond experimental programs.)

A gyrocopter has a normally unpowered rotor. It simply turns in the airflow like a windmill, and in the process generates lift in the same way a conventional wing does as wind flows over it. The propulsion usually comes from a conventional airplane motor with a propeller. To get its rotor turning fast enough for flight, a simple gyrocopter usually will simply turn into the wind and taxi until the rotor is turning fast enough.

Unlike a helicopter, a gyrocopter generally can't take off vertically (though with a good head-wind, some can come close), but they can land with minimal runway, and fly slow. And they can land almost vertically, though it's a rapid decent with no hovering.

That's another rule for gyrocopters that doesn't apply to helicopters. No hovering.

So why would anybody want one? Well, they're very simple and rugged. They cost a tiny fraction of what a helicopter does, are far easier to maintain, and can do some of the same jobs (scouting, observation, aerial photography, access to short, rugged fields) almost as well.

There's one other thing that I've saved until now, just to avoid confusing the issue. Some gyrocopters cheat a bit on the vertical take-off business. They use a power system (either a separate gasoline motor, or a drive shaft connected to the propulsion motor with a clutch) to power the rotor up to flying speed. Then the motor is disengaged, the rotors are quickly turned to "bite" the air, the throttle on the propulsion motor is gunned, and the gyrocopter uses the stored energy in the rotors (which act like a bit flywheel) and "hop" into the air. In some designs, all this stuff is coordinated through the operation of one lever. The pilot waits till the rotors hit proper speed, activates the lever, and then fly for all they're worth.

You may be asking, if there's a system to drive the rotor with a motor, why not keep it connected in the air? The answer is: torque. Real helicopters (single rotor ones, anyway) have a tail rotor that counters torque. Without it, as the helicopter tried to spin its rotor, torque would cause the rotor to try and turn the body of the helicopter, until you're quickly flying a human Cuisinart and crash. As long as the body of the helicopter (or qyrocopter with powered rotor) is sitting firmly on the ground, torque isn't much of an issue, but the instant it leaves the ground torque takes over.

Why not add a tail-rotor to the gyrocopter? Because then it becomes a bad helicopter, and by the time you add all the things it needs to become a good helicopter, it's just as expensive, complex, and hard to maintain as the real thing. In fact, it is the real thing.

One last reason that the Adventure Team should have a gyrocopter is that it has a solid place in the Adventure culture that spawned it. Gyrocopters were all over TV in the 60s. Jacques Cousteau used one on occasion in filming his TV specials, and his son Phillipe was badly injured when one crashed on Easter Island. James Bond use a rocket firing gyrocopter in You Only Live Twice. And of course, there's a late comer in the form of Mad Max's "Gyro-Pilot."

So, Joe never had his gyrocopter, but it seems reasonable that he should have. Why not? Perhaps the AT was so well financed he never had to cut corners. Perhaps AT logistics were so good that maintaining and supporting actual helicopters in isolated jungles and deserts was never a problem. So look on this little craft as a missed opportunity for the AT.

Voyage to the Bottom of our shared past

2006-03-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

In the March 2nd post on his blog, author and film-historian John Muir writes an interesting appreciation of movie and TV tie-in books (a good part of my "day job," for those who didn't know) in general, and a beloved childhood "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" novel specifically. But there's also a bit about what is clearly the GI Joe Adventure Team, Sea Wolf submarine. Check it out.

Moving past Angry Joe Day

2006-03-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

Well, Angry Joe Day 2006 was a great success. Thanks to everyone who participated, either by entering the contest, donating prizes, or just in spirit. The plan for now is, if Joe isn't back on retail shelves by March 1, 2007 (and right now, there are no prospects that he will be), then we'll do this again next year.

Remember, this isn't just me, this is all of you. Feel free to take Angry Joe Day and make it your own. Find your own ways to celebrate. Start your own contests, whatever. All I ask is that you keep it in the spirit of fun in which it is intended. We don't want to piss Hasbro off, we just want to remind them that there are people out here who still care, maybe make them smile, and hopefully one day have somebody in charge say, "what the heck, let's give it another try!"

