In-Progress : The Incredible Hulk
26-04-09 : Here's something I've been working on for a while now...
About a month or so ago, I got an email from a gentleman asking whether I would be able to repair a kit for him. What had happened was that he got someone to paint up a resin kit of the Incredible Hulk and on it's way to him, it was damaged and required substantial repairs to make it look good again.
After viewing a few pictures, I was confident it would be a straight forward task in repairing the kit, so the now client sent the damaged kit up to me. Here is how it looked when it arrived to me :
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What I could gather was that the kit itself is hollow cast, with the connecting pegs being the only thing stopping the arms from falling off after pinning (they are a large block shape but the pin only went through a little way into the arm. This coupled with the hollow cast made for a very weak join). The leg had also half come away when I recieved it, so I snapped it off completely so I could fix it correctly.
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To fix the problem, I took the broken limbs and filled them with Plaster of Paris:
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Once the plaster had cured fully, I had a base that I could use to pin the limbs back on without fear of breaking the joins again.
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I double pinned the limbs and at first, they were weak until I filled the holes up with some epoxy putty and CA glued the pins in place.
Since the kit had already been painted, I would either need to match the paint job or prime the whole thing and start again. I opted with re-painting the whole kit and there was way too much to match and it would be near impossible to get the colours the exact same as I had no idea of what colours were used in the original paint job.
I began with a base coat of Tamiya Light Green :
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This look a bit on the bright side, so using Tamiya Olive Green, I shaded all the creases and folds. I finished up with a mix of the two greens, air brushed lightly over the entire green areas to blend the base and shading together.
Next up, I masked off the pants areas using masking tape and blu tak (to get into the small, curved areas near the ripped pants). The pants were painted with Tamiya Purple.
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Once the pants were dried, I dry brushed them with Tamyia White to give a faded look.
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I'm currently up to painting the facial details before I move on to washing the kit. I have hand painted the hair with Tamiya NATO Black, the inside of the mouth with a custom pink mix (75% white and 25% red), and the eyes and teeth were done with White.
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Once I finish the face, I need to go over some green areas and then it will be ready for a Clear Coat and a wash to dirty it up a little bit. Until then...
My client contacted me since last update, and asked if I could do a similar repair to the Hulk's partner kit, Thor. Long story short, Thor arrived to me with a broken arm similar to that Hulk but instead of across the arm, it was broken at the point where arm and body meet.
Here's what I recieved :
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This repair, fingers crossed, should only be minor and not need a complete re-paint like the Hulk did. As you can see by the picture below, it broke due to the same problem that the Hulk had - not enough depth of the mounting pin to provide adequate stability.
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I began by double pinning the arm like I did with the Hulk's :
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Then with the aid of CA Glue, Epoxy putty and some basic putty, I am now at this point :
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The hard bit will be trying to match the skin tone, but compared to the Hulk, matching the paint shouldn't be to big of a deal.
The handle of the Hammer had also been snapped off at both ends so I've re-attached them via pins and CA Glue. I actually managed to break two pinvise drill bits inside the hand (one drilling the first hole, the second trying to make the first hole a little bigger so I could get the bit out - do'h!), so the top section is just holding on with some CA Glue. Fingers crossed, it shouldn't snap off when the hammer's head is attached.
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And finally, here is a picture of the Hulk's face now that the initial painting has been done :
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I've clear coated the Hulk, but I still need to apply a wash to help bring out the details of the kit.
06-06-09: Matching colours and repairing cracks...
Upon finishing the repair job on Thor's arm, I've now noticed that there is a hairline crack around the join of where the other arm meets the shoulder :
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I've tried to break off the arm to repair it the same way as the right one, but I can't do it. Whatever was used to pin this one is quite tough. To repair the crack, I have two options. First, use some putty and fill it then sand it back or simply use some PVA (white) Glue which acts as a filler :
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As you may know, PVA Glue will dry transparent, so once it has fully cured, I'll be painting over the PVA Glue with the skin colour. This is a trick I usually use when building Dinosaurs. PVA Glue is a great filler for those tiny, shallow cracks and joins.
I have also spent a great deal of time mixing paint to try and get a matching skin colour so I could paint over the repaired joint on the right arm. This was my first attempt :
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As you can see, it was way off and looked awful. I spent a good hour and a bit mixing Tamiya Flesh with a variety of browns, blacks and reds until I got the mix I was after (I only mixed by the drops so not much paint was wasted if you were wondering). I ended up using a 18 part Flesh, 1 part Flat Earth, and 1 part Red mix and it ended up like so :
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It did vary a little from the original paint, but I blended it together with the air brush until it looked more even and less like a new patch of paint. I also did the same on the other arm so as to match the paint work evenly across both.
My client has also sent me up the smashed Police Car that the Hulk is throwing at Thor. This one has come to me pre-primed, but not painted, so this will be a bit easier to paint.
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As you can see from those pictures, the car is bloody huge. Once Thor is finished up with (need to go over his upper torso with so black), I'll be starting on the car.
24-06-09: More work on the car...
Work has been slow over the last couple of weeks due to the extremely cold weather we have been having here. The cold temperatures have been effecting the paint. I've now built a spray booth and moved my painting area inside the house rather than in the shed to help combat this. Anyway, here's some shots of the cars progress. First up, preshading with NATO Black :
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And beginning the colours :
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Masking was next. Took me an hour just to do this :
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And here is what Burnt Iron looks like underneath the Police Car :
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Both the Hulk and Thor are done now and, once the paint dries fully on the car, I can mask the next layer (ie the lead light and rims) so I can paint the wheel and bumper properly. Once that is done, I'll mask them off and then apply the white coat.