1991
Posted by kingphilbert | Filed under Customs
I don’t think I could say that 1991 was a good year for GI Joe. Many beloved characters went into third and fourth revisions, no longer resembling any previous or iconic incarnations from the 80s. In 1989 the cartoon went back into production, now under the direction of DiC and not Sunbow, with a complete lack of detail in it’s styling nor focus on past happenings only to come to a close in this same year. For me personally I was pretty much done with GI Joe outside of the comic books and on to better things, my teenage years.
All that didn’t mean there wasn’t promise in what was laid out or done with certain characters so this past spring I went back and took a good look. Primarily at the v4 Snake-Eyes which was a complete 180 from the ninja commando we loved as kids. Now pale blue and black with a bright orange [paintball mask style] visor and matching weapons, it’s no wonder it was easy to loose interest. This was practically an all new GI Joe for a whole new decade of kids. It is also easy see how this and the years previous were left out of the 25th Anniversary line. Simply put, they weren’t the icons we knew 25 years ago.
Updated parts and modern styling made it easy for this figure to look completely new, but it also made it hard to pair together just the right pieces to keep him reminiscent of what he was. Gone are the tactical vest and any hint of orange or neon red. Even my blue is darker. What remained however was essentially the same basic premise. I used the head of City Strike SE to keep the goggles and face mask. I went with a ribbed vest in grey paired with the belt and shoulder gear from the aforementioned City Strike SE to replace the bulky tac vest and give him a lighter more urban feel. One thing that remained a constant across the earlier SEs however that went missing here were arm pouches. Why the original v4 had He-Man biceps instead will always be a mystery so back came the pouches. To finish him off I used the legs from the City Strike SE that were pretty much a gimmie to create this Snake-Eyes.
In the end I was more than pleased with the overall results of this figure and he now stands as one of my favorite customs to date. For those familiar with v4 you can easily see he’s a modern update and for those that aren’t I hope you can see it’s well balanced restyle to a great character. As usual more images can be seen in the Customs gallery.