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about "Tanker" Dave and his great 1/6th vehicle contest. If you haven't gone over to his site to check out the winners, you should. Dave asked me to help with the judging, and let me say that it was hard. The quality of all the entries was very good, and the top finishers were just amazing. Congrats to them all, and a big thanks to Dave for sponsoring the contest.

Well, the good thing about the AJD photo contest is that it saved me from a month of posting much of anything of my own. The bad thing is that it's been forever since I posted anything of my own. Time to change that. Several new items have arrived here lately.

Most significantly, I found some thrift-store trains for my friend Eric, who buys, sells, and restores toy and model trains. When I called him, Eric reported that he'd seen some Joes from an estate being unpacked at a place he knew, and that he was going back that day. He was a little vague about what they might be (he really doesn't know GI Joes), only that they were 12," old, and some had fuzz. He set off to the store to see what he could do.

I live 60 miles across a mountain range from Eric, so I couldn't just bop over there to see what he'd found, and in fact, I wasn't able to pick them up for about a week. What I found was a grocery bag with five, nude, fuzzhead Joes in various states of disrepair. Several had pretty good fuzz, one had intact kung-fu grip hands, and among them was a decent looking talking astronaut with a semi-working talk-box. There was also a bag with an assortment of uniform items (some AT, some home-made, some undetermined) a few accessories (the silver astronaut boots, a mystery tape-recorder), and a bag full of incomplete (but mostly dressed) Megos. I don't recall exactly what I ended up getting these all for after we were all done, but I think it was about $25!

You see two of the guys in the picture. The sweater and shirt are GI Joe from the bag. The pants are from the bag and may be from the same Jungle Survival set as the shirt, but they have a zipper, not a snap. I'm speculating that mom put the zipper in, since some of the other uniform items included were (nicely) home-made. The faded camo pants are childhood vintage from my spares-box. The boots are all modern.

This is may Talking Astronaut, pulled apart for cleaning and repair of the talker. I still haven't figured out how to remove those nasty stains on the body, but they shouldn't show when he's dressed (I need a white jumpsuit though). I seem to be making progress on repairing the talking mechanism using instructions I found here. I'm really looking forward to getting him fixed and back-together.

I am a total novice, by the way, at the business of cleaning and repairing old Joes, so any tips and advice would be appreciated.

Finally, while I was in "the big city" to pick up my new-old Joes, I hit a few Goodwill stores in search of 1/6th stuff. The first store (one where I almost find something) came up empty. The second turned up only a Storm-Shadow from the two-pack minus missing everything except his uniform. I was standing in line at the checkout when I happened to look up near the front of the store, where some baby strollers and similar items were displayed, and was amazed to see a Hasbro M8 Scout-car!

I jumped out of line and trotted over. It was missing the turret and cover for the crew compartment, but that was okay. It saved me from any temptation to keep it stock, and not convert it into an AT vehicle. Question was, how much? My wife was waiting in the car (working on her ALIAS novel on her laptop like a good writer with a deadline) and I'd already spent Joe money that day, so I didn't want to press my luck.

I rolled it around, looking for a price tag. Finally found it under the nose. $3.99! Score! Well, she might justifiably use the "where will you put it?" complaint, but price would not be an issue.

Oh, and let me leave you with one last bit of kitbashing. I was doing some reorganization today, and spotted this guy in a box looking 85% as you see him here. I barely remember throwing him together a few months back. He was just a bunch of stuff thrown together with no real plan. The major armor pieces are from a Hasbro 12" "Batman Forever, Mr Freeze" figure, the same one who provided the head for my infamouse "Der Governator" figure. The base figure is a Max Steel Ultra Action body with a HOF Storm Shadow (I think) head in a black jumpsuit of unknown origin. Tonight, I swapped the black combat boots he'd original been wearing for some sci-fi looking Max Steel boots, added the arm armor, and fiddled with his headgear (he's actually wearing an Action Man helmet over a Spy Troops hard mask over Storm Shadow's molded mask.

