
Hear
how Bob M. from Indiana used his saved time:
I've always
loved the sets and costumes from Disney's version of Jules Verne's "20,000
Leagues Under The Sea" and I decided that GI Joe needed a cool
new dive suit.
I used a vintage GI Joe Deep Dea Diver suit I got in a trade as a starting
point, it had a nice lived-in look (it is tea-colored from years of
hard diving adventure.) I got the belt and knife and the base for the
collar and helmet from a Rapid Deployment Force flying outfit- these
fit nice and tight on cc joes head and have a chin guard attatched to
the helmet that you can build up on with sculpy. The 12" Nascar
figures have a perfect helmet to use as a base for sculpting the dive
helmet- a chin guard really helps. I used sculpy to build up the helmet.
I used an extruder tool similar to a big hypodermic syringe to make
long cylinders of clay and then wrapped them around the base helmet
doubling the strips where it needed to be thicker. Using uniform coils
helped keep the depth of the sculpy uniform. I blended the coils and
added details. The cowling is made from flat pieces that I rolled out
from more cylinders (uniform mass to start from) and just joined at
the corners by smoothing. bake it and then you can sand it and whittle
on it if need be. I used copper paint from a craft store that has a
lot of metal in the paint to make it seem more metal-ly when it is dried,
I should have put a gloss clear coat on it but I am too impatient to
ever do stuff like that. The lens was cut from a clear spherical ornament
I got at Michaels craft store, a gumball machine prize-holder would
work too. The top vent is from a bubble blowing barbie mermaid. the
tubes are from zoid models. the brass thingy over the cowling is made
from stacking flat black and brass beads from a bead store together,
the real metal makes the whole thing look better IMO. The tanks were
made from a trashed set of joe tanks with thin copper and paint added.
The top of the backpack is covered with thin craft metal I found a long
time ago, I haven't seen any for sale since but it might be available
at train or RC hobby stores. The gun is an Action Man space rifle with
some details added and a little copper paint. The spair air tank is
from the Classic Collection airborne jumper. Cotswold Collectibles sells
repro dive suits, beat up vintage suits might be better.