FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER

As portrayed by Glenn Strange

( Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein – 1948,

House of Dracula  – 1945,or

House of Frankenstein - 1944 )

Manufacturer: Monsters in Motion

Sculptor: Jeff Yagher

Material: Resin

Scale: 1/6

COMMISSION

This kit was a restoration I did for a client. It arrived built and painted by someone with some knowledge of modeling. It was pinned, primed and painted but that was about it. No effort was made to correct any of the issues related to the poor casting. The feet did not fit the sculpted areas of the base nor did the grave stones fit snuggly into their openings, thereby leaving large gaps. There were offset seam lines and pinholes galore that were covered by thick coats of paint in a poor attempt hide them from view.  A cursory glance told me this dude needed some TLC in a bad way.

I disassembled the kit back down to its original, separate, light blue pieces; the body and feet were all one piece, the head, hands, tombstones and base. I stripped them down and discovered several layers of different paint schemes on the figure, one of which was blue!

There were 2 big issues to handle on this restoration. The previous builder had attempted to fill the gaps in the kit’s fit with sizable amounts of glue. These had dried into heaps of stubborn slag that I had to remove with a hammer and chisel.

The other was the ridiculously poor fit of the feet into the base. The sculpted areas were off by a ¼”. It looked as if the base had been sculpted without referencing the figure. I’m assuming this was a molding/casting issue because I find it hard to believe a sculptor of Mr. Yagher’s caliber would have done such a poor job on this. I decided use the left foot as the benchmark and worked off that placement.  I used my trusty Dremel tool to grind out the area for the right foot. Once established, I installed new pins in the base and re-sculpted the grass around the feet to give them a nice tight fit. He now looks like he’s walking in the grass instead of on top of it. I then re-sculpted the turf around the tombstones to fill those gaps as well.

After the usual putty and sanding exercises, I primed everything in a nice light gray dust coat to bring out all the imperfections I missed on the first round. A little more putty and sanding, one more shot of primer and it was ready for paint.

Once cleaned up, this kit revealed some very nice work by Jeff Yagher that had been obliterated by the previous owners. Jeff does a great job of capturing Glenn’s likeness and movement as the monster. The pose is natural, not too stiff or stilted. It gives the painter a nice piece to work on.

I rendered the entire kit in acrylics using my airbrush and hand painting the now visible, finer details. I’m very pleased with the rebirth of this kit because now “It’s alive!!”