Converting G.I. Joe Classified to retro style: a thread (updated 8/16)

[Daig]

Hey, gang. Let me start with this: I’m not sure why Hasbro decided to give us modernized versions of 40 year old characters. I suppose there are some collectors that want it that way, but do most of us? I don’t! Anyway, I’m going to post all of the custom alterations I’ve made to my classified figures, starting with Grunt.

First of all, here is the figure out of the box:


I proceeded to remove all the extra gear, and I cut his vest straps off, reattaching them to the jumpsuit underneath like the vintage figure. I got rid of his helmet and ordered one from an Etsy seller, painted it the same green as the jumpsuit, and I swapped his gloved hands with bare ones. Picked up an M-16 from the same seller, and came up with this:





And in comparison to the vintage figure:


Many more to add!

 

[Daig]

The next one up is one I had in the regular thread here; Rock ‘n’ Roll had a good number of changes that I wanted to alter to his vintage look. I used Goo Gone to remove the tattoos from his arms, painted his shirt fully green, shaved down his beard a little and lightened the color somewhat, replaced the helmet with an Etsy custom and removed the extra gear to minimize the quantity of accessories. Here is the figure out of the box:


Here are my custom pics:









And a vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

Not much altering required on Copperhead, really just repainting gloves and arm bands, painting the cod piece, dry brushing some more light green and blue-green, and an extra strap removal:


My alterations:






Vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

Spirit was one of the earliest custom alterations I made, so these pics may look familiar, if you follow the G.I. Joe thread for a couple of years. Here is the classified version out of the box:


So, I cut off the extra straps on his chest and legs, gave a light blue dry brush to his shirt, painted the knife hilts white, painted the boots and fur the same color, and most importantly, added the loin cloth flap on the front and back. I still want to swap out his gloved hands for flesh ones, and I will soon buy a great “dart gun“ accessory on Etsy. Here are the alterations:





Vintage figure comparison:

 

[Daig]

Cover girl! The classified version out of the box:


Removed her belt, but mostly repainting with this one; note the color of the pants and straps matching the vintage figure, while the undershirt is a slightly different shade of tan. I also painted the fur of her jacket, gave a dry brush to her hair, and matched the green of her boots and the blue of her pistol holster and control pad holster to the vintage figure. Here are the alterations:




And the vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

Here’s another one I altered pretty early on: Zartan. The production figure:


What bothered me most were the gauntlets; so, I proceeded to remove them, shave down the peg holding it to his forearms, and then repainted the forearms. As always, I removed the extra stuff and moved the knife blade to his right boot, repainted the knife, blade chrome, and gave a dry brush to his hood and pants to emphasize the deep purple color.




And the vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

Stalker was a pretty easy one; the production version:


Basically, I removed the extra gear, gave him a greener dry brush to emphasize the green color of his uniform, and painted black his boots and belt straps.




And the vintage version:

 

[Daig]

Recondo v1 was right up there for me as top three or four favorites back in the day. Here is the tiger force version (the only one released so far) out of the box:



I was just going to wait for the inevitable (and now announced) version one figure, but I found one on clearance, so I decided to repaint it entirely. Chopped off some of his hair in the back; I added a handle to the top of his backpack, and also made some alterations to the straps for his holster, and even added boot wraps out of the same fabric used for Spirit’s loincloth:






Vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

One of the first figures that I got in the classified line was Flint; of course, I had to remove the battle armor and reveal the warrant officer shirt beneath! First of all, here he is out of the box:



So I cut away the armor pieces and attached the suspenders with pouches pretty close to the vintage version; I gave a repaint to much of the pants’ camouflage, and added some boot wraps from the Spirit loin cloth fabric I had used. Recently revisited this custom to get the camouflage colors, a little, closer to the vintage version, and added the red and white patches to his shoulder regalia. I tilted his beret a bit, and bought a shotgun accessory from Etsy that was close to the vintage shape, and got this:








And the vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

So happy when they released Heavy Artillery Roadblock, as that was the only one vintage version I had. Here is the classified release:



Of course I had to replace the rifle with a nice M2 from Etsy, which I painted green, and gave a good green dry brushing to his gloves and sheaths, orange dry brushing to his pants, and a brightening of the camouflage shirt to match the vintage figure. Here are my alterations:



