G.I. JOE 365

This Tumblr is dedicated solely to this year-long G.I. Joe project entitled: "G.I. Joe 365" (#GIJOE365), which will be a drawing of a G.I. Joe figure per day, chronologically.

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178: “Star-Viper”, G.I. Joe ARAH, Series 7, 1988

As anyone who has been following this project know, I love Vipers, and I love helmets. This guy checks both of those boxes.  Star-Viper came with the Cobra “Stellar Stiletto” (art forthcoming).

As first glance the gold and black is reminiscent of Destro’s crew (the Iron Grenadiers) but Star-Viper is indeed a Cobra Viper.  

This adds another Viper (and pilot) to the mix. Be sure to head to https://gijoe365.com/ to filter all the Joes I’ve drawn so far!

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177: “Skidmark”, G.I. Joe ARAH, Series 7, 1988

Unfortunate name, some might say, but this guy came with a pretty darned cool vehicle: The Desert Fox (more art of the Desert Fox forthcoming).

This adds another driver to the mix. Be sure to head to gijoe365.com to sort and filter all the Joes I’ve drawn so far!

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176: “Sgt. Slaughter (v3), G.I. Joe ARAH Series 7, 1988

This is the third version of Sgt. Slaughter to come along and my personal favourite of what would end up being a total of four versions throughout the ARAH series (see v1 and v2 at GIJOE365.com as numbers 110 and 106 respectively).

V1 was unique because he was mail-in only at the time, and V2 (personally my second favourite version) was different because he came with a vehicle. But THIS version, V3, was on another level because for the first time the Sarge’s hat was removable, and he came with a new vehicle : The Warthog (drawing forthcoming) which was very cool in my opinion.

Sgt. Slaughter came from the wrestling world originally, and through the cartoon series became an iconic figure (literally and figuratively) within the G.I. Joe universe, known particularly as the trainer and “drill sergeant” of the team.

This version of the figure really put him on the front lines and positioned him as a leader on the field, so to speak, not to mention aesthetically making him more cohesive with the look and feel with the rest of the Joes. I really loved that about this figure as a kid.

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PLEASE SHARE! Big sale happening right now in my online shop! To jump right to the GIJOE365 stuff CLICK HERE but the sale applies to all my other brands like my comic (Dear Inner Demons), pop-culture helmet project (Kriegshelm) and my other art (Christopher Hemsworth Art and Design). Sale is on from now until December 25th and I ship anywhere in the world!

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175: “Secto-Viper”, G.I. Joe ARAH Series 7, 1988

Here we have the wacky Secto-Viper that was packaged with the even wackier “BUGG.”

This is another addition to one of my favourite groupings: VIPERS. If you go to https://gijoe365.com/ you can scroll down and filter by “viper” to see all the Vipers to date! Who’s YOUR favourite viper?

This is where you may be asking “Okay.. so where IS the BUGG?” In a radical move prompted by a fan/follower of the G365 project (Brad) I decided to NOT draw the vehicle at the same time as drawing the figure. The vehicles sometimes take an epically long time to draw and then occupy less space on the figure layout than the figure itself. They create a huge delay in being able to move onto the next figure. I thought it might be good to just leave the vehicles til the end of the 1988 figure run and then draw them, letting me hopefully be able to post more frequently.  

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174: “Nullifier”, G.I. Joe ARAH Series 7, 1988

Another addition to Destro’s Iron Grenadiers faction! This guy’s visor is so unique and wild, which was kind of a defining characteristic of the Iron Grenadiers.

On the gijoe365.com site If you click “I.G.” under “faction” on the home page, you can see the members we have accrued thus far. You can filter them in all sorts of ways in fact!

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I couldn’t help myself. I had to also do an alternate version of my Phantom X-19 art where it’s in “combat mode.” Special shout out to Jeff Patton and Dave Harris for hooking me up with some reference photos that enabled me to draw the under-the-wing details and the cockpit details too. My ideal for drawing everything for this project is always to actually hold it in my hand and be able to really see the details, but in the case of the Phantom X-19 my younger self took it apart for some bizarre reason and so it’s missing a ton of parts. So both Jeff and Dave came through with some incredibly helpful photos of what I needed to see.

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Here is a closer look at my art for the Phantom X-19. As mentioned in my previous post, this is the vehicle that Ghostrider was packaged with.

I wanted to give special attention to just the vehicle here for two main reasons: it’s one of my all-time favourites, and a lot of time and effort was put into the art for this one. You can seen I’ve attached  few detail crops and process image as well.

I LOVE this vehicle. For me personally it’s in my top 5 vehicles. I can so clearly remember as a kid seeing this vehicle and just being totally blown away. If you try and think of the previous jets that had come out, you’ll see that this was SUCH a fresh design and SO sleek and just totally exudes “stealth.” I couldn’t believe how “thin” it was (as in, lookin side-on, profile-wise) and you could just immediately see that this thing was made to cut through the air like a dagger.

From the adult perspective now, as an artist and designer what I really appreciate about this vehicle is it’s iconic shape and overall design, as well as the colour scheme! I really love the black, grey, neon green combo, a LOT.

From the ART standpoint, you'll see that I decided to get as much detail as possible, right down to including the cockpit and two pilots in there too. I've got Windmill as Ghostrider's co-pilot in this case.

