HYDRO-VIPER 1988

The seventh figure in the Cobra Re-color project is Hydro-Viper, a figure absolutely dying for an overhaul.

Hydro-Viper was a figure I had big expectations for when I first saw him on Astro-Vipers card-back, expectations that eventually took the form of a swift kick to the balls when I finally saw the figure. Red and Violet don't contrast, they clash and look terrible together, and to this day I cannot fathom why Hasbro omitted the black paint app for his vest, that choice absolutely destroyed the figure. Just painting the figures vest black is enough to make him almost tolerable, as far as his original colors go, but either way those colors are just horribly inappropriate for a Cobra diver. The guy is an Eel surgically enhanced for extreme depths, so Eels colors are the perfect fit for him.

I knew from the start that it was going to be gray pants with black gear, then reversed to black with gray gear for the upper half just like Eels, with a red vest to seal the deal. I wanted to leave his feet red since they matched his swimming flippers, which in turn matched his helmet. Since the area on his forehead is the same texture as his feet, I made that part red too. The face mask was changed to black to match the straps and keep the red from being overpowering on his face.

I was originally going to leave the vest pouches yellow to match that yellow arrow on his helmet, but I didn't care for it much and yellow was out of place with Eels colors. Luckily I had a helmet missing its yellow paint app, so using this allowed me to lose all the yellow without any scraping and it turned out much better.

The finishing touch was that dumpy looking Cobra logo. I never understood why his logo was like that and no other figure had it, one of those cosmic mysteries I suppose. As an homage to the oddity of this logo, I reproduced that version rather than a proper logo, and left it red to provide a good contrast to the black sleeve. Unfortunately it didn't show up very well in the pictures.

So here he is reborn and boy what a difference.


Figure: Hydro-Viper 1988
Scheme: Sea Snake
Notes: A few shots of Hydro-Viper in his new colors and a comparison shot with an original Eels figure.