And the vintage:

 

[Daig]

This one was important to me, as I considered series 2 from 1983 to be my favorite. Torpedo! The classified version had a lot of modernizations to it, but, thankfully, the base figure was pretty ready to go:



First of all, bought a vintage-styled oxygen tank backpack and torpedo gun from Etsy; cut up his oxygen mask to only cover his mouth and nose, sliced off pouches from an Endor rebel trooper backpack to serve as the four pouches on his chest, repainted the flippers and cut off the pointy ends, and what really made the figure pop was a coatng of Mod podge across the entire wetsuit to give that shiny look! Here are the alterations:




And the vintage version:

 

[yodashizzle]

Yo Daigo_Bah!!!! He'll fight for better looking figures wherever Hasbro causes trouble! What a great thread, these are all ones I had as a kid, and some of my faves! I don't understand Hasbro's choices for some of their Joe releases, your mods make them a lot more like the vinty flavor they shoulda gone with.

 

[Daig]

Thanks Shiz! Admittedly, the Scrap Iron recently released is a cool looking figure, and the missile system update makes sense and looks great, but still is too modernized for my tastes! This is how it came:



It was pretty clever how they included the holster straps to mimic the paint scheme on the pelvis of the vintage figure, but I still wanted to get close to the original, so I removed all the straps and painted red stripes on the pelvis. I also repainted the boots crimson, and brightened up the red on the body armor. I bought a retro style missile system from Etsy, complete with a quad leg stand and wired controller!






The vintage comparison:

 

[yodashizzle]

Scrap Iron was always a favorite of mine, lost the figure but somehow retained his rocket launcher. Are you going to modify the launcher so it's just on four legs instead of treads?

 

[Daig]

Thanks! Actually, I was able to find the figure without the missile launcher on eBay for $28 shipped, knowing that I was going to buy the custom printed one from Etsy! The one I’m going to get is shaped very similarly to vintage, and has the four legs instead of the treads

 

[Daig]

Another thankfully minor number of alterations necessary, was to Firefly:


Pretty much just had to remove the extra gear such as the forearm sheaths, straps and belts from the hip holsters, and paint the rifle green:


Vintage version:

 

[yodashizzle]

You're knocking out the ones that I have a real nostalgia for! Firefly was one of the Joes with tiny accessories, in his case, a small Jitterbug phone. Which, of course, I lost. I'm hoping you'll do Tunnel rat at some point. I managed to lose his two flashlights that plugged into his backpack though I still have his backpack as of today. Firefly looks so much better without those things on his forearms. Sometimes Hasbro goes a little too far adding things. Roadblock looks a million times better with his old school 50 cal, that silly *** Gatlin gun is too over the top. Same with Recondo. The thigh pad/knife sheath? The **** is that, Hasbro?!?!?! Brilliant solution btw on his backpack. That screen lining stuff has some versatility.

 

[Daig]

The retro release of Lady Jaye corrected/altered the paint job to vintage, so all I had to do with this one was fix the belts and knife sheath. Here is the classified version:


Note the alterations to the belt straps, and the knife sheath added to her right boot, like the vintage figure:




Vintage comparison:

 

[Daig]

Hasbro does an admirable job with many modern updates; Bazooka was one such example, though I intended to paint most of his clothing closer to the vintage hues and change the bazooka a bit. Here it is out of the box:


I mixed up a green drab color that somewhat matched the vintage figure, and painted his pants, backpack and helmet, and then lightened it a bit more for his belt. I actually had to repaint the blue numbers and white borders on his jersey, which was a real B, but I think I got it looking pretty good. Lastly, I cut off the handle and pistol grip from the bazooka, and repainted the whole thing black with a little bit of silver drybrushing to once again get it closer to vintage. Here are my pics:






And the vintage comparison:

 

[yodashizzle]

Daigo_Bah is a qualified expert in diorama production and photography, figure alteration, LAW rocket system, recoiless rifle, and all Warsaw Pact RPG systems. A native of Louisiana (also home to Gung-Ho), he is noted for being a swift, strategic thinker as well as being good with a razor and paintbrush.

