Day 30: Cobra Mountain, Cobra Commander and Dr Mindbender






Cobra Mountain by Oreobuilder
"The ultimate COBRA fortress lies deep within a mountain! COBRA MOUNTAIN is a huge base for planning attacks against Joe!
- Six levels of play!
- Repair and fuel your COBRA vehicles in the Motor Pool!
- Launch the rocket with lights and sounds against Joe targets from the Command and Control Deck!!
- Build and repair COBRA BATS with realistic equipment in the lab!
- Launch FANGS, CLAWS and Heli-Vipers from the Aerodrome!
- Stockpile weapons ad supplies in the armory!
- Capture GI JOE prisoners in the brig!
- Command COBRA's legions from throne room!
- Defend from JOE attacks with the defense turrets and the Anti-Aircraft missile launcher!
- Post sentries on the rocky ramparts!
- Includes 5 figures: COBRA COMMANDER, DR MINDBENDER, STAR VIPER COMMANDER and 2 TECHNO-VIPERS."
- Playset is over 4 and 1/2 feet tall!







Packaging by Sam Panico






Exterior

























Motor Pool and Rocket Silo













Command and Control



Brig





Aerodrome and Weapons Locker











Lab









Throne Room









This project has been on my drawing board for years. As a kid, I used to love little green army men. I must have had over 100 as well as a bunch tanks, artillery, planes and other assorted vehicles. However, the centerpiece of all my battles was a huge cardboard mountain fortress. On the inside, the base had several levels, a central elevator and openings and balconies to the outside. I remember positioning canons and troops all over the place. That "mountain" was used in so many battles.




The last few years, I have been thinking of ways of recreating this mountain for Joes. I could not figure out how to build it. I knew what I wanted it to look like. I needed to figure out how to make it sturdy, yet relatively light. I also did not want to spend a small fortune on materials. I looked into several building techniques and materials. I settled on the simplest that I could find - foam board for the structure and pink insulating foam for the rock.

My goal was not to make the most real-life diorama possible, but to approach it as an actual playset that could be found in a Sears Christmas catalog in the '80s. This "doll house" approach explains why there are not a bunch of elevators and technical areas. I focused on areas that would be fun to play in or display figures (or in my case, be useful as future photo backgrounds). All in all, it did not turn out exactly as I imagined (creative projects seldom do), but I'm very happy with it and it is a project that I will continue to tweak and add on to as I need to for future use.

Parts:
Structure: foam board
Rocks: pink insulation foam, sculpted and painted
Rocket: Playmobil 6195
Everything else: bits of fodder, accessories from parts bins and lots accumulated over several years.


Techno-Viper by Oreobuilder
Once I finally committed to building the Cobra Mountain Playset, I wanted to include a bunch of figures with it. Through my 8 year old-eyes, I imagined that if such a set were ever released, it would include a lot of cool stuff with it. Techno-Vipers immediately came to mind as troopers that would be present in major Cobra installations. The Star Brigade version of the Techno-Viper was an obvious choice. They could repair vehicles in the motor pool, maintain the base and the rocket and work in the lab.

Filecard by Sam Panico







Parts:
All: 30th Techno-Viper


Dr Mindbender by Dusty79
Ever since the GIJCC released the Arctic Dr. Mindbender with the new head sculpt, I've been on a Mindbender kick. When I saw that OB was building a Cobra Mountain Playset, complete with a lab, I volunteered to make a new version of Dr. Mindbender. He was planned to ship to Canada to be with the playset, but time and Canadian postal workers strike issues prevented that. He was designed with an apparatus allowing him to plug into his computer system via his spinal cord to control his experiments precisely and with incredible speed. I attempted to make him a fresh take while still retaining those properties we see as classic Mindbender.


Filecard by Sam Panico











Parts:
Head: GIJCC Mindbender
Torso, arms: 30th Zandar
Webgear: 25th Cobra Trooper + 30th Zombie Viper
Legs: Crimson Horsemen
Cape: Cut from a Marvel figure coat


Chrysopelea by bucky
Throughout the three years of Resurgence projects, I've kept a bin that holds various pieces and parts that I feel might come in handy down the road. I just about emptied this bin for the last round, one of the pieces in there was this swamp viper head that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. I saw a similar custom on facebook late last year and the idea was born to make a Star Viper, as the story for Resurgence 3 was going to include a space theme/rocket ship.

