Dusty (1988)

The Tiger Force figures, taken as a whole, seem a little haphazard. While there are common elements among the figures, the colors and application of tiger stripes vary widely. Maybe the higher-ups just sent out a big box of uniforms and let the troops pick what they wanted. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the team’s usual dress standards.

Seeing the Dusty mold in a two toned color scheme adds some interest for a repaint. While the final result may be a little on the garish side, the absence of all-over camo puts the figure inns different light. The same goes for the head sculpt, as we’re accustomed to seeing the team’s preeminent desert trooper in face paint. The overall effect is like looking at someone who normally wears glasses, and takes them off. Something just looks…different. I’d often thought that this version of the figure looked cheap, but now I think I was just interpreting the flat paint scheme.

If you’d like an all over tiger stripe look, you can switch out the waist and legs from Tiger Force Bazooka, since he wears the green with yellow stripe pattern on his pants. His nice pants, I should say.

11 comments

  • Going further on the leg swap comment, you can stick the waist and legs (if the waist isn’t broken, which I’ve seen a lot of TF Dustys with) on 1985 Crankcase–the green on the waist matches his shirt. I think if the green on the legs matches that on the ’85 Flint’s, removing the camo on that waist will help in say, a woodland-colors version of Claymore.

  • Despite what most of the critics say, I like Tiger force.
    So far the only tiger force figure i have is Duke [for twenty cents at a flea market]. A few months ago i was inspired to make some custom tiger force vehicles. I turned the Captain America 4×4 into a Tiger vamp.

    And yes, I had the same idea about swapping his legs.

  • Dusty’s head sculpt is supposedly modeled after veteran designer Ron Rudat. So that’s a better view of Ron’s face we’re seeing above. Dusty somehow looks older without the face paint.

    If I ever come across loose samples of TF Dusty and Bazooka, I will try switching parts. I’ve always thought that both Tiger Force and Night Force would have worked a lot better with full head-to-toe camo patterns.

  • @Clutch
    In a way, you also have yourself an LBC version of the South American Tiger Force member Felino.

  • I’ve always loved Tiger Force. That’s how I got my Flint and Roadblock (and my brother had Duke) back in the day since we both too young to have gotten those originally at retail. I’d never been interested in Dusty, but I think it’s nice that this color scheme makes it easier for Dusty to be used in a wider setting. For some reason, I never used desert-colored figure much outside of the desert, but jungle-camo guys got used all over the place since I saw jungle camo as the go-to military look. I could justify it anywhere and Dusty looks good in a more jungle-friendly camouflage scheme.

  • I liked that Tiger Force didn’t all have common colors or patterns. Look at some of the 2000’s Toys R Us sets, like the Night Force one, the Joe characters just become generic when they all have the same color patterns. Later Tiger Force releases use orange and black stripes, which none of the US releases had in 1988-89. That might be more Tiger like, maybe, but by sharing the same orange and black pattern, the Convention Tiger Force figures are uninteresting (and arguably more tacky) compared to the original team.

    .

  • Yes, I like the variety of Tiger patterns, it’s more interesting than totally uniform uniforms!

  • This was my first Dusty, so as a result, I love him.

    Generally though, I go for the originals.

  • It was nice to see Dusty without all the camo. As for Tiger Force, weren’t they assembled as a special desert/jungle strike force? From what I recall, their filecards didn’t really give any new info as the other repaint sets did though it did mention Roadblock was selected for his culinary skills. And looking over their appearance, I do agree this Dusty in some ways looks better than the original. I think Dusty, Tripwire, Frostbite fare the best. Lifeline looks, ahem, interesting. I was more a fan of the Python Patrol repaints though. At least the paint apps are sensible, unlike Slaughters Marauders, who fell asleep under several different paint rollers (looks like Mutt & Barbecue had the least bad paint apps, Sgt. Slaughter looks decent, Low-Light, some paint apps are bad, but the colors combined with the figure make it look like an interesting take on Low-Light). And unlike Python Patrol, with its 2 patterns, Tiger Force has different colors for each (but 3 general patterns: black stripes on yellow, yellow stripes on green, black stripes on brown, with Roadblock having his own pattern, yellow on brown).

    I would add this was my first Dusty too. I kinda think he was one of the figures that didn’t turn up too often in late 1985 and 1986.

  • This is one of my top 5 favorites of all o-rings, sound weird but I just like it. I still have a perfect specimen that my little boy doesn’t play with, but it’s in his collection he just doesn’t play with him? I love this one dusty is one of my favorites and this version allows for more usage, which is awesome.

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