I've been toying with the idea of parts swapping figures to make classic Joes that are still MIA. Since I'm lousy with paints I went with just part swapping. The outcome is somewhat good.
Dialtone
Recipe
-Head - Sgt. Stone with painted moustache
-Torso and legs - Mutt (or Lift Ticket)
-Arms-Airborne
-Hands/gloves- Sgt. Stone
-Webgear - General Hawk (Command 3pack with Grunt)
-Gun and backpack -vintage
The pants on the vintage figure were black, but in the Sunbow cartoons, Dialtone was green, all the way down to the pants (check the GiJoe movie BET scenes). The black pants were from the Marvel GiJoe comics.
This is one of the ones that came out near-perfect.
The only major hassle was breaking apart Mutt's body and Airborne's body with a vice grip (DO NOT use pliers, it won't work!) and re-attaching the halves with superglue.
Also, the vintage backpack peg won't fit so it needs to be cut off (using cutting pliers) and superglued to the back of the figure (the peg hole in the 25th figures' backs are too high, not centered in the torso).
Mercer
Recipe:
-Head-General Hawk
-Torso/arms- Monkey Wrench
-Vest-Mutt (better choice would be red Resolute Cobra trooper vest from boxset)
-Pistol with silencer-Mutt
Meh.. not what I was hoping for. Hopefully, putting on a Resolute red Cobra trooper vest will fix it (still waiting for the boxset to go on sale). The gun is a near-perfect match for the vintage figure (the vintage gun was grey)
Low Light
Recipe:
-Head-Ice Storm (from Polar Sharc)
-Goggles-Firefly from 2pack or Hall of Heroes
-Body-Hall of Heroes Firefly (Cobra logo on right shoulder scrapped off)
-Rifle -vintage figure.
Not bad. The goggles aren't a perfect fit though.. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Pursuit of Cobra Zartan extra head as a possible "Low Light" head.
Again, the vintage backpack won't work here, the peg hole in the figure is too high, so cutting off the peg on the backpack and supergluing it to the figure is the way to go.
Lifeline.
With the vintage figure
Recipe:
-Head-Tripwire
-Body-Hardmaster (2pack)
-Rescue kit - vintage
Uggh.. this one did not turn out so good. Mainly because of the head. I guess this was a bad idea.
Footloose
Recipe:
-Head-Mutt(better choice would be Footloose from the desert 5pack with Zartan and Law)
-Body/Webgear-Lt. Falcon
-Helmet- Bazooka (Bazooka's head is too big for the Falcon body)
-Bazooka - Bazooka
-Backpack-General Hawk
Well.. this one is a hit or miss, the upper body works, the lower half is kinda ... off... I guess the skimpy Lt. Falcon boots throw off the proportions of the figure. Oh well..
Iceberg
Recipe:
-Head-ROC Heavy Duty
-Body-Cobra Snow Serpent
-Vest- Airborne
-Rifle-vintage
Close.. but not quite there yet. The Heavy Duty head is just too big (?). I'll try again with the Repeater (Serpentor repainted brown) head from the 5pack. Still thinking of proper head gear too but nothing comes to mind just yet.
Frostbite:
Recipe:
-Head-ROC Shipwreck
-Goggles-SnowJob (needs to be cut to fit the big Shipwreck head)
-Gun holster-General Hawk
-Body/rifle-Artic Hisstank Driver (shoulder "fur" cut off).
Near perfect figure.
The Gloves and boots are wrong (should be white) but painting them white would be a easy fix (if you're into painting customs).
Gold
i particularly like the low-light (one of my all time favorite figures)
keeping the site active as a place to dump info for easier backtracking.