Sunday, February 19, 2017

'West' from SanderS: 80's Pulp Revealed Part I

Hoi,

Okay, well you have probably seen my shenanigans regarding my 80's Pulp Project and I have been a bit shady about it. This is mainly because I wanted to build up a bit of suspense but also because I am working towards two highlights: my side duel with Iannick, for which we both do one side of this project: me the goodies, Iannick the baddies and this post which I initially had wanted to do for the "East"Theme Round.

Anyway, what am I all about? We need to go back to my younger years when my brother and myself still ived at home and were not yet interested in girls but rather in action figures. Star Wars (my favourites) were not available or very expensive where we lived and I was very into LEGO so none of them were added to my toy collection. My brother discovered GIJoe toys and when the Sunbow cartoon series was aired over here we were sold. All our pocket money went towards additions to that toy line. After hitting puberty, he went on towards other things and I had shifted towards wargaming and the Joes were al about forgotten. Then when he got his first real job he suddenly had money and started building his collection and obtaining all the stuff we had always wanted. I resisted this expensive hobby since I had one already, but did dream what would happen if one day I was able to combine the wargaming hobby with the Joe universe. Enter the internet, a community was found of like minded individuals who had made Joe and Cobra figures from available miniatures, Hasslefree and Crooked Dice are great suppliers of these.

Then one of the guys on there, who's a gifted sculptor, decided to do a range of figures for himself but in order to pay for the moulds and casting, allowed a elite few of us to chip in and get a bunch of those figures as well. I obtained a substantial load of them and am slowly painting them up. Today I present you my take on the East and West. Because what we in the West do very well is misrepresent other cultures. We do love to think in stereotypes and are very capable to ridicule and misrepresent the best in other cultures for our amusement. I will not go into that because just once in a while one of us (more precisely the great Larry Hama) gets it so right! Amongst the biggest heroes within the Joe universe are without  a doubt that prime representatives of the Japanese culture: the Ninja, Snake Eyes and Stormshadow. It is them I will represent here and just to be sure, let me repeat: these figures are NOT commercially available on the open market.














 So that's my take on the West's take on the East ;-) The pictures are not great and specially Stormshadow (the white one) does not come out as good as he is in real life.
I made them fight it out in a Japanese style house/ dojo and you decide whether you think it worked out well enough.

Cheers Sander

28 comments:

  1. Well done, Sander, another creative interpretation of the theme! 'Outside the box' seems to be the operative phrase this year!

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  2. They're well painted and realistic. You did a great job bro! And the story sounds familiar!

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  3. Fabulous love it and both of them are some of my favourite child hood comic characters!

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  4. Wow Sander. Great entry. Some of my favorite characters growing up.

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  5. Really great work Sander: composition, painting, it's all there and it tells a story. Love it!!!

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    1. I just hope I can get our Side duel entry just as well as this one ;-)

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  6. What a great pair of figures in a fantabulous setting.

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  7. Oh, this is SO cool! Great work Sander.

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    1. Thanks, I really did try to get them to work!

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  9. I was always jealous of my mates, GI Joe collection. You've done an awesome job, it is a fantastic tribute!

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    1. Thanks Steve, more is to follow! The world of 3D printers has given me an ever-growing range of vehicles and I am planning a post for the end of the week with some baddies included there in.

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  10. Very clever set up Sanders and well done!

    Christopher

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  11. Thanks Christophers kind of you to say so!

    Cheers Sander

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  12. To say I am jealous is an understatement. Those two are fantastic!

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    1. Yeah I was very glad to get two pairs of them :-p

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  13. This is just terrific Sander. I was too old for the GI JOE 'period' (girls, clothes, etc.) but I always love reading other people's reminiscences of their childhood hobbies and how these sometimes get revisited, like these lovely figures here. Thanks for the wonderful entry!

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    1. Cheers Curt, now now, you were not too old, just too mature ;-) Rest assured more of these period goodies will follow!

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