No, I can't tell you who or what he's supposed to be, but he looks kind of cool.

Angry Joe Day Photo Contest Winners!

2006-03-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the moment you've all been waiting for, the winners of the Angry Joe Day photo contest! As I said, this was just heck to judge, and many worthy entries were cut in the selection.

There were simply so many good entries, that I had to make some kind of major cut, so my first determination was theme. Did it address the themes of the contest: the loss of GI Joe, wondering what happened to cause his retirement, wondering what has happened to him since, and how he might return? That was a nasty cut, as it made me throw out some simply wonderful pictures, technically great photography, wonderful customs, and some pretty good humor. But ultimately, this had to be about theme for the contest to be meaningful, so some nice stuff went out the door.

Next, I determined to spread the prizes around as much as possible. That meant one prize per customer. There were several people with multiple entries who might otherwise have been in the running for prizes more than once. But as soon as I found one entry by a person I liked more than the others, out went the rest.

That still didn't trim things down enough, so I had to make some tough calls. Did I make the right choices? Heck, I don't know. Probably not, but somebody had to win!

Finally, I had some help on judging with the donated prizes. Sean Huxter picked the winner for his Target Talking Sailor, and Murray Corrigan provided a list of his favorites (with far more than two selections). I compared Murray's list with mine and applied his prizes to one choice that was totally different than mine (but that I still liked) and two one of two others that were close-calls on my list. I had two that I liked equally well, and Murray liked only one of them, so it was all good! My prize went to one, and Murray's to the other.

So, with no further delay, let's get onto the winners!

First, the "It isn't a photo and he didn't draw it but I darned-well like it anyway award" goes to OmarS for "GI Joe Saves the Leopard."

As you'll recall, Omar did this with an on-line applet for creating game characters called HeroMachine V.2.0. Think of it as virtual kitbashing. Before judging, I went over and spent some time playing with this thing,k and decided that never in a hundred years would I have come up with this perfect little piece of Adventure Team art.

This could have come from a "lost" Adventure Team comic ad back in the 70s. It's easy to imagine the set and its contents. One wonders what the strange lines radiating from Joe's head are? My speculation: The Adventure Team had a chrome-plated super-hero and an Atomic Man. Why not cash in on the other 70s craze, psychic powers? Maybe telepathic Joe could talk to the animals. A hidden mechanism in Joe's chest would emit an echoing growl to indicate when he was communicating with the beasts.

Ah, the things that could have been!

For his creativity, Omar wins a signed copy of my novel, Mechwarrior, Fortress of Lies. Thanks for entering, Omar!

Though it wasn't my intent, it's just inevitable that some Sigma 6 guys were going to have to take it on the chin in some of the entries. The irony of course is that, in order for these people to bash Sigma 6, they first had to buy Sigma 6! Keep in mind that the spirit of this contest is all in fun. I wish Hasbro well with the Sigma 6 line. I just want my classic GI Joe as well!

Well, as I said, we got some, and they were pretty funny. This one just sucked me right in. We now present the first ever "Barbarian Owie Award" goes to John Romano for this toasty little item:

John is the winner of a signed set of my "Age of Conan" trilogy, "Anok, Heretic of Stygia." Thanks for the laugh, Joe. It's the "I love my job!" that makes it.

By the way, looking at this again, I wonder if John actually bought a Sigma 6 Duke, or if he just took a piece of clip-art and Photoshopped it in? John, you sneaky devil!

As I said, theme was a very important consideration in my choices, and it shows up strongly here. The first every (and maybe only ever) "He's Dead Jim," award goes SailorDude for Joe's Funeral!

What do I like about this one? Oh, start a list. There's the wonderful visual pun of the "Coffin Box." There's the fact that the Joe in the box actually is one of the last one's released, and probably the most iconic of that last bunch. There's the crowd of onlookers, representing 1/6th figures from many manufacturers. There's the horrified reaction from Dragon Natalie, and the maniacal grin of Construction Jack (I still think he did it!). It's sad, it's funny, it's fun, it works on lots of levels, even if it's not the most intricate or kitbashed of the entries. I just like it.

