Ever since I made my mission briefing Ace and enjoyed the results of that one so much, I wanted to do an Airborne to go with him. When I took out my customs to take new pictures for them all to keep on my iPod, I found that the dye job on Ace had faded significantly, and bled through the painted parts in some spots and was all blotchy, so I decided if I was going to do Airborne, this was a good time, since Ace needed a good painting over anyway. He's basically the same figure with a green dye job and then green paint. I also redid Ace, and he looks better than ever!





Firefly

This is just a slight update to my Firefly custom in the gallery. I smoothed up the swivel ankle joints a little bit and added the accessories to the backpack.




Ice Pick: Techno Serpent

Every squad needs someone to fix things when they break, and the Snow Serpents are no different, especially under their harsh operational environment.



So, I'd love to hear what you think! Thanks for looking!

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I LOVE the mission briefing figures. They'd look great in a briefing dio. My only nitpick is that I'd like to see one or the other with different arms since the Duke/Doc sleeves are so distinctive. One or the other is fine but it's distracting on both.

Firefly looks good. Nothing fancy, but nice clean mods.

Techno-Serpent is AWESOME! I'd love to see other similar figures like Night Serpent, Tele-Serpent, Etc.

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love the Techno Serpent. I think doing figures this way, or even the opposite (making a techno serpent using Techno Viper parts and Snow Serpent colors) are awesome.

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Awesome, Awesome, Awesome, Awesome!!!!!

I never thought about the Snow Serpents needing their own Tecno vipers but danged if he aint cool!

now send me Ace and Airborne

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Mision Briefing Airborne is ok. I like the white undershirt better like you used on Ace. You also need to go back over the legs where the thigh seem is. If you're painting the thighs as seperate pieces, next time paint the bottom of the piece before putting the figure together.

I like the additional accessories for Firefly. Something you could try to make the cut line not so obvious on the feet is to use regular white glue to fill in the seem. Then x-acto the foot loose again. You'll keep the articulation but it won't look as chopped off as it does now.

Ice Pick works pretty well. I probably would have kept the Techno Viper head to really distinguish him but this is fine as is. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the red vents on the face mask. Maybe its just me but it comes off looking like lip stick.

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nice my man. FF is my fav of the bunch.

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I think most of the nitpicks have been pointed out...

Ace and Airborne are such awesomely simple customs...but the bring a lot to the table.

This is one situation where I don't think you could go wrong with a can of Krylon Ultra Flat OD green...overtop of a bit of a dye job and you'll never know that was doc before.

I think a spray paint base would also help you with those little errors like the joints of the thighs and such

I think the white undershirt looks better...and wouldn't object to you replacing the "vials" thigh with another less specalized thigh.


Firefly looks cool...accessories are a great choice...not sure if it bugs you...but the yellowed head catches my eye... not sure I've got much to offer on the swivel ankles...It's difficult to cut the top and bottom of a part away from eachother and then have them come back together seamlessly. If you don't already have a set...you need a set of Exacto Razor Saws...not sure how it'd work...but maybe dremmel out the "cuff" of the pants a bit so the boot can be recessed up into the pants a bit...maybe you'd have to ruin 2 sets of feet...but it'd give you a better hidden seam.

Ice Pick still looks cool...and now you've gone and got me to mock up a nother custom before I've finished off anything else...GRR... anyway I'm gonna go with a Techno Viper head and Torso...SS arms and legs...undecided on the waist. He'll be in the drawers next to my Night Viper Snowserpant... there goes any chance of getting Technoviper weapons from me.

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NIce I like

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Thanks man!

Hmmm. I love those arms so much, it didn't occur to me that they might look odd being the same - I was just happy that the paint on the one seemed to match Airborne's unique skintone. Maybe I can give Ace some Leatherneck arms. Achieve the same look, but still slightly different.

The Snow Serpents are a fun little side project, and I'm glad people seem to be enjoying those. As a matter of fact, the Night Serpent was the first one I did. My Ice Burn character is a NV/SS hybrid. He doesn't adhere to the NV color scheme though, the way these later ones do with their corresponding specialties. And Jimmyboy made a Tele Viper for my Snow Serpent squad, but I am thinking of maybe doing maybe a Heat Viper or Frag Viper next. I think the orange/purple and brown/turquoise combos would look pretty cool on this figure.



Thanks! It is a fun sort of challenge, trying to get the color deco to synch up. Maybe I will try doing one in reverse though too. That could sort of be sweet.



No way! These guys are practically playable!



Thanks, P. For some reason, when I did the dye on the Doc legs and the Snow Serpent legs, a few days after I assembled them (and painted them ) they both had this weird white mineral deposit sort of thing appear at the thigh seam. I'm not sure what it was and I've never seen it do that before...

That's a good idea for Firefly. That one leg still has a pretty uneven gap that I couldn't sand down any further without loosing some height, so I'll definately try your suggestion.

I thought about swapping the head with a Techno head for about 3 seconds. I decided the goal here (for me) is to apply alternate color schemes to what is unquestionably the coolest sculpting job in the entire Cobra Army. The vents were actually painted with my weird pink paint before I mixed it with a little purple and white, so it does look more red than it should, and I will fix that.



Are those vials? I thought they were flares... And spray paint is just such a pain in the butt this time of year in these parts, but I see your point.




If I ever come across a better Firefly head, I'll swap it out, but for now I can live with this one. And I did recently pick up a set of Exacto razor saws, but those legs were cut a looooong time ago. They work pretty good, thogh I've only used them on wrists so far.

Damn you. It's a good thing I at least got that Techno gun off of you first then, isn't it?

Thanks for the comments everyone!

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