Stony as John Wayne in the Green Berets
One of the great moments in 1968 was the release of The Green Berets, starring John Wayne.
This story was controversial for its time. Showing that during the protested Vietnam war, our soldiers could be loyal, caring and professional fighting men ready to take on our nation's call.
There's my inspiration, and here's the result:
- Click on images for a larger version
Body Decision
Not too hard of a decision here. I had to get the correct tropical battle dress used by the US Army special forces in Vietnam. Naturally, Stony provided the answer. This Stony is the first edition, non-articulated, figure that has the baggy pockets in his shirt (blouse) and trousers.Just like my first set of jungle fatiques!
I replaced the open hands with vintage closed hands but did not have to modify the body at all. Oh, I did reinforce the inside of the shoulder loops with 1/8" crafting eyelets to prevent a future break...
The head is a complete custom. Taken from a modern John Wayne figure, I recast the head in hard resin and added the Johnny style neck post.
I then primed and put the first coat of flesh paint. After that I decided to try my hand at 'painting with pastels' - using the powder from hard pastel artist chaulk I dabbed and blended various colors to get a realistic, dirty faced John Wayne.
Headgear and Clothes Work
The hat is a green beret from a modern figure. I need to put a Colonel's eagle on it insted of the special forces insignia but it is the right flash color.I did also give him a web belt from another modern army accessory set
John is wearing a full web belt with canteen, shoulder straps, combat knife and M-16 ammo pouch. He is carrying the standard issue M-16 rifle.
This was a fun figure to do. I'm probably going to work on him more by casting a soft beret and giving him a Marx Stony cartridge belt to get it closer to how Marx may have done it, but he'll keep his M-16.