Filecard by Sam Panico






Parts:
Head: Swamp Viper
Rest: RoC Dr. Lewis


Cobra Commander by bucky
I couldn't pass up making a custom Cobra Commander once I realized how well that head sits on that torso without the collar. The WIP sat around for a couple of years, through all of Resurgence 2, when I decided to give it a second look for Part 3. He went through several different lowers until I went with the Red Skull look. The blue's on the arm and the Tamiya field blue were almost a dead on match, that left me with a figure that doesn't chip in the shoulders, a huge plus.

Filecard by Sam Panico






Parts:
Head: Ultimate Cobra Commander
Torso: Renegades Cobra Commander
Arms: Red Skull
Legs: Strato-Viper
Skirt: Red Skull with Custom Belt


Next: We wrap up the project with our line catalogs…

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Day 31: Catalogs

Accessory Packs by Oreobuilder
“GI Joe is ready for any mission with these all new BATTLE GEAR ACCESSORY PACKS! Infiltrate COBRA MOUNTAIN with the gear included in STEALTH OPS. Rescue wounded team members with RESCUE OPS. Storm COBRA’s lunar base using gear from SPACE OPS. Battle the ENEMY on land, sea and air with the gear included in SEAL OPS. ”

Stealth Ops


Rescue Ops


Space Ops


SEAL Ops

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GI JOE POCKET PACK

From the desk of bucky:

Back in 2014, Oreobuilder and I went into the first "Resurgence", starting off with the idea that back in 1996, the original ARAH line never stopped. We called it "Project 96"-a play off the "Project 95" figures that have been seen that never came to light. It was supposed to be sort of a "what if" deal.

As we progressed into the brainstorming, making a mock figure line as if 1996 happened didn't end up working out- mainly because at that time, the figure building was still tooled in the ARAH style, and we work in the post 25th style. It just wouldn't make much sense. Then came the rumors that Hasbro wouldn't be doing anything for the 50th line.

With that- G.I. Joe Resurgence was born.

As we draw it to a close, I thought what would be cool as a "bookend" of sorts for the whole thing? Could we dip into the Project 96 idea? Well..we could have, but the more I thought about it, why not ask a Master of ARAH customizing to make them? Someone who has a passion for that style of builds, as we have a passion for our style? I reached out to a well known ARAH customizer, asking if he'd like to help out. Pick out 3 random figures from the last three years and make ARAH versions of them. I didn't tell the rest of PHX as I wanted it to be a nice surprise.

Kind of Evil of me, right?

From the Desk of ARAH Master, LIVEVIL
GI JOE: Resurgence Pocket Pack w/ Eagle Eye, Upshot and Sun Devil

Sun Devil:






Upshot:




Eagle Eye:




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Catalogs by DanoftheDead

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Day 32: Wips and behind the scenes.


Cobra naval forces- Kraken by bucky, Sea Slug by OB



Oreobuilder's SK Omega Team so far



Some shots of the almost finished Centurion by OB. It was missing its GI Joe logos at this point.







Three Resurgence ''generations'' from Oreobuilder. From left to right: the Centurion from Resurgence 3, the Crusher from Resurgence 1 (2014) and the Cougar IFV from Resurgence 2 (2015).



Here's a skin color test on Bone S.A.W. from R2:


An interesting picture here, the initial builds for Upshot, Neat Freak, Cobra Commander and more. All from R2.


Hey guys, what do you think of Eagle Eye v2?


All of Bucky's figures from R1, the day they got a dullcoat bath.


An action shot for the Operation Waterfront storyline that Raptor wrote for R2. Sam would take these shots and then paint them for the "storybook" presentation.


Broadside isn't all that thrilled with the SWARM tech Glitch glued to his face.


Random Wips from part 2. You can see Swift and Cobra Commander here. They didn't make the cut for 2, and were inserted into 3.



Here are a few of Dusty79's vehicle builds. Starting with a WIP of the Cobra Spaceship (it did not have a name at this point).




Secondly, the first draft of the GI Joe Thunderstriker



The Dreadnok Swamp Boat with a scrapped version of Pin-Up in the driver's seat




And lastly, the GI Joe Swampmasher with Pigsty.




The next two are early builds for the Cobra Sea Slug and Mastermind. Once we assemble our figures or vehicles, we send each other WIP pictures to receive critiques or advise or simply to show proof of concept. Feedback and communication is crucial to these large projects.





