Cobra High Speed Sentry (H.I.S.S.) (80s Pulp)

Today we have the iconic Cobra High Speed Sentry (H.I.S.S.) tank. It was quite possibly my favourite vehicle in my youth, it looked super cool and looked futuristic enough to be include in Star Wars adventures too!

The HISS was developed to fulfill two separate needs on the battle field, anti-personnel and heavy armor. The H.I.S.S. tank is the most versatile and deadly tank in Cobra's armada.

Incredibly, this is the first ever 28mm vehicle I've painted in my life.

The model I used is a bit of a story in itself, as I used a small plastic toy which incredibly is the right scale for 28mm! It's sold as novelty for offices or such, complete with Pew Pew sounds and lights! At 13$ CA, it's an unbelievably good deal!

I remove the wheels, primed it while protecting the plastic canopy with masking tape, and then painted it. The original HISS in the cartoon was black, but I painted mine blue, a favourite of mine which came in toy format many years later. I had a bit of a problem with the painting, as I gave it a wash of blue ink. Bad idea! Ink on such a smooth surface looked horrendous, so I painted over it. So basically I gave the model two basecoats! Other than that I'm pleased with the vehicle, especially the edge highlights. Eventually I'll need to try some of the fancy tehniques like rust and weathering.

The stickers included are crap so I did not use them, but I did manage to find Cobra decals from Company B! I learned a lot while painting this, and my 2nd HISS will be better, but I'm still happy how it came out, for my very first try at the bigger scale vehicles.

The Crimson Guards (80s Pulp)

File name : Top Secret
Primary military specialty : Undercover espionnage
Secondary military specialty : Accounting, Law

More Cobra baddies today, as we move on to my childhood's favourites (ok, they still are my favourites), the Crimson Guards, the elite shock troops of the Cobra legions.

They are usually depicted as Cobra Commander bodyguards, and also act as deep-cover or sleeper agents, conducting operations in civilian guises. It makes me laugh that they are also lawyers (obviously the elite bad guys are lawyers), a fact I had to share with my my wife Laurie (who's a Lawyer).

They have a really smart uniform, for the military uniform buffs, complete with shoulder straps and silver cords. While the action figures had a black helmet with a silver visor, I went with the cartoon and card art with the silver helmet and dark visor, which I find looks much better.

Completely clad in red, they were somewhat of a challenge to paint but I'm really happy how they came out. I went with a gloss finish on their visors and it came out great!  The silver Cobra symbol on their chest are actually custom made decals from Company B. It was a bit of a pain to slide such tiny transfers, especially since the torsos of the figures are not totally flat, but after a lot of swearing I managed to do a good job of it! It really adds to the figures.

I believe it shows that I really like them, as they are some of my favourite work I've done recently, even though the red highlights are a little lost in the pictures.

The figures themselves are really great, too. They also have a lot less straps than their blue brothers (yeah)!

The Enemy, part II (80s Pulp)

File name, unknown. 
Primary military specialty: Infantry
Secondary military specialty : Sabotage

Five of the nameless, faceless legions of Cobra command. Each Cobra is highly skilled in the use of explosives, all NATO and Warsaw pact small arms, sabotage and the martial arts. 

Cobras swear absolute loyalty to their fanatical leader, Cobra Commander...their goal, to conquer the world for their own evil purpose. 

Five more Cobra troopers this week. 

The Cobra troopers are the "cannon fodder" of the Cobra organization, i.e. think of the classic James Bond villain henchmen. So they will be quite useful in the games I intend to play with this project. They were mostly inept in the cartoons, but I loved them nonetheless, as once again I had a soft spot for all masked evil grunts! Doing all the work with oh so little recognition! 

 Cobraaaaaaaaaaa!

When I first started on these guys, I thought they would be super easy to paint, what with them all blue, but I quickly realized the bastards have so much leg straps (and suspenders) they'd make a Napoleonic soldier proud! 

The Enemy (80s Pulp)

I was always a lot more into the evil guys, especially with GI Joe, and I loved all the masked soldiers and leaders from the evil Cobra organization. They looked so cool. My favourites action figures were often the ordinary grunts, from the Stormtroopers and the Snowtroopers to the Cobra blue shirts and Crimson Guards. So I decided to paint Cobra troopers first, the minions of the Cobra terrorist organization.

We start the project with 5 Cobra troopers, in their well known blue uniforms. The Cobra Troopers serve as the basic foot soldiers of the Cobra Organization, they are the nameless, faceless legions of the Cobra organization, loyal to Cobra Commander in his goal to conquer the world! (They also have an annoying amount of leg straps and suspenders!) Lovely figures, really, armed with Ak-47 and M-16, to give them a more realistic look, while still being true to the lore.

I went with a lighter blue than the cartoons and action figure art, mostly at first by accident but I liked the results so kept them that way. So the recipe (so that I remember in the future) is GW macragge blue as a base, then GW Altdorf Guard blue, with highlights of Foundry Bavarian Blue B and then C.

And I went for black for the straps and suspenders, white just looks silly!

Loads of fun painting these, this is a very fun and relaxed project.