 

[obiwozkenobi]

Keep up the great work. I look forward to your updates on this line!

 

[Daig]

Thanks y’all! Would you believe I’ve been obsessing over the (incorrect) green color of Bazooka’s outfit since yesterday; edit: updated with new pics! Looking back at some past ones, I think I’ll revisit Flint with the same olive drab that I gave Bazooka

 

[Daig]

Dreadnoks!! Man, I loved these guys. I was surprised to see that they were released in the last year that I collected G.I. Joe: 1985. My memories were such that I thought I played with them for more than just that last year when I moved on to other toy lines. Anyway, Buzzer was relatively close to the vintage look, but I knew right away that several things would have to change. Here is the classified release:


Once I removed the thigh wraps, the only change I had to make to the body was to Dremel off the right wrist band, and make his hand flesh. So, I first painted the jeans to the proper acid wash color, cut pieces of thin felt painted black to match those on the vintage figure thighs, painted the studs of his belt black, and gave his shirt a better vintage tan hue. His goggles needed to be altered to sunglasses: I cut the top curve of each goggle, and placed a droplet of metallic chrome into the lens to make it look like flat shades. Bought a fantastic gas can backpack custom from Etsy (and I originally intended to buy the chainsaw gun from there as well, but decided to give it a go myself. This is the chainsaw from the production version, attached to a portion of an earlier figure’s rifle with a few other greeblies attached and painted!), and got this result:








And the vintage comparison:




Ripper is an even more effective alteration that I’ll post tomorrow!

 

[Daig]

So there were going to be some pretty substantial changes to Ripper, the other Dreadnok in the wave. The classified release:



Both wristbands off, shoulder harness off, cut off the chain from the left side of his belt and took my blade to his mohawk, rat tail in the back, and pointed beard. Then the painting began: I absolutely HAD to re-create his cut off shirt! So I painted the flesh color on his stomach, removed his tattoos with some goo gone, repainted his jeans to the acid wash color similar to Buzzer, repainted all his hair black, and painted his necklace and blade hilt gold. I drybrushed his jeans with a little bit of white, the grenades and knife sheath with an olive drab green and attached them directly to his shirt, and drybrushed his rifle (replaced the magazine clip I lost with a cut down one from Grunt’s M-16) with some silver. New edit: I intended to buy the jaws-of-life accessory someone printed on Etsy, but decided to give it a try myself. This is cut down from the production version, with pieces added to mimic the vintage detail and size. I spray-painted the amazingly detailed generator backpack accessory from Etsy, and added the hose to it! Here are my pics:








The vintage comparison:

 

[yodashizzle]

I don't know why they didn't come with backpacks like the vintage versions. Memo to Hasbro.......Get it right, fangbreaths!!!! Those look great!

 

[Daig]

Thanks, pal - yeah, backpacks are probably what I want the most from this line: ninja snake eyes, flint, and, of course the Dreadnoks among others

 

[yodashizzle]

Weird that they gave the backpack to Zartan but not his henchmen. I remember my vintage version broke so it wouldn't stay clasped closed. I always loved how Ripper had a cable to plug up his jaws of life/jackhammer to the backpack. I wonder nowadays if that'd be cordless???


I also loved that the Dreadnoks had English accents and said stuff like "'right as rain, Rippah!!!" And how Ripper had so much crap on his necklace. Like, how many dogtags do you need, dude? I guess they were taken from unfortunate Joes they'd bagged and used as badges of honor.

 

[Daig]

Me too, and I had totally forgotten how in the comics they would always talk about how much they liked grape soda! I wonder what grape soda really is in real life lol. By the way, I updated the pics of the Dreadnoks with both weapons that I ended up creating myself from the existing parts!

 

[yodashizzle]

Luv me grape soda!....lol....


Nice work on their weapons.

I love that they gave Buzzer teeth like that, even the vintage one. It's like Austin Powers and Beavis had a baby.....

 

[Daig]

Updated the thread with Scrap Iron’s missile system!
Edit: updated Ripper with the hose attached to his generator backpack!

