battle damage

I've been posting some sixthscale G.I. Joe related stuff at Boomerville.  I'll share some of  it here.  Early last year my FBI neighbor brought over something he had found discarded.  He asked me if I'd be interested in it and I walked him inside and showed him the one I already had on the shelf.  The jeep is a sixthscale Soldier's of the World (SOTW) Willis Jeep.  The jeep was minus a driver's seat but had all four wheels.  It was also missing a Gerry can and the spare tire.  It's still missing the spare tire.

I let it sit around downstairs, giving Kelsey something to play with.  The jeep had a weird and funky camouflage, no insignia.  Formative International came out with their jeep about ten years ago.  It was the first sixthscale jeep to come out since Hasbro produced their G.I. Joe Five Star Jeep back in the 60's.

Not too long after the SOTW jeep, other toy companies (including Hasbro) have come out with better/more authentic looking jeeps...all of them pricey.  SOTW was an okay jeep, cheap, and filled the childhood hole of giving away my Five Star those many decades ago.  Kit bashers took the SOTW and made them authentic.  Some of the neatest are the SAS jeeps.  It's well worth Googling.

Last week I got the hankering to tinker with my little jeep.  The first thing I did was make a driver's seat using a thin rod (campaign sign stake) and duct tape.  After I made the seat, it dawned on me that I had enough of it to make the frame for a cloth top.  I cut up an old pair of pants to make the top.  I still had a strip of the rod left to make a wire cutter for the front of the jeep.

I then took some modeling paint and made it look driven around a little.  I found an online source for decals.  Here's the disappointing thing.  The instructions said to spray the decals with a matte fixative for a longer life.  Fixative FAIL!  This morning, just before heading off to work, I sprayed it with the fixative.  The fixative caused the paint and the decal to bubble!  

EGAD!

I shook my head, closed the garage door,  and headed off to work.  What a disappointment after all that meticulous work...I mean meticulous play.  I don't know what it's going to look like when I get home.  The bubbling might pass for the kind of damage due to the heat of battle.   Perhaps some joe tried to light his cigarette too close to the jeep (with a flamethrower).  I may have to pull out the modeling paint and go for broke - see if I can make the fixative damage look cool and intentional.  We'll see.

I wish that I had taken a 'before' snapshot of the jeep.  I really didn't have any idea at first if I was going to really make anything of it.  The finished piece, if I do say so myself, looks pretty darn good.

P.S.  I went home after picking up the girls from school and took another look at the jeep.  The bubbled image had settled a little and to my relieve, hardened.  I tried to work the texture to my advantage and muddy up the vehicle with modeling paint.