Thursday, January 1, 2009

A fresh coat of paint!

It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for an old design. Or, from Hasbro's perspective, it got more use out of a previously used mold. Here are a couple of my favorite repaints from the classic days of the 3 3/4" GI Joe line.

The Snow Cat from 1985 is an excellent vehicle that was very well done by Hasbro. It has always been one of my favorite vehicles!

The Tiger Cat came out in 1988 as part of the Tiger Force subset from Hasbro. The vehicles were all previous molds repainted in the new tiger stripe pattern. Same thing goes for the Tiger Force team members. Looks good, though!

The Conquest X-30 came out in 1986. Hasbro picked up on new military designs quickly and used the forward swept wing design from the X-29 experimental aircraft. Very compact design, effectivly transitioned to a great 3 3/4" sacle aircraft.


Three years later, Hasbro came up with a Cobra response to the Tiger Force subset, the Python Patrol. Again, previously used vehicles were "pythonized." Interesting camo pattern on these vehicles, the design supposedly made them invisible to radar. The python pattern worked very well on the already slick Conquest mold.

Two great examples of repaints from Hasbro. Later examples - not so much. The Cobra Night Raven is an awesome aircraft, but the Sky Patrol Sky Raven chrome version just didn't quite click with me.

Two repaint/remolds that I wish I had bought was the Night Force Night Boomer, a black version of the Skystriker, and the Night Striker, a black version of the Killer Whale.

Good stuff...

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