These are posted in the Group Project but I took some better pictures and wanted to post them here in the Critiques section.
GP: http://www.joecustoms.com/projects/projects.php?p=tng
I'm posting Outback now but I'll get to the others later.
For the background of the group project (premise was that Joe vs Cobra has been happening in real time and is now a over 25 year old conflict) I wanted to incorporate my favorite character- Outback. I wanted to do something that was different from what you'd expect (I think first impulse would be to make him an elderly hermit who lives off the land) so I went with another train of thought with survival. A long conflict would certainly lead to more POWs on both sides and if anyone could survive a decade long incarceration by his enemies it would be a "survival expert." I imagined he was sort of a trophy prisoner traded between different Cobra factions. I also wanted him to have a sort of cage fighter "Arena of Sport" thing going on.
Originally I wanted to use the DTC Outbacck head but could not find that figure cheap enough or a cast of it to do it. This was my first green stuff sculpted beard... Looking at it now, I do wish I had made the sides of the beard more scraggly.
(wow over 100 views and not one comment ::shrug::)
Here's the other two figures I did-
Woodsman
I've always really liked the DCIH Capt Boomerang head sculpt but couldn't think of a character that it worked for. When I got the idea to do a Joe whose speciality was essentially hostage rescue and recovery and it then got connected to the Next Generation project the red hair isntantly connected to Outback.
Then I came up with the backstory and liked the idea of theson becoming obsessed with rescuing hostages because his own father was still a hostage.
I wanted the figure to have some homages to Outback- the decision to do a tshirt toros, and I used the legs from 25th Outback. I moved the flashlight from the leg to the webgear. I thought about doing a green bandana around the neck but didn't like the way it looked so I dropped it.
Finally the figure that changed the most from the original concept and design...
Xenix
Originally Xenix was supposed to be completely androgenous and part of the story was that no one knew if Xenix was a man or a woman. I wanted to try to do male torso but with female hips, Baroness face but with chin-length hair. It was way too ambitious with the time I had and the parts on hand. So I wanted to do something more like Daken from Marvel (Wolverine's son), sinister, Euro-trash type villain.