Legends of the Hidden Force

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Where we’ve been

It’s been over a year since our last post, but I can assure you we’ve been busy.

Since the Summer of 2020, ChadMatted and Whiskeyjack Toys have been developing our own toy line, “Legends of the Hidden Force.”

We are primarily active on Facebook and Instagram but also post here with updates.

Without further ado, here’s a first peek at our new toy line (btw, this is the buck that will be used on all future Whiskeyjack Toy figures).

Kre-o Class of 1986

A little over three years since my Class of 1985. As much as I’d like to do 1987, I’d have to make 19 customs, and at this point, that’s not happening. 1986 featured version 2’s of several characters (including Special Mission’s Brazil), but I’ve chosen to only make characters who haven’t been represented yet.

Claymore: Covert Operations

I absolutely love Claymore, despite his Toys ‘R’ Us Geoffrey camo. Head is from Mutt, arms Battleship, and the rest of the body is from a Transformer.

Cross Country: Heavy Equipment Operator

Cross Country uses a Cityville head with Lady Jaye torso and Outback arms. Hat and hair are from Lego.

Lift Ticket: Helicopter Pilot

Lift Ticket is made from Battleship head, Doc torso, and Flash arms and legs. Helmet is Transformers.. This recipe was stolen from Magnum6Delta. Helicopter is from Battleship.

Sgt. Slaughter: Drill Instructor

Sgt. Slaughter has a Cityville head, with Battleship torso (with custom sticker) and arms. Hat is Lego.

Sci-Fi: Laser Trooper

Sci-Fi is made of mostly Nunchuk. Helmet is Transformers and armor is from Dungeons & Dragons.

Slipstream: Pilot

Slipstream is made from Doc’s torso, waist, and legs. Head is Recondo with a Transformers Crosshair helmet. Jet is Battleship with wings reversed.

Sidewinder “1986 Mail-In”

Chad originally met Sidewinder online on the now defunct Devil’s Due message boards. We all lived in Tennessee, albeit a couple of hours from each other. Along with a few other online Joe friends, we met in person at the 2003 Adventure Con in Knoxville, TN, a rough midway point from where we all lived. At dinner that night, Sidewinder was brainstorming and idea for his own self-custom, based on Zartan’s concept art. See the custom Here. 

In 2007, Sidewinder ask me and Chad to co-host his podcast, the G.I. Joe Review, where we reviewed the original Marvel G.I. Joe Comic run. It’s hard for me to imagine Mayor and Ghost without having a Sidewinder custom to go with them.

Original Sidewinder (By Sidewinder)

1986 Mail-In Sidewinder

 

Colors

Black and Red. Enough said…except that red is notoriously difficult to paint. I always like using spray paint whenever possible, and the flatter the finish the better. Gloss always tends to be more difficult to work with. Joecustom’s member BadAsh taught me that spraying a duller clear coat on top of gloss will dull its finish. 

Black (Spray): Krylon Matte Black
Black (Brush On): Apple Barrel Black 
Red: Krylon Banner Red

Parts

Following the “Mail-in” them of Mayor (1984) and Ghost (1985), this custom is a “Mail-in” from 1986. He was originally set to be 1985 (with Mayor and Ghost as 83 & 84) but no suitable arms existed until Monkeywrench. I kept the original’s theme by using a Storm Shadow head and got creative, albeit inaccurate, with Copperhead’s thighs to achieve Mercer’s ribbed details.

Head: Storm Shadow 84
Arms: Monkeywrench 86
Torso: Zartan 84
Waist: Ripper 85
Thighs: Copperhead 84
Feet: Zartan 84

Accessories

Sidewinder was always light on accessories. I liken him to Jack Bauer, someone who could save the world with a pistol. Except in Sidewinder’s case, someone who could bring reign down terror with a single weapon. That being said, I really wanted to give him a strapped bag or pouch to simulate Track-Viper’s torso strap. I landed on Beachhead’s satchel and gave Sidewinder a couple of magazine fed weapons to compliment the pouch.

Cowl- Zartan 84
Pistol- Major Bludd 83
Uzi- Snake Eyes 97
Rifle- Beachhead 02
Pouch- Beachhead 86

20th Anniversary Ghost “1985 Mail-In”

Chad’s self-custom character is Ghost. The original custom was finished roughly 20 years ago. Chad created him prior to the creation of Mayor. He truly was a self-custom and the parts and colors were based on clothes that Chad owed (minus the helmet). The name was a spin off of Chad Ghostal Space Ghost’s evil twin brother.

