Yeah I am poised on a few sites just witing for a sale.

Opened up retro Beach Head. Again, so much better than the first effort. I feel like this figure is the one with palpable body odor.

Snagged Road Pig this morning from Target with $10 off. A few stores in town have him in stock, but only one allowed store pick up. There were none of the shelves so they had to pull him from the back.

Fun figure. I dig the body they gave him. Although the dog’s anime eyes throw me off a bit.

I wonder if they might reuse parts of Road Pig for a future William Perry? Seems like a good starting point for “The Fridge”

I know some people dig it, so I'm not saying it's bad and they shouldn't do it. But one thing I personally am not loving on a few recent figures is the tattoos. Does everyone need them everywhere? I actually think Raptor would look better without them, and I kind of hate Road Pig's big ass stomach ink. I just find it visually distracting on both figures.

I think the belly tattoo looks better with the mask on.  The real crime is the poor torso articulation that doesn't allow us to cover the tattoo with a sweet crunched action pose.

Although I don’t t mind the tats too much, but what is the best way to safely remove them? Was it acetone or nail polish?  

@theknightdamien 

 Why, what tattoos do you mean?

@boy_wonder Oh man - that looks so much better! What did you use? I might actually have to pick him up now.

@vicious7171  Yeah, I agree that it looks better with the helmet to have the tattoos - but I don't particularly like either on my Road Pig. It's a fun idea. I'm okay with it existing. I just don't want that.
I swear, I'm not an ARAH purist. But I also kind of think there's probably a reason a lot of those designs stood the test of time over other variations of these characters and some of these 'improvements' or modernizations to the designs seem to bear that out - for me, personally.

Speaking of not being an ARAH purist - I wanted the first Snow Serpent really bad but never found one. Today I happened across a retro card Serpent at GameStop, so I had to grab it. I've got a serious soft spot for winter-themed characters. Really love this figure. Although I do wish the Classified team would stop phoning in the butterfly joints. Sometimes it barely seems worth the extra parts to have them when there's less than a millimeter of range. Also, I don't like the dual holsters, so I popped the one off the left leg.

Great figure overall, though. Really glad I grabbed him. With him, the Night Creeper, and the upcoming SAW Viper, I'm half-way through my idea of Cobra's coolest specialists. Just need Night Viper, v2 EEL, and Desert Scorpion.

Damnit... Desert Scorpion has to be on my list! That and Night Viper are my big cobra wants anymore as well.

That's the first picture I've seen of him without the tattoo and it's so much better.

The tattoos are character dependent for me. Rock n' Roll being covered in ink felt appropriate - I feel like in another life Rock n' Roll is a hippie tattoo artist in old school Venice Beach. some of the others could have gone without, sure. The 'noks... I mean they're a biker game, any added ink on them works. I actually assumed the markings on Raptor were either cultural appropriation nonsense from a crazy birdman accountant or some kind of body paint camo. 

Jinx's tats are really well done with intricate paint apps, but maybe Jinx herself doesn't need them? 

@ru1977 v1 Desert Scorpion is one of my all-time favorite Cobra figures. I just very badly want them to do a faithful 6" version of that figure and not bring in a bunch of junk from later figures or their own idea of what would make the design better or more modern.

@docsilence  You can definitely look at it two different ways: character appropriate and design appropriate. In the case of Jinx, I'm not really convinced that it's either? I don't think the tats do anything for her character design, nor do I think the character should have or need them.
Rock N' Roll is the opposite - it fits his character thematically, and also works well against the more generic militaria design.
Road Pig is different, to me, in that it's very thematically appropriate for him to be covered in tattoos and I just happen to think, design-wise, it looks ass. It's the Classified v2 Storm Shadow problem of trying to just cram too much shit into one design and making all of it just blur together into a visual mess.

I don't know what they were going for with Raptor and I actually don't care. Because, again regardless of the intent or whether it's character appropriate, I think it's distracting from his design rather than adding to it. The Joe team, generally, is seeming to fall into this trap of believing that 'MORE design is better design' and I'm not here for it.

But again, not saying these things shouldn't exist for those that enjoy them. I just am not one of those people.

I think the fact that Classified Jinx hides her face to theoretically conceal her identity but also walks around with a bare arm full of easily identifiable tattoos might not be the most covert of paths.

I guess the whole tattoo thing is probably just a progression of the times.   I mean more and more people seemingly have tattoos in general (at least in North America).   I mean I have a few myself, yet only my sister and I have tattoos in our extended family so what do I know outside of my anecdotal experience?

Again, anecdotally, I see police officers with visible tattoos more and more now as well.    I don't know what the rules are for military service members, but since we are talking about Joe I guess it can be whatever they want.   I do kind of think they are going a bit overboard with the number of characters getting tattoos for their Classified release.   Moreso on the Joe side, but I am good with what they have done for now.   

Road Pig seems to have been, surprisingly, divisive.   I love most of the choices they did for him, including the belly tattoo.   I think a big, dumb(?), brute in a biker gang probably wouldn't be above going all out on tattoos.   Also I love that they didn't just go with a large, bodybuilder shape for him because I prefer the idea of him just be a big guy who is strong, but not sculpted per se.   I think one of the things I don't like is the helmet.   I just don't think it fits all that well with the look.   

I do think the look without the belly tattoo is good as well so who knows?   Maybe he'll get a Retro card release and we'll see him sans belly tattoo (officially).