 

[Daig]

I might just address these posts directly to you, Shiz! Thanks for the feedback; not sure if others are liking the effort, or don’t understand why I’m converting them to their original look as closely as possible lol. Anyway, got the two pulse exclusives at once, so I got started with Tripwire; classified version:



So they gave us the Hurt Locker action figure! As usual, I removed all extra gear, including the thigh sheaths, shoulder pads, and body armor, which I cut into pieces. I gave his jumpsuit a light dry brush of pea soup green to bring out that color a bit more, and painted his boots and gloves a slightly lighter shade of gray. His goggles were painted black, his backpack the same pea green as his jumpsuit, and I cut his holster off of the leg sheath and glued it directly onto his pants. That holster and the body armor pieces were repainted with a dark blue gray, followed by a coat of mod podge to get the shininess of the chest armor. Here are those pics:








And the vintage comparison!


Snow Job coming up next!

 

[yodashizzle]

Excellent stuff as always, Tripwire was one of my go-to Joes back in the day! I always loved his backpack and the three landmines you could pop in there, of course as was so often the case, I couldn't keep all three together and had to get by with just two. I think I picked up an accessory pack but the backpack and mines were brown and that made my Tripwire look very haphazard and unprofessional with two green mines and one brown one. I also remember painting his mine detector with some silver highlights and a dot of red for a detail like it had a light. One of my first forays into customizing actually. I don't mind the additional pads and armor on this one as far as how Hasbro veered off the original look but you did him up right with your alterations. Nice work around the belt and neck, those parts are difficult to pair back without fudging the whole figure up, I've tried similar operations on some Star Wars 3.75" stuff and it can easily end up being an exercise in how to totally ruin something.

Okay, time to say this......C'MON PEOPLE!!!!! Lurkers and apathetic registered members .....get in here and say something! I cannot be the only one to comment on this thread, show Daigo_Bah some love!

 

[obiwozkenobi]

Like I said before, I look forward to your posts on this thread every time I check in on Rebelscum. I was thinking of sending a message asking when the next one is coming but didn’t want to be that guy. I was more of a Joe kid than a SW kid really, but when a house fire melted all my ships I decided to sell my figures to start my SW collection. Haven’t looked back but I do like some of the classified series figs and love what you’re doing with them.

 

[Daig]

Thanks so much for saying so, and so sorry to hear about the fire . I was a strange kid and got rid of my entire collection voluntarily when I switched to a different line. I loved everything they made from 82 to 85, but was a very focused and specific kid that couldn’t mix toy lines! Once I was done, I was done, so I understand that aspect! (And of course, I didn’t mean to sound like I’m asking for attention lol, I was just surprised that there aren’t many likes or comments compared to a different kind of custom or diorama thread! )

 

[obiwozkenobi]

Spirit, Torpedo and Firefly are my favorites so far. Keep up the good work!

 

[Daig]

Full body spray paint for Snow Job!

 

[Daig]

OK, I was able to work on and finish up Snow Job today! As always, the classified production figure:



Stripped off all extra gear, gave a full body spray paint in white, painted the skis white, painted the pouches, black, cut off his neck hood piece, painted his goggles black, cut the shoulder straps shorter and attached them to the existing pouches on his chest, cut the bottom of the coat shorter, cut the holster straps off and painted it black and attached it to his thigh, gave him the proper rifle, and brightened up the red of his beard!





Edit: here he is on my shelf, with a temporarily-attached pole on his back until I can get a custom backpack!


This was my favorite Joe of all, so I needed to get this one right! The vintage comparison:

 

[yodashizzle]

One word.

 

[obiwozkenobi]

This was one of my favorite Joes as well and you knocked this one out of the park. That look great!

 

[Daig]

Two months later, and finally, I got some new figures! The first conversion is easy, because it’s already retro: Duke! Literally, the only thing I had to do here was repaint the shirt and backpack, and drybrush the pants. It’s relatively subtle, but I think effective. Note how pale the tan color of the production figure’s shirt is:



I mixed up a rich butterscotch color to get as close to the vintage as I could, and I was able to get the olive drab color once again that I used to drybrush his pants; here are those pics:






And the vintage comparison:



Already working on Airborne, so that’s coming next!