Steve Iverson’s Superman

Superman, the Man of Steel! Built by the one and only CultTVman back when he was in high school, from the first Monogram reissue of this kit. The model had been retooled in the seventies by Aurora for the Comic Scenes series, so the nameplate had been removed and the emblem was not longer engraved on the kit. Instead they provided a decal that would not stick because the chest area was not flat.

The kit was built straight out of the box. The plastic was the deep blue you see as Superman’s costume. I did not paint this part of the kit. I used simple spray paint in a can for the red areas. The model was carefully masked. Because the red on the blue plastice looked muddy, I first sprayed the areas white, then applied red with satisfactory results.

For the chest emblem, I carefully drew the image with pencil, then etched an outline with an exacto knife. This was then painted by hand. The emblem is based on the box art, which actually showed the original Aurora kit with it’s molded emblem.

Having built this kit previously, I was always frustrated by the bricks. I could never get them to look right. This time I used a trick I had seen my Dad use when painting a brick wall. First, I sprayed the parts white. Then I carefully pained each brick by hand, leaving the white “mortar” to show between the bricks. Not too bad for a kid who was 16.