Original Ghost (By Chad-Ghost)

1985 Mail-In Ghost

20th Anniversary Ghost

Colors

I followed Ghost’s original color scheme rather closely. The biggest change was matching his pants to a Hasbro color, and I chose “Grunt” green.

Gray (Spray): Rust-o-leum Primer Gray
Gray (Brush-on): Anita’s Charcoal
Black: Apple Barrel Black
Blue: Delta Ceramcoat Navy Blue
“Grunt” Green: Krylon Satin Italian Olive
Brown: Apple Barrel Brown Oxide

Parts

Following 20th Anniversary Mayor being an 1984 mail-in, I wanted Ghost to be a mail-in from 1985. So long Bullhorn arms, Outback thighs, and Flak-Viper feet. I chose to use Toys ‘R’ Us Cobra Trooper arms, which were a repaint of Thunder, in order to keep the arms playable. I originally chose Footloose thighs, but the cloth folds didn’t match the smoothness of the Wild Weasel feet.

Head: Cobra Commander 83
Arms: Cobra Infantry Trooper 04
Torso: Tripwire 83
Waist: Mutt 84
Thighs: Thunder 84
Feet: Wild Weasel 84

“Mail-In” Accessories

As with Mayor, Ghost’s original accessories were post 85. The Cobra Office AK47 is comparable to Red Star’s AK474 and Chad is a fan of the M16, so Ghost got one of these as well.

Backpack- Grunt 83
AK47- Cobra Officer 83
M16- Grunt 83

Other Accessories

These are the accessories that will be displayed with 20th Ghost.

Backpack- Big Bear 92
Pistol- InToyz Armed Forces
AK47- Red Star 91
M16- General Hawk 04
Satchel & Strap- Baroness 04

20th Anniversary Mayor “1984 Mail-In”

My self-custom character is Mayor, who was modeled after Hallmark “sticker” Snake-Eyes. I chose to use realistic colors rather than the sky blue here (even though this looks awesome in figure form).

The original custom was finished roughly 20 years ago. Many have asked the origin of the code name. My brother (Chad-Ghost), a friend, and I were working together. An obscure Classic Rock song came on the radio and I knew who sang it. I said “Toot! Toot! Train boarding Loserville, population 1.” That’s the day I became the Mayor of Loserville. I wanted to call this figure “Commando,” but thankfully Chad talked me into making this my self-custom.

Original Mayor

Hallmark Sticker Snake-Eyes

 

20th Anniversary Mayor, which I’ve dubbed “1984 Mail-in” Mayor, was initially mocked-up in 2016. I wanted a Mayor to look like a Hasbro produced figure, something that has plagued the completion of many customs over the last decade.

1984 Mail-In Mayor

20th Anniversary Mayor

Colors

Back then, customizing was simple. Colors didn’t need to match and I’d use the parts that I had rather than precision part picking. I used a lot of Krylon Camo Ultra Flat spray paints (which still work amazingly well), however the colors do not match original Hasbro colors. 

For this version of Mayor I used the original base color for Zap, as this torso had never been painted in light olive. Stalker’s camo was an obvious choice as well. Last was choosing the scheme. There’s not a lot of consistency in the original line as far as knives, bicep pockets, and thigh pockets being painted. Grenades were never painted, so that was easy, and Grunt had the only painted knife. I followed Zap’s example and painted his bicep pockets to match his explosive pouch.

Dark Gray: Delta Ceramcoat Charcoal 
Light Olive: Delta Ceramcoat Timberline Green
Brown: Apple Barrel Brown Oxide
Forest Green: Apple Barrel Woodland Green

Parts

Going with parts that were 84 and below was easy for this custom. It proved more difficult when crafting 20th Ghost and Sidewinder. I wanted this custom to be as playable as possible, and the arms are always a problem area for that, which, were solved with Short-Fuze’s arms, which match the original Zap colors perfectly. 

Head: Snake Eyes 83
Arms: Short-Fuze 97
Torso: Snake Eyes 83
Waist: Snake Eyes 83
Thighs: Snake Eyes 83
Feet: Snake Eyes 83

“Mail-In” Accessories

The original Mayor used Hawk 86’s backpack and Flash 83’s laser rifle. For the mail-in version, I wanted to use comparable accessories, but replaced Flash’s gun with Snow Job’s because I can no longer reconcile the use of an XMLR-1A without a power source/backpack. I’ve become a fan of Sand-Viper’s AG36 and felt Ripcord’s rifle to be visual similar.

