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. 

80s Military and Sci-Fi Pulp...aka American Hero

Hello, my name is Iannick Martin, and I'm a nostalgia junkie. 

I was born in 1979, and I'm really into everything from the 80s: cartoons, movies, comics, action figures, RPGs, and everything Oldhammer. The 1980s were the heydays of action figures, before the dark days, before the advent of Playstations and other Xboxes. I was obviously a big fan. Star Wars, Gi Joes, Master of the Universe...so many others. My father would often surprise me on friday nights with a new figure, especially a new GI Joe or Star Wars, which were smaller figures and very affordable. The packaging art was awesome, and each figure came with a "File Card" explaining the background of the trooper, his specialty, etc. Great fun for any young boy! GI Joe went on to become a very successful Marvel Comic, and a license franchise spanning movies, lunchboxes, and pretty much anything and everything. I still collect the action figures, yes I'm a geek and proud of it!

GI Joe's action figures from the early 80s

For those who don't know anything about the franchise, it was mainly about the covert war between GI Joe, an elite USA squad force, and Cobra, a terrorist organization bent on world domination with an obsession for snake emblems. It was very much a product of it's time, and you can smell the Reagan era a mile away. Not that my 7 year old self noticed, or cared about that anyways...

So not surprisingly, I was recently attracted by a small privately funded project by a friend of mine, recreating the GI Joe world in miniatures. It may seem silly at first, but the GI Joe world actually works extremely well as a wargaming setting, and offers tons of possibilities. It's a great setting for modern skirmishes, and lends itself well with the Pulp genre and rulesets. The black and white, i.e. the good guys and the bad guys, also makes for great fun in this bleak grey 21st century of ours.

This blog has been very quiet for some time, as I've been really involved with Sci-Fi and Fantasy (Oldhammer). But I've also been working on this "80s Military & Sci-fi Pulp" project for many months now, and I've yet to show pictures of it in my blog(s). I figure the project is a great excuse to make this blog more active! So apologies to the historical only crowd, but you're about to get a heavy dose of Pulp, with a most 80s of flavour. The 80s kids however should love what's coming next!

Here, let's finish this post with some 80s cheesy nostalgia goodness. Enjoy! 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, Part VII

Yes, the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is back for it's 7th year (I know, time flies). Better and bigger than ever, with 100 participants! While the Fantasy and Sci-Fi side of the Challenge will occupy the vast majority of my time, I do intend on working on a few things for this place.

So what's in store for this blog? Well two small projects, really.

1. Napoleonic skirmishes. I've got the skirmish bug recently, for both Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and I've been thinking of doing something similar for Naps. Really, it's an excuse to paint some of the many great skirmishing Napoleonic figures on the market. One of the things I like about skirmishes is the ability to spend more time on each figures, and it's something I especially never do with Naps. So I got myself Songs of Drums & Shakos, because I love the engine, and would like to create small 10-20 men forces. Eventually maybe I'll be able to use them in bigger skirmish games like Sharpe's Practice, although it is not my goal per se. What do we start with? Well some Poles from Murawski Miniatures, of course! Roger sent me this summer some of the new "Retreat from Moscow" skirmishers and they are really good looking. I'll use them for the 1809 Danube campaign to create a wonderfully ragged bunch. 
2. I'm having a side-duel (well two actually, you can read about the other one on my Marauders and Citadels blog) with Sander Van Straeten, who I met on a Facebook page. The duel is for "80s Military and Sci-Fi Pulp" and consists of a single entry, between 25 and 50 pts worth of infantry, along with one mandatory vehicle piece. Now, you may ask yourself "And what exactly is 80s Military Sci-Fi Pulp?". Well you'll find out! It's not the type of thing usually seen in this blog, but it should be a fun entry. Also, my very first 28mm vehicle. Wish me luck.
3. There's a 3...kinda. I reserve the right to work on anything else I feel like! It might be historical, it might be Pulp...heck it might be Zombies! If it's not strictly Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I'll post it here! 

Of course, the above doesn't include the bonus theme rounds, and my plan is to participate in all of them but one (I don't do terrain).

My goal for this Challenge is to hit 550pts, although I hope for more.