Hey all. Posters will be unavailable at the Storefront page for a short while, possibly a few months. Thanks to everyone who's continued to order up til now, I appreciate your patience!
1 Comment
A handful of Joe customs I did in the last few years, in my spare time. Night Force Sneak Peek, Outback, and Dial-tone. Minor kitbashing with minimal paint.
I'm not the best at painting figures, and I'm not too ambitious with my customs. I needed some paint for these guys but it was sparing. I prefer to keep it simple so I can handle the figures without kid gloves. I'll even cut and assemble different body parts to avoid painting, if I can. :) It's been a long time since I updated my web site, I didn't abandon it but I wasn't using it much either. Had other projects going on that hopefully I can talk about soon! In the meantime, I want to throw out an announcement that a Marauder Task Force Roleplaying System is currently in Kickstarter phase and running until December 9th at 10:30am. I've thrown in my pledge for the previous 1:18 Marauder Task Force and Valkyrie projects because I loved how they introduced modular and customizable military figures with a variety of weapons and accessories to fit each collector's preferences, and they kept bringing stellar stuff each time. So, full disclosure: I'm delighted to say that I might be part of this new project! I was approached by David Wilson Brown, founder of Extra-Dimensional Publishing, to provide illustrations to help pitch the idea to Marauder Inc, and this was one of the pieces he commissioned (from sketches to final). Since David got the green light for the Kickstarter stage he's gathered some really great talent to collaborate on this concept. The goal is $35K for a sharp product that will work optimally with the current modular systems of the Marauder Task Force and Valkyrie figures and should feature lots of great writing and artwork. I certainly hope to be part of the final published product. It's such a groovy idea.
As kids, my brother and I tried our amateur hands at a very basic set of "paper & dice" rules to our collection of 4" action figures. The battles ran across the entire top floor of the house with homemade props for environments and structures. Not as involved as miniatures and table maps, but it still added elements of strategy and chance, which was surprisingly engaging after we witnessed the events we'd planned for our little troopers changing from one minute to the next aka "battlefield conditions." It was fun, but it was really simple. David, on the other hand, is committing to a level of RPG gaming with the Marauder figures that is very exciting to me. It should serve a range of interests, from playing a story-driven campaign under a Commanding Officer (game master) to a brief team-vs-team skirmish, with character stats and gameplay accessible to anybody, newcomers and seasoned gamers alike. Even if I didn't have the opportunity to be involved, it would be wonderful to see this realized so I'd have more to do with my action figures than just posing them on my shelf! :) To learn more, please click this Kickstarter link and read up about the game and all the cool stuff they're planning. I'm anxiously awaiting more info along with everyone else, so if you have questions, please ask them directly! I like to support GIJoe when I can, particularly the toylines, because Hasbro is where it all began. It's also wonderful when people not only support the line but go the extra mile to supplement it.
Marauder Inc is an online retailer that sells many great 1:18 scale military weapons and accessories that are a perfect match for many 3 & 3/4" action figures, but certainly seem tailor-made for GIJoe figures. They have quite a range of weapons, some that are modular with detachable scopes or stocks or grips, etc (which is an amazing feat at that small scale). Marauder Inc opened a Kickstarter project last year for a line of 1:18 military figures called Marauder Task Force that was a runaway success and hit many stretch goals beyond their original goal line. I pledged and I very much appreciated their dedication to providing frequent, informative updates and quality figures (now available on their storefront). I'm a bit late catching up on this one, but recently in August they started a new Kickstarter project called Marauder Task Force: Valkyries which, for the most part, focuses on female soldiers. That should make many fans very happy, if their trend of quality continues. They've already met their initial goal line, but they still have 4 days left to unlock some nifty stretch goals. I received a large number of orders recently and it's going to take the better part of the weekend to get them all out the door, so don't worry if you don't see a Tracking Number until Sunday or Monday. Thanks to everyone who has placed orders so far!
I also want to say Thanks to Fred at Joebattlelines.com for his great comments and for passing on the word that posters were available again. Yo Joe! Just a simple kitbash of G.I.Joe Cover Girl. I don't do these often and I take my time finding parts that won't require much painting (ie: already molded in the colors I need) because I want the final figure to withstand playtime. :)
Due to a number of requests by people expressing continued interest, I'm re-opening my storefront for the 11x17 GIJoe poster that I created a few years back. I appreciate seeing all those requests to make it available again, and it's great to hear from fellow Joe fans.
