AH-1 Whiskey Cobra

by Henry Juarez

MRC's 1/35 scale AH-1W Super Cobra is available online from Squadron.com

Here is my 1/35 scale AH-1W "Whiskey Cobra" from MRC. I believe this was the first in MRC’s series of 1/35 scale choppers designed to accompany 1/35 scale figure models.

The kit is nicely finished with both raised and recessed panel detail. The cockpit is well represented with raised detail. However, a good after market resin company (hint, hint…Chris Miller) would do this kit justice.

I built this kit several years ago when it was first released. For the most part, it is mainly out of the box. At the time, I had just begun modeling seriously and was still experimenting with techniques. Since no after market kit was available at the time, I decided to spruce up the kit with various odds and ends. I just added wires and stretched sprue throughout the kit. The idea was to make the kit look somewhat busy and believable.

The kit itself went together quite well. My only complaint would be the cockpit canopy was a little undersized. I replaced the molded in grill with photoetch screen. I opened up the access bay in the tail boom, boxed it in with sheet styrene and added a styrene hatch.

Painting

After surfing the web for “Whiskey Cobras”, I found a picture of one in a two tone sand and green scheme. I used Testor's Sand and Dark Green for this project.

I first sprayed the kit with the Sand color, right out of the bottle, thinning it at a 1:1 ratio. This was my base color and my primer coat. I then sprayed a panel shading using Testor's brown.

Once that was done, I took the base color sand and lightly sprayed the entire model, until a hint of the panel shading was visible. Then taking the base mixture, I added about 30% white sprayed the inside of the panels to highlight them. Once that was done, I took the same base mixture and thinned it down with about 70% thinner to 30% paint and sprayed the entire model until I got a good balance of highlight colors and panel shades.

This process was repeated with the Green color.

Decals & Weathering

After the model was painted and allowed to dry for approximately 24 hours, the kit was sprayed with several light coats of Future acrylic floor shine. This was allowed to dry for about a day. At this time, a wash of Raw umber oil by Windsor and Newton (very good oil paints) and turpenoid was applied to all the recess panel lines. After allowing this to dry, the kit decals were applied using Solvaset setting solution. Finally, the entire kit was dull coated with Testors Dullcoat.

As I stated earlier, this was my real first attempt at detailing. The “Experts” might find more than their fair share of inaccuracies with my kit and that’s okay.

What I hope to have shown here is that, with a little imagination, any kit can be fun and made to look interesting.
 

Click on the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2002 by Henry Juarez
Page Created 15 May, 2002
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

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