Aurora Hulk

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The Incredible Hulk is the 1974 Comic Scenes reissue of the classic Aurora kit. The reissue is identical to the original 1966 release except for the absence of the Hulk nameplate; no big loss. In fact, I cleaned up the kit even more by eliminating the little "explosions" popping up from the desert floor. I thought they really cluttered up things, and didn't look much like explosions, either, so I just didn't glue them in. (I also left off the lone bent steel beam; it also cluttered up the joint.)

This ended up being a fun kit to build and paint. Well, the building wasn't much, especially when I did away with those explosion thingies, but the painting was really fun. I used all acrylics, and am once again convinced that the type of paint we have available today makes for much better-looking models than when all we had were eight shiny colors of Testors enamel. Of course, my painting skills have probably improved in the last 35 years or so, too, but these paints really make a big difference. This Hulk looks so much better than the Hulks we built in the mid-sixties, it's... well, it's incredible.

As to the paints. Hulkie himself was pretty easy, just two shades of green -- a light one for his skin, and a darker one for his hair and eyebrows. For his pants, I used a base coat of violet, then lightened it up with a little white for the drybrushing that gives that old and faded look.

The Hulk's teeth were done by drybrushing a light coat of white over the base coat of green, to excellent result. The pupils of Hulkie's eyes were done with a black fine point pen; there's no way I could paint two dots that small!

The base was fairly straightforward, except for all the rocks. To get a more realistic look on the rocks, I started out with a light-colored base coat (Quarry Pebble), then did a thin covering with the darker color (Slate). It wasn't quite drybrushing, it really was like a light coat that didn't quite cover the base coat. The end result is very realistic, however.

The kit itself was pretty clean, for that era, with the normal seam marks to deal with. I used Squadron White this time around (instead of my normal Squadron Green), and it worked well, save for the Hulk's head. Bad design there, with a big seem running horizontal just above the hairline. The only way I could get rid of the seam was with putty-and-sanding, which unfortunately rubbed out some of the hair detail around the seam. Oh well; it looks okay, anyway.

Bottom line, I'm very pleased with this kit. As is typical with these old Aurora kits, the face is a great-looking sculpt, and the pose is very dynamic. Not the greatest base around, although with the extra junk removed, it actually looks pretty good. I give the whole thing a resounding HULK SMASH!