Eco-Warriors Airtight
Team Leader, Eco Warriors
GI Joe

Character:

Airtight was the team’s first dedicated “hostile environment trooper”, with a nod to Flash who was the closest match before him according to a quick bit of dialog in an early Marvel comic and filecard.

Hasbro somehow didn’t include Airtight as an Eco-Warrior, but used Flint as the team’s leader. No, bad Hasbro. Anywho, in with Airtight and out with Flint and the team is fixed forever. Okay, I'll be keeping Flint around as a pilot because everyone like him so much.

Design:

Airtight preceded the Eco-Warriors, but his uniform and gear design still exceeds any of theirs. So he got to keep his original head as a helmeted version, instead of the 3D print that most of the others will share for their helmets.

The unmasked head is Ric Ollie, which captures the look of Airtight from the Sunbow cartoon, where Airtight was given more exposure than he was in the Marvel comic. His Marvel appearance didn't feature the receding hairline, which really brings a lot to the look.

Airtight does get one of the fantastic Ernie’sEmporium3D backpacks to replace his 1985 backpack.

Colors & Paint:

Sharing the uniform color set started on Clean Sweep.

I considered filling Airtight’s visor with epoxy so it would be solid like the other EW’s faceplates. I also considered painting it with shifted colors (the whites of the eyes would be light blue to show they’re behind a blue visor). But I decided to just leave the sculpted eyes in place and painted solid. This way they don’t have to match up to the way the unmasked face’s eyes are painted.

Sculpting & Modifying:

The original Airtight head and the Ric Ollie heads were cut off at the neck and hollowed out to accept the neck post. Some of the Ric Ollie hair was lobbed off and a longer widow’s peak was added. The shoulder and elbow rivets, and the thigh screw insets, are epoxy filled and smoothed.

Thanks for looking.