This post will be a full progress "how-to" style article about my most recent custom, the Cobra Sand Dragon, a simple desert themed repaint of the Cobra Black Dragon.
The Cobra Black Dragon is a "GI Joe: Renegades" animation based toy that was released in 2011 as part of the 30th anniversary line of 33/4" GI Joe products. In the cartoon, it was a large, high tech Osprey type aircraft, with seating for multiple people. The toy translation left a lot to be desired in terms of size, but captured the high tech look and feel of the Renegades animation very well. It only sat one figure, with the rest of the mass of the toy dedicated to spring loaded or button operated features. Unfortunately, even when you take the thing apart, there isn't a ton of room for crew or cargo conversion anyway, not without a complete overhaul, reworking and rebuilding. I wasn't looking to do all that. I liked the look of the Black Dragon and just wanted to change the feel of it, take away the techy looking lines and give it a more combat oriented role. I settled on a two color, desert splinter theme.
The paint I will be using is Rustoleum Rusty metal primer (chosen for the color, not the type of paint) and Krylon Camo Sand. Using the Krylon Sand is really a treat for me, because up until last year, I couldn't find it anywhere in my area. I ran into a full case at a Wal-Mart, in the clearance aisle, and grabbed every can. Finding a good sand colored paint isn't easy, many customs I have done used Tamiya Desert Sand which gets VERY expensive for larger pieces.
As I mentioned, the Dragon is a complicated mess of spring loaded features on the inside, and once disassembled, has a ton of parts. The first thing I do it split the pieces into two groups, the parts I am painting, seen here, already cleaned, sanded and prepped for painting.
And then the pieces I am not painting, shown here. There are a lot of moving parts on the Dragon, to allow for the tilting rotors, the spring back wings, and the bomb and cannon releases. Also, many of the parts are a tight fit. Even though they are cast in red, a color not traditionally associated with a desert scheme, I decided to leave them unpainted, along with the grey accessories, to make reassembly easier and retain the functionality without gumming up the tightly fit parts with excess paint.
The dominant color will be sand, with a sharp, reddish brown splinter pattern over it. So I start by laying down a coat of brown on all the most visible surfaces, careful not to over apply it in areas with joints or moving parts. This paint is meant to be used as a rusty metal primer, so I am a little unsure of how it will work with plastic. Also, it is a very flat, dry paint, so care must be taken when applying it because it tends to build up in some areas with a coarse, almost dusty texture. Luckily, it went on easily, and I allowed a day for it to dry due to the high temperatures and humidity in my area this time of year.
The next step is to mask off the pattern, the areas that will stay brown after the main color is applied. I use blue painters tape, lay it down on an x-acto cutting board, and cut the individual shapes out one at a time. Like I mentioned, I am shooting for a pointy splinter scheme, it will offset the sleek lines of the dragon body nicely. I have done this many times, so I just cut the shapes out by hand with no reference or ruler, but someone who isn't used to doing this may want to have some photos on hand to keep their shapes similar and somewhat uniform in feel. One problem I frequently run into when I am doing this is that I intentionally start out making the shapes somewhat simple, but they slowly become more complicated as I go along, and I have to step back and look at the piece every few minutes to make sure the scheme is uniform in feel, scale and shape.
After the mask is applied, making sure every piece is as tightly affixed as possible in corners and over detail areas, I like to give the whole thing a light coating of matte finish clear coat to help seal up any areas that might allow the colors to bleed when next coat is applied. After that dries, I apply the Sand color over every piece.
When the top coat is dry, I carefully start removing the mask to reveal the brown color underneath. Normally this is pretty painless and the look of the model really starts to take shape, but sometimes an issue arises. Here, you can see the mask pulled up all the paint on one of the small rear wings.
With some of the modern plastics used in toys, no matter how much they are prepped, cleaned, sanded, or primed, you can still have an occasional adhesion issue. I've had it with every type of paint or primer at one times of another. There are several ways to fix a problem like this once it happens. Personally, I like to avoid brushing paint over sprayed areas just because it will always stick out to me, so I will try to remask it and spray it again as easily and painlessly as possible. Since the painters tape tore up the paint last time, I try something a little weaker-post it notes.
Yes, it looks ridiculous, and yes, they are not water tight, but all they have to do is shield the area I don't want to paint. I mask off the area and decide to go over it with sand instead of trying to rebuild the brown area that came off with the tape. I spray several light coats, and while it is still drying, I peel off the post it notes. If you allow it to dry for too long, it could penetrate the paper and permanently adhere to the piece, which would require serious repair later.
Here is the result. Not perfect, but certainly better, and after some finish work, it will be barely noticeable.
After removing all the masking, I take a high grit sandpaper, 400 or higher, and lightly buff over the entire piece. This removes any small instances of paint build up around the masked areas, so there isn't a noticeable "lip" from one color to the next.
With the mask removed, the full camo scheme is revealed. I decided to give the entire piece a light drybrushing with Tamiya Buff, a sandy color, to give it a light weathering and offset some of the lines and edges of the plane against the camo. I also painted the seat, engines and vents with a metallic gray. Afterwards, all the parts were clear coated with matte finish, and as that dried, I slowly assembled the pieces, reinstalled all the spring loaded weapons, screwed all the joints into place, and did some additional dry brushing to fix any differences in color from part to part after assembly.
The final step was to apply decals, and finish with a light coating of matte finish to dampen the gloss of the decals. The decals were taken from assorted sheets I have collected over the years, from places like Cobrastickers.com, or from retail vehicles, or in the case of the awesome Desert Scorpion Cobra I used for the rear wings, from another awesome customizer named Bryan who goes by the handle "Chickenbroth" on Hisstank. He had a chance to have a few decal sheets made and was kind enough to include me in the deal. I've just been waiting to use them for the right project, and this was it. Thanks Bryan!
Here are the pics of the finished project, the Cobra Sand Dragon, taken today. While this is a modern era GI Joe vehicle and is meant for use with the modern era figures, I threw the scene together some vintage style custom troopers by Black Major, because that is mainly the format that I collect.
Truly beautiful. The fractured camo design really compliments that vehicle.
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