Current costs for the Joe posters are $8 for Domestic orders and $14 for Canada. I will include bubblewrap to protect the posters from bouncing inside the mailing tubes during delivery. International orders are Welcome, but I ask that you contact me here and provide your shipping address so I can provide an accurate estimate. I can send a Request for Payment through Paypal. The Cobra poster is still alive but has stuttered progress. It could be ready to go this Fall season. It's been quite some time since I posted anything new here, and within the last year plenty of folks sent me notes and requests to re-open the Joe poster for sale, and on progress with the Cobra Poster.
First off, I just wanted to say that I've greatly appreciated every single note. It's simply been awesome to see such continued interest, I am very thankful for the comments and interest. Unfortunately, I didn't get the time that I'd hoped for the Cobra Poster, let alone any other art projects, because I had several difficulties throughout the last year. I won't get into details and I apologize for the absolute void of updates, but I hope that anyone who waited for news might understand that I was even more frustrated with the idea of simply repeating "Sorry, not this month" ad nauseam. So this month I actually have some news: I'm starting on the Cobra Poster with a tentative completion date of January and I'll re-open sales for the Joe Poster for the duration. "Tentative" is still subject to "Life", but I'll have a better idea what that means within the next month. I should have more information on updated costs for the Joe Poster in another week as well. I am certainly considering other options like Cafepress to facilitate the order processing and printing for different sizes. If anyone has any suggestions or experience with printing outlets like that, I'm happy to hear about them. GIJoe does seem a quieter presence in the mainstream eye, lately, and any movie or toy news has been pretty subdued. Still, it's awesome to know that Larry Hama finally got to his 200th issue of GIJoe this year and that's absolutely something to celebrate. The stories and art are still engaging us through the original setting of Joe and Cobra that we enjoyed since the 80's, thanks to his steady vision. The 50th Anniversary series at ToysRUs this season does seem a nice way to remember there are still fans waiting for this line, and it sounds like there are some rumblings about a possible 6-inch line. And of course JoeCon 2015 has been announced for next April in the cryptic location of Springfield, Illinois. Lots of interesting theories on that. So I'm happy to see that Joe fans still have some fun things to look forward to in the coming year. Things got so busy in the last few months (poster orders and other projects) that I didn't have time to start prelims for the Cobra poster. But I'll begin in earnest over the July 4th weekend.
I'm also announcing a cutoff date for the Joe 82-87 Poster orders. They've come down to a weekly trickle lately, but I think it had a great run. I certainly appreciate everyone's support and every order placed means a great deal. It's shows a wonderful, overall camaraderie amongst the Joe Fandom everywhere. I'll always believe G.I. Joe is much more than a revived toy product from the 1980s, thanks to the collective ongoing efforts by writers (Larry Hama!), artists, designers, producers and actors who've breathed life into the characters since the beginning. Unfortunately, I won't have time to process any further orders once I'm knee-deep in the Cobra poster, so I think it's best to turn off the Paypal options in the meantime. I'll accept orders through July 15th and then I'll remove the Paypal buttons. This should give everyone time for any final orders. After the Cobra poster is completed, I can revisit and reassess the situation to determine whether further orders will be worthwhile. Yo Joe! Guys, I'm addressing an issue that's come up a few times since I opened orders for the Joe Posters.
A few people wrote to say their posters arrived with some bent edges, and that confused me since I was very careful with each poster and I taped each mailing tube shut to prevent loss or tampering. But I saw a recent photo posted by Jinx723 on Hisstank.com (Thank you!), and although nobody on that forum thread said much about it, I do see the issue and I will take steps to prevent this. http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-joe-general-discussion/342314-awesome-g-i-joe-poster.html When each poster is rolled up in the tube, the top and bottom sides are facing the ends of the tubes and have some wiggle room. With an excess of activity during whatever sorting and processing that USPS does, that wiggle room might become a liability. It probably could have been avoided with foam blocks or bubble blisters on each side. Sorry, guys, I've never actually mailed tubes before, so I didn't anticipate the amount of abuse to expect during shipment. From this point on I'll be adding bubble wrap on each side of the mailing tubes to lock the posters in safely. On reflection, however, I'm glad I left a quarter-inch border around each picture as a buffer zone for just this kind of unpredictable stuff. |
Ian Fell...Comics, cartoons and toys... what else is there in life? Archives
February 2020
Categories |