Varujan “Taurus” Ayvazyan (2006)

Varujan “Taurus” Ayvazyan or just Taurus to his friends, is a good example of the economic reuse of parts. As a member of the Slaughter’s Renegades set from the 2006 GI Joe convention, he used the same body mold as his teammates, Red Dog and Mercer. The original torso and leg mold belonged to Clutch, from the oft-ridiculed Mega Marines sub-group.

The set succeeded by finding a way to individualize each figure just enough to set it apart from the others. Just a few touches of paint and a simple tampo did the trick nicely. Taurus received pants colored similarly to his original figure. I’ll admit to not noticing this when I first got the set years ago. I also didn’t notice the tiny collar section painted yellow, a throwback to the 1987 Taurus’ yellow shirt. Finally, there’s the bull head “tattoo” tampo on the left biceps. All of these small touches help to bring a little more individuality to a mold that was used three times in the same pack.

The old Taurus head still shows a lot of personality, with its distinctive beard and bald head. Per usual for the Con exclusives, the eyes are painted with a bit more detail (they have whites) than back in the 80’s.

He also gets a rifle that somewhat echoes the original’s extended barrel look, and gets a new scimitar-like sword to play up the Turkish origins of the character.