Backpack- Grunt 83
Rifle- Transportable Tactical Battle Platform
Laser Rifle- Snow Job 84

Other Accessories

These are the accessories that will be displayed with 20th Mayor. I purchased the POTF AT-ST rifle years ago after realizing it’s similarity to Flash’s rifle. It finally found a home here.

Backpack- Hawk 86
Pistol- General Hawk 04
Rifle- Sand Viper 03
Laser Rifle- POTF AT-ST Driver
Knife & Sheath- Remco Commando Hank
Night Vision Goggles- Remco Defender

20th Anniversary

20 Year look back

Matthew: Chad and I did our first customs around 1992-1993. We took some of our old Joes and painted them like Marvel and Mortal Kombat characters. In 1999 Chad discovered eBay and hunted down his childhood grail, helmeted Cobra Commander. Soon I bought a swivel-armed version of my childhood favorite, Flash. Our reintroduction to the hobby led us to yojoe.com. It was there that I first saw Cobra De Aço. The figure was a mystery and combined two of my favorite Joes, Snake Eyes and Flash, in a glorious combination. Not knowing if I could find (or afford) this figure, 20 years ago I turned out my first custom figure as an adult. Soon after, Chad created this Battle Armored Cobra Commander.

Chad: I can still remember where I was when painting that Cobra Commander: my parents’ kitchen table in their old dining room. This was before spraying painting, and I brush painted the base coat on the whole figure. I still have those exact paint bottles; they are still amazingly usable! If I recall, Matt “painted” the eyes and eyebrows with a pen for me.

I suppose I found the image of Cobra Commander via a pre-Google search engine; I did not own the actual issue until years later.

Part Choices, Colors, and Character Selection

Matthew: Early on Chad and I created custom with whatever parts we had. This often led to some random parts used that we certainly wouldn’t use now (I’m looking at you Scrap-Iron). I struggled with character choices and tended to make customs of existing characters while Chad was more creative and made unique characters such as Redrum, Death, and Silent Fury. I still envy his ability to mix parts and create characters. It’s one of the things that makes his self-custom, Ghost, so great. A main source of inspiration for us came from joecustoms.com, where we’ve loved being involved with their Group Projects. Check out our first decade of customs at loserville.us/gijoe.

Chad: Do not let Matt sell himself short. I had forgotten how many of his early figures were inspired by cards, cartoons, etc. Even still, there is a uniqueness to his work. His creativity shined, however, with the group projects, and, later on, with his own team projects. Just checkout his Alpha and Beta Mega Marines teams (especially Sgt. Slaughter, Leatherneck, and (yes, even him) Robo-Joe!). 

Matthew: In 2010 we launched chadmatted.wordpress.com. This last decade, I’ve been selective on what I made. I want my work to look factory produced and always consider what Hasbro would’ve done (parts, colors, file cards, etc). Some examples are Crimson Asp, Cobra Driver, and Night Adder that were created for joecustoms.com’s Empty Seats Group Project.

Chad: I definitely do not add to the site enough, but that was the same with the original site. I really dislike taking pictures, but I am glad that we have the blog. I want to echo Matt’s sentiments; at this point I really want my customs to look and feel production. I take more time and care on this than ever before.

Current State of the Union

Matthew: While I still love G.I. Joe as much as I ever have, but there are more important things in life. As I look back, I realize I have completed a lot of customs that I’m not sure why I ever created them, and that’s okay. I also have way too many customs sitting unfinished, and that’s okay too. But maybe it’s not about the plastic at all. G.I. Joe has a great community and I’ve met some awesome people through it, some which I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at conventions, others I’ve only known online. Heck, customizing G.I. Joe’s has even allowed me to do freelance toy design, my dream job. But the one thing I love most about G.I. Joe is that I’ve been able to share this with my brother, and that’s something in which there are no words.

Chad: I could not agree more. Without further ado, let us see those customs (maybe in another decade I will have my three finished!).

Ripped Straight from the… NES Rock & Roll, Snake Eyes, and General Hawk

These customs were made for the Joecustoms.com Group Project: Ripped Straight from the… From the moment I saw examples for this project, I was excited. I loved the way these looked, from customs posted on the web, to examples that companies, like NECA, had produced. I also knew that this was going to be a challenging task.

I wasn’t sure what figure(s) I would do, so when in doubt I usually do Cobra Commander based customs. I had perused Marvel’s G.I. Joe run and had some ideas, but things shifted dramatically after talking with Matthew and he mentioned making customs based off of the first Nintendo G.I. Joe video game.

My entries for the 2018 GI Joe Convention contest.