SailorDude is the winner of a Valor vs. Venom Wild Bill, one of my favorite figures from this under-appreciated line. Thanks for entering!

Here's another winner that plays straight to theme, and straight to my funny-bone. What's poor Joe doing now that he's out of work and down on his luck? Several entries had interesting ideas, but I think this was one of the best. The "Pardon Me Mister, But Can You Spare A Dog-tag Award" goes to Justin O'Hogan for his "homeless Joe" series.

Justin wins a 10th Mountain Division GI Joe, whose backpack, canteen, knife and stocking cap will doubtless prove useful down at the hobo camp down by the railroad tracks. Thanks for entering, Justin!

Ah, poor Sigma 6, thy spirit of production-excellence seems to have failed you in this next entry. Once again, one of the new guys is in trouble, but this time, it seems certain somebody bought him just to loot his gear and throw him to the lions. Okay, not lions in this case. The first Corrigan Holster Award goes to Daniel Edwards for "Feedin' Time!"

Daniel wins a pair of fabulous Corrigan Holsters, made to order, sent directly from the master himself! Congrats, Daniel!

Next, our second Corrigan award goes to a winner that shouldn't be a huge surprise. You might suppose that Murray would have a special weakness for something with a western theme! Actually, it's plays well to my themes as well, so lets hear it for Blaine Jacobs" and his entry, "Old Joe Rides Away!"

You know what they say, if you have to go out, go out with style. Riding off into the sunset certainly is a classic. Blaine will be able to fix his riders up with a couple of custom-made holsters courtesy of Corrigan Holsters! Thanks, Blaine, and a huge thanks out to Murray for his excellent contributions.

Next up, another special guest award, this one presented by that most-excellent Joe, Sean Huxter. For his winner, Sean has chosen ScottE's "Angry Joe."

Keep in mind that this is an animated GIF file, which I can't directly host here, so you'll have to follow this link over to Joe World Online to see it in its full animated glory!

Scott is the winner of a Target-exclusive Talking Sailor sent directly from Sean. (Note to puny, Hasbro lawyers: all in good fun! Just a joke! Ha-ha! Aaaarrrrr!) Thanks for your entries, Scott, and a big thanks out to Sean Huxter for digging into his stash for the Talking Sailor.

Well, it's time for our final prize. This one was an early favorite of mine, and while many wonderful entries have arrived since, I just kept coming back to this one. It's about the theme. It's about the clever and original kitbashing. It's the great dialogue, and that goofy expression that sells it at the end. The "Ya Can Blow Me Down But Ya Can't Keep Me Down" award goes to David Eden for "Heah'’s whut the baoys down to th daock waz asayin."

David is, appropriately enough, the winner of a GI Joe Navy Dolphin Handler, pried from my reluctant fingers by your overwhelming response to the contest!

My apologies to all the great photos and contributors that didn't make the prize list. You're all winners o me. I'm trying to come up with some consolation prizes for the rest of you, so don't give up on your mailbox quite yet. I'll see what I can do for you.

Thanks to everyone who entered and made this the best Angry Joe Day ever! (Okay, so it's only the second one, but it's better than that other one by a mile!) Happy Angry Joe Day to you all!

Afterword: My apologies to John Romano. I've fixed it, but when I initially posted this, I had his name as "Joe Romano." Now, I know better than that, but as John said in his email pointing out my mistake, I probably had Joe on the brain while I was typing this post.

Of course it could also have been that I was thinking of a big car dealer in Eugene, Oregon, where I used to live, named Joe Romania. When I think of his name, I'm reminded of the annual "Tour of Homes" they had there.

Every year there were tours of high-end houses that had just been built. We'd go and admire the nice ones, but some of them we felt were ugly, poorly designed, and poorly built, made for people with more money than common sense. When we saw houses like this, we never failed to heckle, much to the builder's displeasure.

