This little beauty is the first custom I ever did as an adult. Sure as a kid I painted camo spots on a few vehicles or took out a back screw here and there and swapped parts, but this is the first thing I did after growing out of toys and then growing back into them. This was my childhood Skystriker. When I found this plane it was buried in my parents attic and was in terrible condition. Horrible yellowing, missing several pieces, and the wing and tail on the right side were curved from the heat of the attic and the weight of other things on top of it. I straightened the wings by heating them up and then found the missing parts on ebay. This was long before I ever discovered that a customizing community existed or about things like cobrastickers.com. I would say I did this 5 years before ever finding this website. Since I had no access to stickers at the time, I felt gray was the best option and then perhaps I could find some waterslide decals for it. Ended up just leaving it gray and having it sit on the dresser with my two childhood favorites in the cockpit. Once the new Skystrikers came out, I stickered it up and that is about the time I discovered this site and the rest is history.

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awesome. I really wish the new one was a two-seater. My son plays with one, but I never took mine out of the box because of that sole issue.

I like the back story, and really the final product is awesome. You should autograph it under a wing so it's worth even more once you're famous.

(wait, you've been mentioned on the podcast, so you already are... )

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That's cool Dusty. I love it when you can give new life to a original childhood toy. My first custom vehicle as an adult was a vamp with the snowcat missile launcher on it. Someday I will dig it out of storage and post it.

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Nice work! Restoring an original like that is a labor of love.




Hey don't forget this thread: http://www.joecustoms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=30653&p=346306#p346306

It's truly not too bad to customize a two-seater - for a pro like yourself I'm thinking nothing more than a lazy afternoon.

You did a great job there.

Thanks guys. This plane holds a special place in my customizing world. Not only the sentimental value of it being my actual favorite childhood toy, but also because fixing it up is what led me to my now favorite hobby, which is customizing.

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And not sure if Airight/Dusty piloting it is a reference to something (comic, toon?), but Airtight did A LOT of pilot work at my house in the 80s - that helmet just screamed it to me

Exactly, airtight was my go to childhood pilot.

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