The paint scheme, however, was the most difficult, the most important, and, amazingly enough, the most satisfying. After taking screen shots of the character select images, I made a swatch with the colors used. Next, for cohesiveness, Matthew and I chose paints that were closest to the game and the ones our characters shared. As you can see from the end results, we went completely different directions with our paint schemes.

I wanted to make these figures look as close as the character select screens as possible. All of the figures and accessories started with a base color of black, and I painted the highlights and lowlights. For the most part, if you cannot see it on the character select screen, then I left it painted black.

My first idea was to create packaging that reflected what NECA has done with all of their Nintendo based 7 inch figures. Matthew did a great job setting up this idea and creating the 3D renders. He gave me a template, and I modified/created the images for the packaging.

On the back of the box, I changed the in-game screens pictures to show the six playable characters from the game, including text that describes all six missions. I also changed/updated some of the text and logos as well. The inside of the box shows a shot of the in-game picture for each character, and there is an opening to show the actual figure in the packaging with their character descriptions.

The filecards were done as an afterthought. When Matthew and I realized that our customs were going in different directions, he suggested for his to have vintage style packaging. Since he did most of the legwork on the 3D packaging, I in turn created the cardbacks for his customs. Since I had already created his three filecards, I decided to make them for my characters as well. If you notice, the images are different from the character select ones, including different colors and poses. These images were shown when the game was paused and the player could chose a different character. The texts for these came from the Nintendo instruction manual. They are close but not exactly the same as the text used for these versions of the characters.

Rock & Roll

I did not have a complete Rock n Roll from 1989 or 1991, but I was able to get parts for both since they share the same mold. The set of thighs that I had broken tabs, but since I was not including his shotgun, I decided to sand them smooth. Rock n Roll is never shown with the shotgun, nor is it used in the game. I did give him his backpack, and though it is not seen on the character select screen, the ammo belts do not hang correctly without it. Also, it is apparent that he has it in the game, and it adds a bit a playability to the figure.

Snake Eyes

For Snake Eyes, I used the entire 1989 figure. I omitted his machine gun since in the game he “prefers his Jitsu of power,” which requires no ammunition and is unlimited, and his blowgun for the same reason. Also, neither of these are shown on his character select screen either. I did choose to give him his backpack, and I had to created a sword peg because one had been broken off. I included this mainly for playability, even though it is not seen in the game.

General Hawk

Gen. Hawk, parts-wise, is very simple, though I did make two changes. The first I made was to leave off the visor for his helmet, partly because I didn’t have an extra, and also, it is never seen in the game; not in the character select screen or in the actual gameplay.

Secondly, I cut and removed the wings from Hawk’s jetpack mainly because the art on the select screen is inaccurate. Honestly, it looks more like the Cobra Jet Pack from 1987. This particular figure was released in 1991 whereas the game was released in 1990, which could account for the discrepancies. Also, like I did for the helmet, the in-game pictures don’t appear to have wings on the pack either, much less the missiles.

Though this was a challenging and time-consuming project, it has been extremely satisfying and will go down as one of my favorite group projects.

Ripped Straight From the… : Duke, Blizzard, and Captain Grid-iron

Here are my entries from Joecustoms.com’s Group Project, Ripped Straight from the…

I share a lot of nostalgia for the NES G.I. Joe game. Chad and I would frequently rent it from our local video store and eventually purchased it from there when they were clearancing old games.

I have seen other pixel based customs using G.I. Joe’s as well as NECA’s cool video game inspired collectables which we used for inspiration.

However, Chad and I went different directions. Chad started with a black base coat and painted the highlights (which is a superior method). I started mine like I normally would by painting all the base coat colors first and then “attempted” to add the shadows. I started with Captain Grid-iron and loathed the results. So much so that I started Grid-iron almost completely over.

Duke: Tiger Force First Sergeant Squad Leader

Blizzard: Arctic Assault Soldier

Capt. Grid-iron: Hand-to-Hand Combat Specialist

Kre-o Adventure Team Vehicles

Anyone familiar with the Adventure Team knows that there were some great vehicles. The various Kre-o lines gave me a few to work with and the recent Lego City Jungle sets are a gold mine for AT vehicles.

Big Trapper

This is definitely Big Trapper in name only, but provides a similar feel as the original. It is from the Cityville Skyscraper set.

Mobile Support Unit

Several of the Lego City Jungle sets would make for great AT sets (I’m looking at you “Jungle Exploration Site 60161”), but the Jungle Lab fit my size restrictions and budget. Vehicle can easily hold five minifigs.

Jeep

Kre-o’s Battle Net Bumblebee was the first AT vehicle for my team. I replaced the Transformers logo with an AT one and I was good to go.