You can see more vehicle art on my “Extra Art” page on the G365 site here: https://gijoe365.com/extra-art.php

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173: “Ghostrider”, G.I. Joe ARAH S7, 1988

//Quick Personal Note: No posts in a long long while, I realize. I also know that 2020 has been a rough year for all (to put it mildly), myself included. I hope you are all doing the best you can out there. I feel like I might be back in the saddle, and will hopefully be able to post more frequently now.//

Ghostrider* is the pilot of the Phantom X-19 Stealth Fighter (one of my personal all-time favourite vehicles - I will make a separate post just about the vehicle tomorrow).

(*not to be confused with the Marvel character Johnny Blaze, aka “Ghost Rider”)

His only accessory (aside from a super bad-ass stealth fighter) was a red scarf made of a cloth material. This red material is actually extremely similar (maybe even identical?) to the red cape of 171 Destro v2.  

It wasn’t a new idea for cloth to be included in some capacity with a figure, but with this figure it was one of the smallest pieces to be included as its own unattached accessory. For example, 058 Dusty had a bit of cloth around his helmet, but it was attached. (Sidenote: I THINK that was maybe the first usage of cloth on a figure) As another example, 082 Dr. Mindbender had a detachable cloth cape, but it was fairly big and thereby more difficult to lose. What is my point? Just to say that this scarf was best left tied around Ghostrider so as to avoid it disappearing forever.

So much scarf talk. All in all, I liked Ghostrider, even independent of his super cool jet plane. I liked the colour scheme and design quite a lot.

See (AND sort) all previous 172 figures at https://gijoe365.com/

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172: “Ferret” G.I. Joe “Real American Hero” Series 7, 1988

This figure adds to Destro’s army of Iron Grenadiers, bringing with him the D.E.M.O.N., a transforming beast of a vehicle, upon which Destro’s very on Despoiler can dock!

One of my favourite things about the G.I. Joe line has always been the abundance of acronyms. D.E.M.O.N. is no exception and stands for “Duel Elevating Multi-Ordinance Neutralizer.

See all the figures I’ve drawn so far, and even filter down to specific groups (like Iron Grenadiers) at gijoe365.com . . .

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The yearly MEGA PRINT SALE has been extended! You now have until SUNDAY October 20, 2019 to save 65% on ALL my prints!

This includes HALLOWEEN themed posters and prints perfect for the season, as well as detailed pop-culture helmet prints, my Dear Inner Demons comic prints, posters, and prints from my GIJOE365 project! This is 100s of different designs to choose from.

Just use the code 2019G365FALL65 at the time of checkout at https://christopherhemsworth.ecwid.com/ and tell your friends! Bring something unique to your walls, while at the same time supporting me as an artist!

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While filling an order, I decided to capture in 15 seconds or less something I do all the time. This is a CLASSIC example of me using my OWN site (gijoe365.com) to quickly find a particular detail about a figure (in this case, Strato-Viper's number). You would not believe how often I use this sort function hahaha, it's handy!

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Hey gang! I realize no new art in awhile, and for that I apologize, but in the meantime why not take advantage of this amazing sale and help support me as an artist?? :D This is my yearly MEGA sale! Use the coupon code 2019G365FALL65 at the checkout to get a whopping 65% off all the prints in your order! 100s to choose from! Go to christopherhemsworth.ecwid.com to take a look!

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Card packs are BACK. Everything is back in stock: from 1982 through to 1987! There are also still some gift boxes left too. Only 5 of the transforming Coastal Defender boxes! Head to https://store.gijoe365.com/ to get yours now!

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If you aren't signed up for the B.L.A.S.T. newsletter, you may want to do so in anticipation of the next newsletter coming out ... just sayin 😉 You can sign up on the https://gijoe365.com/ website!

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171: “Destro (v2)” G.I. Joe “Real American Hero” Series 7, 1988

Finally. This is version 2 of Destro, one of the most well known of the figures. At this point in the toy line he has branched off into his own distinct faction: Destro’s Iron Grenadiers. Because of the order in which I draw the figures we have actually already been introduced to his Iron Grenadiers with fig 160: Iron Grenadier soldier, and: fig 169: Voltar, Destro’s General. On the site (https://gijoe365.com/) you can sort by faction, btw, to quickly see only the Joes so far or the Cobras or now the Iron Grenadiers.

Destro v2 is a personal favorite for sure and I have a few other special art pieces in the works for him beyond this standard figure drawing. I love a few things about this figure actually, not the least of which is the colour scheme. The gold, black, and red core colors are just so great together. I love the gold in general and think it was a brilliant point of distinction for his faction. You’ll see the gold colour feature in virtually all the figures in the I.G. faction as we push forward. There are quite a few in this faction that I love.

As a kid in 1988 it was really neat to suddenly have this third major team within the Joe world. I suppose I would say the Dreadnoks were also a separate faction, but it felt a bit different with the introduction of Destro’s I.G.’s I think because of how “militarized” they were. Destro had always been a “weapons specialist” supplying Cobra with weapons and tech etc but suddenly now we have him “going his own way.” I remember as a kid I’d often do a thing where I would have my Joe guys team up with some Cobra guys out of necessity for for the “greater good” in order to infiltrate and take down some plot of Destro’s. It’s this kind of thing that very clearly exemplifies the depth of imagination that this toy line elicited.

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Completed side-view of Destro v2. When I draw these I am drawing them from the perspective of my childhood mind. So for example I see them as the plastic figure, but as a kid, his sword, despite coming sheathed in it's hilt, was a usable sword in my play.