One year the biggest and most expensive house was one we didn't like much. The cabinetry cut-corners on the details, it was too big for the lot, had no privacy, and it was badly laid out. (There was a second-floor balcony overlooking the bed in the master bedroom! What they heck were they thinking with that one?).

So we laughed when we heard that Joe Romania had bought the house, and made jokes at his expense now and then. It kinda seemed like the kind of house a car-dealer with too-much-money should buy. So we remembered it the next year when some houses on the tour were on the street right behind the Joe Romania house. We ended up parking back there, and walking along his tall, back fence. Again, we joked about the house as we walked, and a turned to the fence and loudly said "hi, Joe Romania!"

From directly behind the fence a confused voice said, "hi."

My friends and I scrambled like spooked rabbits.

And that is my Joe Romania story.

Thanks, John. You're still a good Joe, whatever your name is.

ANGRY JOE DAY 2006 is here!

2006-03-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

Well, it's finally here. Angry Joe Day 2006, the day when we all shout to the skies out defiant cry, GI JOE LIVES!

Last year, when I declared the first Angry Joe Day, it was out of a sense of despair that 12" GI Joe was gone, possibly forever. But this year, there's still quite a bit to celebrate. There are the great 40th Anniversary Action Man sets on the way, the GI Joe Collector Club's continuation of the GI Joe 40th series, the flood of cheap 40th sets that have show up in various liquidation outlets, and the great "Foreign Adventurer" membership figure just announced by the club. That, plus the great response I've gotten on this contest give me great hope for the future.

Speaking of the contest, I have decided the winners, and I'll announce them a little later tonight when I have more time. Let me just say that it was VERY hard. All of you who entered did a great job, and you all deserve to win, but there just weren't enough prizes to go around, so I had to draw the line somewhere.

However, I'm pleased and excited to announce a last-minute adjustment that makes it just a little easier. Murry Corrigan of Corrigan Holsters has decided to donate a PAIR of custom holsters (made to order) for each of two lucky winners. Thanks, Murray. You do great work. Now I'm jealous of the winners!

Add this to the Target Talking Sailor previously donated by our good friend Sean Huxter, and three fewer people are going away empty-handed. Thanks, guys!

Sean chose his own winner for the Sailor, and Murray gave me a list of some of his favorite entries. I mingled it on with my own and awarded the holsters to two people on his list.

So stay tuned. Prizes tonight!

The Angry Joe Day Photo Contest is OOOOoovaaah!

2006-02-27T00:41:00.000-08:00

Midnight PST on the 26th has passed. It is now time for tasting and judgment! (Sorry, too much Iron Chief.)

Anyway, baring technical difficulties, winners should be announced on March 1st, ANGRY JOE DAY 2006! Get ready to party!

A big thanks out to those of you who entered. You're all winners in my book, in that you're all doing your part to keep the spirit of classic GI Joe alive. Keep this up, and Joe can never truly die.

And a special thanks to Sean Huxter who added a Target Talking Sailor to our list of prizes(Heck, I wish I could win that one!) and who will be the guest judge who decides who's going to win it! Thanks, Sean! You are one genuine Good Joe!

Here are the final Angry Joe Day Stats as I see them (correct me if I'm wrong).

Total entries (some entries consist of multiple photos or panels): 30

Total entrants: 16

I said that if we passed 25 entries and 15 entrants, I'd put the Navy Dolphin Handler in the prize pool (no pun intended). So folks, it's killing me to part with it, but it's done! Still that's only six prizes for sixteen entrants. I know some deserving entries will go home empty-handed, which is unfortunate. You guys have exceeded all my expectations.

(By the way, the above picture was filched from the friendly folks at Good Stuff to Go, a great place to shop. The actual item is still in sealed box.)

The LAST Angry Joe Day entry, courtesy of SailorDude!

