Here was a fun little project, little more than a re-paint. I'd never been a huge fan of Solomon Grundy, to tell the truth, but when the character sacrificed its life in a recent Justice League (Animated) episode, I thought it'd be a nice idea to immortalize the character in plastic. The character is a large, hulking zombie, so why not use a Hulk figure? The shelves are still full of figures from the movie, so it shouldn't be too hard to find one that'll work, I thought. Wrong! With few exceptions, the figures are all entirely the wrong scale to stand beside the Mattel Justice Leaguers. After a long hunt, I settled on this Smash-n-Go Hulk with Punching Action and Street-Rumble Base. Yeah, I have no idea what that means, since I never put batteries in to find out.

(Very sorry these pics are so blurry, it was a bad photo day.)

The figure itself isn't really an 'action' figure, since the only points of articulation are at the shoulders and neck. This would be more of a display piece when I was finished, but that's fine, since all my figures end up being simply for display. After struggling for more than an hour to get the figure off the base (it was glued on rather well, and I didn't even think of dipping it in hot water), I spray-painted the figure with the same flat gray I'd used for my First Batman figure (found here).

Next came the fun part, hand-painting the details. There aren't that many, honestly. Flat black for the shredded shorts. White for the hair. A watery black around the eyes and mouth, with white for the eyes and teeth. Add small, black dots for pupils. Then make a blackwash (add a half dozen or so drops of black to a few ounces of water, stir) to brush over the muscle details to simulate shadows. A heavier blackwash to hollow out the cheeks and add shadows to the teeth, as well as to make the hair a bit 'grimier' than the bright white. Unfortunately, because of the way the legs were molded, the figure wouldn't stand on its own, so I had to put it back on its original base. (Sorry for the unfocused nature of these photos, I'll try to get better ones later.)

Not the most complex work anyone's ever done, but pretty easy. All told, excluding the paint-drying time, it probably took two and a half to three hours. He's still pretty large next to the Justice League figures, and he's more detailed than the Bruce Timm animated style, but it doesn't look too bad, eh?



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