Raptor continued...................

........Starting with the torso, I decided to use Gung-Ho from the 2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set. I pulled Gung-Ho's vest off and popped his head off. Unscrewed his legs and took them appart too. I needed an upper torso that featured a bare chest and arms so Gung-Ho was the best choice for this at the time and I had the parts available. First thing to do after taking appart Gung-Ho was to scratch off the Marine logo tattoo on his chest. I did this very carefully with the tip of an Xacto knife blade, this allowed me to get into the grooves of his chest and remove the tattoo. Now, I needed to put together a new set of legs that resembled the vintage Raptor figures legs from 1987. I used Roadblocks upper legs from the 2007 G.I.Joe Box Set and Gung-Ho's lower legs, also from the 2007 Box Set. To get the leg holster on his left thigh, I usde the one from Gung-Ho's right thigh and made some modifications to it with the Xacto knife so it looked right on his left thigh. Now to find a head that looked somewhat like Raptor's.........I used Duke's head, also from the 2007 G.I.Joe Box Set and painted the brown around his eyes like Raptor has. For the arms, I kept the Gung-Ho ones with the torso and painted the elbow pads and gloves black. After painting the lower torso pants part and the legs brown and the boots black with silver "talons" on the toes like the original Raptor had, I decided to try and make the Cobra necklace like the vintage version had. I used the dogtags off of the 2008 25th Anniversary single carded figure, Wave 8 Major Bludd and cut off some of the "chains", then used greenstuff to sculpt the "pendant" on the necklace. After the greenstuff dried and was sculpted a little bit, I painted the chains red and the pendant silver with black trim and back. Carefully cut the edges off of a red Cobra chest sticker from www.cobrastickers.com and placed it on the newly constructed pendant. After all of the figure was painted, dried and re-assembled, I got the idea to use real feathers insted of sculpting them on with greenstuff. After a trip to the local JoAnn fabrics store, I had the feathers I needed for the job. Using basically just the tips of the feathers, I glued them on his wrists, ankles and back with clear Loc-Tite glue. Also using the Loc-Tite glue, I glued the freashly painted belt buckle that was dremeled out of the original Raptor figure's waist onto the new Raptor waist. The backpack post had to be removed from the original Raptor's backpack/winged-cape and some of the plastic had to be cut off from the backpack part as well to fit the contours of the 25th Anniversary Gung-Ho back. Then, slipped the new Raptor's arms through the holes in the cape and glued the modified backpack piece onto his back. The last step was to glue the original cowl onto Duke's head. Before the cowl fit right, I had to carefully cut the tab out of the cowl that used to go into the groove on Raptor's head. To finish him off, I added some detail paint apps to his bird and made him a custom stand.

Custom Raptor "parts recipe"

Head - Duke (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Torso - Gung-Ho (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Arms - Gung-Ho (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Upper Legs - Roadblock (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Lower Legs - Gung-Ho (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Side Holster and Gun - Gung-Ho (2007 25th Anniversary G.I.Joe Box Set)

Cobra Pendant - Major Bludd (2008 25th Anniversary single carded figure, Wave 8)

Cowl - Raptor (1987 ARAH single carded figure)

Backpack with "wings" cape - Raptor (1987 ARAH single carded figure)

Belt Buckle - Raptor (1987 ARAH single carded figure)

Bird - Raptor (1987 ARAH single carded figure)

Paints used:

Tamiya X-9 (Brown)

Tamiya X-1 (Black)

Tamiya X-7 (Red)

Tamiya X-11 (Chrome Silver)