2006-02-27T00:32:00.000-08:00

Here's Joel's caption for the picture:

GI Joe 1964-2005
Action Man "He was my cousin. The Bastards!"
Power Joel "He was only 41 years old. I knew him most of my life. They cut him down in his prime!"
Cajun Tim "How did Power Gordon get here so fast?"
Power Thom "Power Joel...don't you think that you are a bit over dressed."
Power Joel "Power Thom...do you think that you could have washed up a little first."
Barbie "He looks better dead than Ken looks alive. Hey, where do I get my cheeseburger?"
Han Solo "Boy, when THEY kick someone to the curb they do it right! Look at that crappy coffin."
Max Steel "Dude, this is a bummer!"
Lanard "They could at LEAST closed his eyes."

The figures in this photo are:
In the coffin GI Joe Land Adventurer Mejier Special
From left to right:
Soldier of the World, Action Man, Top Cop, Barbie, Power Team (PT) Gordon, PT Cajun Tim, PT Power Joel, PT Power Thom, Construction Jack Carpenter, 21C German Soldier, Dragon Natalie, Lanard, Max Steel and Star Wars Hon Solo.

Joe obviously was riding off into the sunset when somebody shot him in the back! Could be Hasbro, but Construction Jack looks awfully damned pleased with himself. If I were a detective investigating this crime, he'd be my prime suspect.

Angry Joe Day Entry - Blane Jacobs

2006-02-27T00:28:00.000-08:00

I've mostly been posting these in the order they came in, but it was tempting to save this one for last. After all, shouldn't things end with the hero riding off into the sunset?

Angry Joe Day Entry - One last from Justin Hogan

2006-02-27T00:23:00.000-08:00

Here's what Justin has to say about this one:

here is one more
With the missing of Ken joe and actionman became underwear models to make money for rent

Angry Joe Day Entry - More from Justin Hogan

2006-02-27T00:16:00.000-08:00

Says Justin about this:

I am right in the middle of moving
I thought since joe lost his job and had to move this is what i would look like
here he is with a couple of friends loading his stuff

Angry Joe Day Entry - C. Martin

2006-02-27T00:07:00.000-08:00

Here's the back story on this one, from C. himself:

Steve,

Here's my Angry Joe Day entry. Well, when I say my, that's debatable.

See, I looked over my collection and had all these great ideas, but I was sick last night and didn't have the time or inclination to do any of them; Joe as a doorstop, Joe as a pencil holder, Joe as a toilet brush (flocked of course), Joe as a fill in for Buster with my custom Mythbusters figures...

So anyway, I was checking out Huxter's Adventure team page and saw the Aging Adventurer photo... and this idea just hit me. So, the Joe photo is not really mine, nor is the background, but I did photoshop it and come up with all the clever bits.

Enjoy!

C.

Given that the central image had been borrowed from Sean's site, I ran this past him before posting. He graciously gave it the thumbs-up, so here it is!

Angry Joe Day entry, Eliot

2006-02-22T21:40:00.000-08:00

Eliot submits another animated GIF file, titled "Mad as hell." Since animated GIFs can't be posted directly to Blogger, Eliot sends this link to the image.

By the way, you might want to check out his Echo Team Headquarters blog. Lots of other great AT photos there.

Angry Joe Day entry: more from Omar's

2006-02-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Here's what OmarS has to say about this one:

"Here's another set of entries. This is a two parter-

What does Joe do since he's been retired?

He calls his other retired friends over and watches
The View."

I knew things were rough for Joe, but I had no idea!

Angry Joe Day entries: MaxMike

2006-02-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

A couple of cool entries from MaxMike up Washington way. Says Mike, "Here's my entry. Angry enough for ya?" Not sure how these speak to the theme, but angry they are! Angry Joe as fine-art.

UPDATE: Incoming mail from Mike. He forgot his caption (thus addressing the theme thing) -

"Knew there was something I forgot:

'Think 12 INCH IS DEAD, EH? TAKE THAT HASBRO!!!!'"

Happy Joe Day!

