Some more work on my US Team Yankee force. I’ve painted a full flight of AH-1 Cobras. These are another great plastic model by Battlefront, one of their good ones and they were a pleasure to assemble. They also come with magnets, so the rotors and bases are magnetised to ease transport. I’ll be honest and admit the rotors often don’t make it out onto the table when playing.

The paint scheme is the simplest paint scheme I’ll be doing for the US, it’s just plain Olive drab. I think I will add some markings at some point, as they are a little plain. The only issue is the Battlefront ones I got have cracked terribly so are going to be very difficult to use.

In order to create some visual interest I spent a lot of time masking the panel lines with Blu-Tac. I like the look this gave them, but it was a lot of effort and quite frustrating. However, it does give some variety to the colours on the model which gives the eye something to look at.

• Body:
  • Base (airbrush): Olive Drab (VMC 70.???)
  • Highlight: Brown Violet (VMC 70.940)
  • Exhaust: Black (VMC 70.950)
  • Wash: Dark Wash (A.MIG-1008)
• Rotors:
  • Large (airbrush): Black Grey (VMA 70.???)
  • Small: 75% Black (VMC 70.950) & 25% Black Grey (VMC 70.862)
  • Mechanics (heavy dry brush): Oily Steel (VMC 70.895)
• Gatling Canon:
  • Base: 75% Black (VMC 70.950) & 25% Black Grey (VMC 70.862)
• Windows:
  • Base: Dark Sea Blue (VMC 70.898)
  • Highlight I: 50% Dark Sea Blue (VMC 70.898) & 50% Pastel Blue (VMC 70.901)
  • Highlight II: Pastel Blue (VMC 70.901)
• Rocket Pods:
  • Body: Reflective Green (VMC 70.890)
  • Port: 50% Silver (VMC 70.997) & 50% Oily Steel (VMC 70.895)

Most pictures I’ve seen have the rocket pods the same colour as the rest of the helicopter, but I wanted to create some more visual interest. A different green for the body of the rocket pod didn’t seem out of place and the bright metal front plate is also seen on many pictures of the pod. Both these additions bring out some nice details. The last major point is the windows, while I could have just painted them plain blue I again wanted to put some details there; if they were camouflaged I probably wouln’t have (and indeed I didn’t with the camouflaged Hinds I painted a while back).

They all look pretty similar (the photos below are of different helicopters, I promise).

This last photo proves I did paint four (rather than just take lots of pictures of one or two).