The next three pictures are of Cobra Mountain at various stages. Since it was originally planned for Resurgence 2 (in 2015) and then pushed to R3 this year, the Mountain went through several ideas and revisions before it even got started. In the last pic, one of Mindbender's experiments got out of control and actually wrecked the first mountain prototype.








Resurgence 3 was easily the most ambitious of the three installments. This is a shot taken when most of Oreobuilder's stuff was piling up.




Some fan requested pics:
First Aid (2014) with Patch (2016)




Hailstorm (2016) with Big Ben (inspired by the 1998 Arctic 2-pack)




Here are better views of the accessory packs that were only seen in the catalog.

Accessory Packs by Oreobuilder
“GI Joe is ready for any mission with these all new BATTLE GEAR ACCESSORY PACKS! Infiltrate COBRA MOUNTAIN with the gear included in STEALTH OPS. Rescue wounded team members with RESCUE OPS. Storm COBRA’s lunar base using gear from SPACE OPS. Battle the ENEMY on land, sea and air with the gear included in SEAL OPS. ”

Stealth Ops



Rescue Ops



Space Ops



SEAL Ops



... and the packaging and art that Sam created for them














Lastly, organization and planning are vital to keeping track of such a large scale project. To do this, we built and updated an ''Order of Battle''. It would be updated as often as it needed to be (on average about 2-3 times per week) and be accessible by all our members and contributors. It allows all of us to quickly see the status of any given custom.



A great big thanks to the people that over the last three years helped us come up with a cohesive storyline, and write filecards. Thomas Wheeler, Charles Cushman(Raptor at Joecustoms), Justin Bell from GeneralsJoes.com, Billy Carr, Sam Panico....
They added the flavor to the characters, and came up with personalities. Sometimes we gave them a direction, sometime only a name. Thanks for playing in the Toybox with us.

Charles Cushman really helped push the storyline aspect for the project in part 2, taking the SWARM concept and the g.i.t. metal story and fleshing all of that out, that was all him. We took the foundation he built, and with some input from Justin fleshed out part 3. Thank you guys for that, I think all of us have ideas in our head but you were able to articulate them into a story.

Joe Harris and Chad Ghost killed it on part 1 when I inquired about catalogs. Danofthedead asked to make them for part 2, and by part 3 was working right alongside the team as a full fledged teammate. I am NOT kidding when I tell you that I have people comment on those catalogs throughout the last couple of years whenever I am at a Con and talk to other Joe fans about the project. They are everybody's favorites, and still get "likes" on Facebook to this day when someone discovers them.

And, of course, thanks to all who took the time to look, comment and enjoy this project. We really are honored to be part of your daily July routine.

- The PHX gang

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Buffer

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And so it begins...

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Woohoo! This is going to be a great month!

I really like the new take on Croc-Master. I've always filed him under "freaky Dreadnok" to make him fit in, playing up the weird science angle really works for him though, and the design is great.

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I read the file card for Underbrush on Facebook and had a slight 'too soon' moment when I read about the Orlando reference.

Then I got over it when I saw Hawk's reaction.

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I think that bio was written long before that Disney incident happened. That's a little eerie.

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I just checked to make sure, the card was written 2 months ago, so it does not reference anything in real life. Still eerie

OB

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Yes! Long wait is over, love the colors, dio shots, fantastic customs, great start!

As always, it's been a pleasure crafting the traditional-style file cards for this latest Resurgence project -- and writing a number of them, too! I'm looking forward to seeing the take on my character of Pigsty, and it's always enjoyable to see all of the figures that I've been making file cards for.

Yeah, I cringed a little on the Underbrush file card, but they're right, that one was done quite a while back. It's still a little unfortunate. Conversely, the line on that card from "General Hawk's Files" in the second paragraph is one of the better ones.

I like to think that in some alternate, more Joe-friendly alternate universe, these fine toys actually reached production.

Yeah, I didn't think the filecards were just whipped up recently. It was exactly that eerie coincidence that happens from time to time.

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We're just getting started, day 2 is up!

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I'd say this looks like what Pigsty would look like if someone managed to give him a bath, or at least hose him off. Good head design, I like the colors on the diving suit, and the use of the G.I. Joe emblem is VERY nicely done. I'm impressed! The new Swampmasher is very cool, as well! And I should mention that I had some influence on the file card...

These swamp themed customs are out standing I love all the detail.

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