2006-02-22T20:54:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind here. We spent the long weekend in Pasco, Washington for the Radcon gaming/science-fiction convention. This was our first time attending this convention, and we had a great time. I've little doubt we'll be returning next year. I hauled along some cold-weather Joes and a Yeti, hoping for a photo op, but although the temperatures hovered in the mid-20s, it was dry and clear. Can't say that I'm complaining about that. That's a long way to be driving in the snow.

When I got back though, I had a case of con-crud. I'm not used to the dry desert air, or the pollen over there (I have bad hay-fever), and hotel air is just never good for you. So I've had a bit of a cough and runny nose since we got back.

All of which has led me to neglect the blog a bit. I've got several Angry Joe Day entries stacked up here to post. I'll try to get to that tonight.

But getting to the "Happy Joe Day" title for this post, the best news since the cancellation of the 12" Joe line just hit. Take a look at this year's membership figure for the GI Joe Collector's club, the "Foreign Adventurer" and the wonderful accessory set that you can purchase to go with him. Here's the link.

So this means that if you join (or renew) by the deadline, you're going to get a flocked vintage-type figure with a unique headsculpt (previously used for the "Battle of Kursk" convention set), an AT tank-tee, and shorts. But for a mere $25 there will be a nifty accessory kit to turn this into a fully-outfitted figure. It consists of brown boots, a black AT Jumpsuit (not a two-piece black uniform like the Black Spider set, though they look superficially similar), shoulder-holster and pistol, AT dog-tag, brown boots, and (most exciting to me) a black AT bomber jacket with AT logos on the front breast-pocket position and on the back!

I just can't say how great this is. The only way it could have been better would have been the addition of KFG hands. Apparently there was some production problem that made this impossible, but we've been assured that KFG hands will be available on Club offerings sometime in the future, so that's something to look forward to.

Not only does this look like a great set on it's own, but it's loaded with kitbash potential. You could get THREE AT figures out of this, by putting the tee, jumpsuit, and jacket on three different figures.

Anyway, it's just great that we have something positive to celebrate Angry Joe Day with. This is what you guys get for keeping the spirit of Joe alive. A big Angry Joe Day victory growl goes out to the GI Joe Collector's Club.

Angry Joe Day entries - ScottE

2006-02-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

Here are two more from ScottE:

"If there won't be any 1:6 Joes in the USA, then ScoutMaster Joe will
just have to get himself to the UK and team up with Action Man."

Of this second entry, Scott says:
"How can we undo this poor decision on Hasbro's part?
Perhaps a neuralizer, judiciously applied.

-poof-

"You just decided GIJoe needs to be put into full production immediately."

Angry Joe Day entries - Justin O'Hogan

2006-02-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

Here are a few funnies from Justin O'Hogan. Says Justin:

"So just what has Joe been up to since the shelving of the line?
I was just wondering that when I came around a corner and here he was."

His original file name on the last picture speaks for itself:

this looks like a job for the kung fu grip.jpg

MORE new prizes

2006-02-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, you have come through with more entries, and I'm holding to my promise to add more prizes. Actually through, the big hats-off this time has to go to my buddy Sean Huxter who offered out-of-the-blue to contribute a TC Talking Sailor to the prize pool! Thanks Sean! (I don't even have one of these myself.)

Also, considering that Sean was contributing the prize (and is even shipping it directly to the winner), I thought it only fair that Sean gets to decide who wins it. So consider Sean my special-guest-judge.

And just because I couldn't just sit on my hands, I'm adding a signed set of my "Age of Conan" novels to the pool as well.

So, to date our prizes are:

TC Talking Sailor GI Joe (courtesy Sean Huxter)
Valor Vs. Venom Wild Bill GI Joe
CC 10th Mountain Division GI Joe
Signed copy of "MechWarror Dark Age, Fortress of Lies"
Signed copy of my "Age of Conan, Anok, Heretic of Stygia" trilogy

Not to be sneezed at.

