[DMC]

As I am almost done with the Rattler and am well into the Raven build, I decided to start the next addition to the Cobra Air Force. This one will be a much simpler build: the Cobra Liquidator.

I was not even aware of this plane until I was searching through the possibilities for other cobra aircraft I could do in 1:72 scale. The liquidator came out after I had stopped getting GI Joe toys as a kid. The toy doubled as a squirt gun, thus the name. It is a very straightforward copy of the SAAB Draken. It is even painted a simple monochrome black overall. Therefore it will be a pretty simple build, but I thought I could do something fun with the diorama presentation, maybe something to do with the water theme.

The kit I chose is a very well-made Hasegawa 1:72 Draken. I put it together as per the directions. Updates to follow?

[DMC]

Since the Liquidator is really just a black-painted Draken, I think it would be fun to do something a little different with the display. I decided to do some battle damage. I put some bullet holes across the fuselage, and in the rear left side I tried to simulate a missile explosion, based on some photos I found. It seems that air-to-air missiles don?t have to hit their targets; they can explode and shower them with shrapnel if they get close enough. That?s what I tried to simulate here.

[DMC]

Here?s a photo of the painted plane with some battle damage. It still has to be weathered, but the basic paint scheme is done.

[DMC]

I applied the decals to the Liquidator tonight. I had to scrounge through my spare decals to find the right letters and numbers to make the markings. This one is strange. There?s a cobra symbol with a crown. Underneath that are the letters ?D R?, under that is a big X, and under that are the numbers ?9.29.? I know this is a make-believe plane, but I?ve been wondering what the creators of it meant by that. On the box art, cobra commander himself is flying the Liquidator, so maybe that explains the crown on the cobra symbol. But I have no idea about the rest of it. In any case, the next step is another gloss coat and then weathering.

[CADPAT]

Cool idea.

[DMC]

I did some weathering and put a flat coat on the Liquidator. I still have to attach the canopy, and then comes the diorama.

[DMC]

I wanted to do something different with the liquidator, so I decided to portray it as battle damaged and crash-landed. At first, I wanted it to just be floating in the ocean. I prepared the bottom of the display, painted it blue. And added some gloss gel medium. This is meds up looking terrible. So I decided to try resin. I?ve done this with other projects with widely varying success, but I think this time it worked out. However, dice to my initial attempt with the gloss gel medium, it didn?t look like an ocean. I had the idea to have the plane crash landed on thin ice, in the arctic perhaps. I?ve done ship dioramas like this before. I laid out a coat of spackle on a flat surface and let it dry, then broke it up into pieces. It was attached to the surface of the water. Then I used gel medium to make some waves and ripples.





I still need to do the canopy and the pilot, but it is getting closer.

[Fly4v]

That is really cool.

Has a Firefox down feeling to it.