Today, I’m sinking my teeth into an old Aurora kit – “The Wolf Man.” He was first molded in plastic in 1962 – 21 years after 1941’s Universal Pictures feature.
My first Wolf Man was the 1970s “square box,” with cover artwork by James Bama. It was molded in dark grey plastic, but included several duplicate pieces that were the optional Glows in the Dark. That was the gimmick during this particular run of re-releases. Since then, he has reemerged several times, by Monogram / Revell, Polar Lights, and most recently, by Atlantis.
This particular version was by Polar Lights, and was released somewhere around 1999 or 2000. (Apologies. I should have kept closer records, and I’ll try to do better going forward.) He sat in my model stash until earlier this year, and is finally standing proud on the shelf in my hobby room.
The box was a copy of the original Aurora “long box,” featuring the titular character wearing a torn shirt and playing hide and seek behind a tree, rather than standing bare chested on a boulder, with his arms up in the attack position. Regardless of box advertising, the models themselves all assumed the latter, more menacing posture and setting.
As I was assembling him this time, I noticed 2 differences. The first was his mouth. My old one had a separate interior piece, whereas this current one just opened into the hollow head. It’s omission doesn’t trouble me, since I always thought the original didn’t fit well, and is unnoticeable for all but the closest inspection. The second difference was the missing tied ends of his belt – I’ll go into that situation in a moment.
The molded seams were pretty easy to manage. His fur texture hid my job at puttying rather effectively. As I referenced a couple sentences ago, the rope belt has always looked odd to me. The movie character wore regular street clothes when he transformed. To correct this, I made a buckle out of a small flat washer, and shaped it with a Dremel tool. Wolf Man’s attire now looks more like a 1940s Larry Talbot, and less like a 1960s Jed Clampett.
Most of the completed kits I’ve seen have been finished with brown fur, and blue pants. I thought it might be a nice change to make his fur a dark grey (with simulated “moonlight” highlights of lighter grey,), and making his pants a dark khaki / brown. Again, sticking to the movie for inspiration, he doesn’t need to be wearing Levi’s 501s. And vintage chinos never go out of fashion.
The base came with a skull and a couple of curious rats sniffing around. I used the skull (I mean, what would an Aurora kit be without extra bones lying around somewhere nearby?) but I hung on to the rats for another project. Just an artistic choice, really.
Often, completed figure kits like this one seem pretty fragile and top heavy, standing upright on 2 small feet. It puts a lot of strain on those contact points glued down to the base. They are just begging to be snapped off at the ankles. (If you don’t believe me, take a gander at how many of the figures on my shelf have ugly lower leg repairs.) To mitigate this, I’ve started using small round rare earth magnets to hold pieces like that in place. The components can then be disassembled for moving, dusting, or storage, with much less chance of damage, while holding an upright pose nicely on the shelf for display.
As I stated earlier, my 1st Aurora Wolf Man first was completed sometime in the mid – 1970s. This one is my 2nd. What I DIDN’T say is that I have ONE MORE in my stash. Just hiding out. Lurking. Waiting. Old kits do actually come out again…once in a blue moon.
-Toph