I must say, I'm delighted with the quantity and quality of entries so far. This is going to be a tough contest to judge. Heck, one reason to add more prizes is because I I'm going to hate sending some of these great entries home empty-handed, but not everyone can win.

Okay, I'm going to throw one more goal out there. If I can get 25 entries from at least 15 different people, I'll (gulp) throw in a GI Joe Navy Dolphin Handler.

Angry Joe Day entry, Jeff Goff

2006-02-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here's one from Jeff Goff. The Dragon reference cracks me up, never a bad thing.

By the way, a reminder with any of these picture posts that you can click on the small picture in the post to see the full-sized shot (where available). If you aren't doing this, the text in some posts may be darned hard (or impossible) to read, and you may be missing out on some really cool details. So if it catches your eye, you haven't seen the whole picture until you give it another click.

Angry Joe Day Entry, Brad Checkett

2006-02-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

In Brad's three-part entry, Joe is looking for new ways to fill his spare time. Says Brad, "After no longer serving in the Armed Forces Gi Joe is spending his retirement in his backyard carving little pieces of wood. As you can see he has a lot of carving to do."

Angry Joe Day entry - Jayne, the sergeant majorette

2006-02-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

And here's one from Jayne. Looks like Joe is getting really desperate for work. On the other hand, who doesn't like playing a villain?

Angry Joe Day entries, Omar S

2006-02-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

Five entries from Omar. His descriptions:

Pic 1- G.I.Joe, Land Adventurer

Pic 2- Joe's office, empty since he's been cancelled.
:(

Pic 3- joe's newest recruits

Pic 4- 12" RAH Breaker, the way he should've been done

Pic 5- My take on how G.I.Joe should come back.

New Angry Joe Day prize added!

2006-02-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

As I promised over on the Sandbox, if I got enough entries, there would be more prizes added. ScottE, entry brings us to ten entries from six participants. I said if we got ten entries from at least five participants, I'd add another prize.

So now I'm added a boxed 10th Mountain Division Joe as shown. Forgive the cruddy picture. I didn't have one of my own handy, and filched this off a catalog site somewhere. I'll try to post a better shot later.

Your new goal is fifteen entries from ten different participants, and then I'm going to impose on Sean Huxler's kind offer of a TC talking sailor. If we hit fifteen entries OR ten participants, I'll throw a signed set of my "Age of Conan" trilogy paperbacks into the prize pool. Beat that with a stick.

You can help, by getting the word out. I frequent a number of YahooGroups, but not all of them, nor do I hang out on JoeWorld On-line or any of the other web-based forums. Let them know about this. More entries, more prizes!

Is he insane? Possibly.

Angry Joe Day Entry - ScottE

2006-02-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

I ran into a technical problem with this entry. Scott sent in an animated GIF file. Blogger lets me upload these, but converts them a JPG file of only one frame of the animation, and where's the fun in that?

Fortunately, Scott provided a link to the shot on JoeWorld Online where you can view the animated GIF in all its glory! Take a look, and let me know if you have any problems.

Angry Joe Day entries - David Eden 4

2006-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Says David:
"HeahÂs whut the baoys down to th daock waz asayin.

Lahst entry fer me, Steve!"

Love this on all sorts of levels: unusual subject matter, imaginative kitbashing, and that expression in the last panel kills me. Clearly Hasbro missed the boat (pun intended) when they make "Eagle Eye GI Joe" instead of "Bug-eye GI Joe."

Angry Joe Day Entry - David Eden 3

2006-02-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

David says of this one: "I would like to send the folks at Hasbro down to you-know-where to meet THIS guy!"

Angry Joe Day entry - David Eden 2

2006-02-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

Says David about this, "I am so ANGRY that Hasbro cancelled the 12” line that sometimes I feel…"

Angry Joe Day Entry - David Eden

2006-02-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

The first of several entries from David Eden. Here's what he has to say about this one:

"Me Intruder and me very angry that Has-been cancelled Joes. Who me gonna wump now? Squidgy little Joes not worth it!"