I’m a fan of the original 13 G.I. Joe figures and love getting them in G.I. Classified. A few months back while going through 3DJoes.com looking at all the great old box art and figure shots, it struck me that two of the 13 (Grunt and Clutch) got tan repaints at some point. It really made me want to see the rest of the original 13 in that color scheme. Not long after that, I saw a beautiful custom set of tan-colored original 13 figures and not long after that, Hasbro announced (maybe it was leaked first, I can’t remember) this Snake Eyes repaint, appealing directly to my interests! Let’s take a look at the G.I. Joe Classified Desert Commando Snake Eyes!
I really love the character art on this one that graces the side, front insert, and figure tray. They packed a lot of bad ass into that small space. I’m thinking we’ll see the new style of packaging at Pulsecon this Friday, and I’m going to miss this box layout.
This is a repaint of the first Snake Eyes figure from Classified and comes with a lot of the accessories he’s come with in the past, plus a sword from a Cobra Ninja, including two swords, a knife, pistol, uzi, silencer, sheath, bandolier, and backpack.
The grenade bandolier can be slung over the shoulder and has a hole so the pack peg can go through it into the hole in the back, though I have found I prefer the look of the bandolier if it is slung lower than the back peg.
The pack attaches with a peg in the back and still works whether you plug it through the bandolier or not. It does have a tendency to pop off when posing the figure, but I do like that you can plug the sword sheathe into the pack or straight onto Snake Eyes’ back.
The knife is cast in tan plastic and has a painted silver blade. It fits in the hand and sheathe well, which a bit of a relief because I recall one repaint of this body where the knife wouldn’t insert into the sheathe. It was a little wonky out of the box, but a little heat and reposition fixed it up.
The main sword is cast in a brown plastic and has a two tone silver/copper paint job on the blade and the copper matches nicely with the coppery metallic of the visor. It fits well in the hand and the sheathe and is my preferred weapon of the two swords. The downside of it is that it is very soft plastic, the heat of shooting in the sun made this thing almost floppy. The other one also has a brown grip and a silver blade and can fit in the sheathe, but is a little loose in the figure’s hand.
The ranged weapons are both cast in a lighter tan and have darker brown details painted. The silencer can fit on either gun and they both fit well in the hand. The guns have a nice level of detail and the pistol and the pistol and silencer fit well into the holster on the right hip. Even with the extra sword, Snake Eyes can hold all his accessories.
Snake Eyes re-uses the first Classified figure’s body and the head from the recent Retro-Carded figure. Both figures are favorites of mine and I think they work well together proportionally until you put the figure next to the original Snake Eyes, then the head seems a little large for the body. The sculpted detail on this figure is second to none and the repaint highlights a lot of the fun clothing and armor intricacies.
The paint is what makes this figure interesting to me and I think they took a desert theme in an interesting direction. The main part of the top gets a nice buttercream frosting tan, but the armor pieces are darker brown which almost gives it a camouflaged feel. The separation between colors is mostly clean, but I’ve got a couple of stray dark brown spots and the top of the visor outline is a little off.
There are a couple of new symbols printed on the uniform that also add a bit of visual interest and the fact that they seem to have created a desert unit patch makes me think I may get my desert repaints or at least enough figures to gather the parts I’ll need to make them myself.
The articulation on this figure was excellent when it was released three years ago and continues to be superior, even better than some of the new releases since he has a hinged neck that allows him to look up and some of the best butterfly hinges in the line. Snake Eyes has:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Swivel biceps, thighs, and boots
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Hinged mid-torso, neck, and butterfly hinged pecs
- Ball and socket lower neck, head, and waist
Overall, I like this figure a lot. It helps a lot that he’s a repaint of an extremely good figure and I was primed for a desert repaint of Snake Eyes, but this figure has been repainted a few times and I completely understand why it would be tiring for some. I do hope they eventually make a cold weather Snake Eyes, and when they do I’m looking for something more comic-book inspired like the 25th anniversary era Arctic Assault figure, but I’m also kind of curious to see this guy again in snow colors. I did notice that he is cast in fairly soft plastics, so that’s something to look out for if you are particularly sensitive to that.
Source: Fwoosh
