INCINERATOR 1991

Figure number 20 for the Cobra Re-color Project is the Incinerator, a great addition to the Cobra arsenal and a long time coming. Its hard to believe it took Hasbro 9 years to make a Cobra flame trooper. The Joes had Blowtorch and Charbroil while the Dreadnoks had Torch, Cobra meanwhile had to make do with a B.A.T. using a cutting torch attachment. By the time Cobra got a real flame trooper, the neon era was in full swing and this figure never got proper representation. The color scheme didn't look terrible really but neither did it look good. The red and orange together was pretty garish though somewhat fitting for a flame thrower trooper, it just wasn't fitting for a Cobra flame thrower trooper. This guy was in bad need of some dark colors and a touch of blue to really get things "cooking".

Since this trooper carries an advanced flame thrower system with an air-conditioned fireproof battle suit, he is a step above your average flamethrower infantryman and should be colored accordingly. Rather than the basic Viper color scheme, troops with advanced weapons systems are given the "Advanced Infantry" color scheme based on Laser-Viper, with gray and blue as the main colors.

I considered making his chain mail type bodysuit silver at the start, and working the blue and black around that. In the end I was afraid of two things with this color arrangement; first he wouldn't look enough like the Laser-Viper to draw the connection, and second he would probably end up looking more like the flame thrower guy from "The Running Man" and less like a Cobra trooper. I eventually decided that the best outcome would be with an overall gray body and the assorted gear done in blue and silver, so as to keep him more in line with the other figures that use this color scheme.

Most of the colors for this one kind of fell into place on their own. All the chain mail parts (arms and legs) got the dark gray, the metal parts got silver and the straps and pads got the blue. Like all figures that use the "Advanced Infantry" color scheme, the helmet was silver with black visor and blue details. This helmet is designed to look like a Cobra head vaguely and didn't have a lot of detail so I broke up the silver and black by adding the blue to the ribbed "hood" areas around his visor. A little more blue was added to the neck since it has the same ribbed appearance as his knee and foot pads which are also blue. I went away from the norm a little on the torso since it was a different texture than the rest of his suit, I felt it should be a different color as well. Black was the only color left in the palette that wasn't already being used on the torso and it worked out well. If I had left the torso gray it would have given the entire figure a very dull appearance due to the lack of overall details.

The one thing that I had to toy with was the chest harness, since it had a number of potential combinations for colors. My first example had the chest harness silver and the shoulder pads blue, but this was too bright and gave the figure an unbalanced appearance. The blue shoulder pads caused his silver helmet to really stick out and made the figure look top-heavy. I decided to reverse this and put the blue on the straps and silver on the shoulder pads, while the center point was left silver beneath the Cobra logo to better tie in with the silver heat sink on Laser-Viper's chest. This gave the figure a more balanced layout of colors and went well over the black torso padding. I thought about making the little ribbed bands down his arms and legs blue but they blended in too well with the gray and didn't show up good, so I changed them to silver for a much better final result.

For the finishing touches I added a coat of ultra gloss clear to the visor so it was extra shiny like glass (which didn't show up well in the pics), and painted the Cobra logo on his chest in red.

Now he's ready to set the town on fire with style.

Figure: Incinerator 1991
Scheme: Advanced Infantry
Notes: A front and rear view, with a group shot next to Laser-Viper. The clear coat made the blue paint look slightly darker than on Laser-Viper.