The Kit

I’m not a big fan of Dark Shadows, it’s too much “Soap Opera” for me. I can’t follow who’s who, and what they’re doing from one episode to the next. But I really enjoyed the Round 2/Polar Lights 3 Stooges figures, so I went for this one.

The kit is pretty standard for a large-scale plastic item, with only a few parts: head (2 pieces), body (also 2 pieces), two arms (2 pieces each), two 2-piece feet, and 2 hands. There are also an extra set of vinyl arms, which can be set up with a wire to allow changing poses. The joyful moment in this build came when I was reading the instructions and discovered that the optional extra “glow in the dark” head, hands and feet could be used to make a Midget Werewolf!! Yeah, I gotta do that.

Building and Painting

The building part mostly uses the skills for fixing seams. Fit was OK on the head, but the body had some pretty prominent gaps and mismatches. Fortunately, most of these are under the arms and on the inside of the legs. I was very pleased with the feet, which fit perfectly, requiring only a little scrape for flash along the edges of the parts.

I tried the moveable arms, but found that the plastic had very little “give”, and decided not to use that feature.

After some putty work along the legs, arms, and torso, and scraping the head to get rid of the seam, I was ready to paint. I did the face in Tamiya and Testors acrylics, except for the whites of the eyes and teeth, where I used Floquil railroad white. If you’re familiar with aircraft colors, the face is Luftwaffe WW2 79 with RAF Desert Tan highlights. I also highlighted the hair with Floquil Grimy Black, which has a grayish cast.

I painted the sweater and trousers with the airbrush, using three different aircraft grays for the sweater and greens for the trousers. Each got a base coat, then touches of highlights and shadows with a lighter and darker version of the same color. I also highlighted the pockets on the sweater and pants with lighter color on the pocket and darker around it.

I finished with the hands and feet by doing the palms and soles in the same color as the face, with Neutral Gray for the claws on the hands and feet.

Since I did a lot of seam work on the arms and legs, I had to cut down the ball joints on the hands and feet and firmly glued them in place, as inserting them as they come would have popped the seams.

Next was the “Midget Werewolf.” The 2 pieces for the head are assembled, and the seam dealt with. Then the feet were done. The “glow in the dark” parts are obviously on a different sprue, and didn’t have as good fit as the main parts. The hands and feet are glued directly to the neck, and it’s a hoot. It also glows in the dark.

Overall Evaluation

This is a well-done kit, considering the bygone era when it was produced. Round Two has done a good job of maintaining the mold, and the idea of the midget werewolf is just a screech. If you’re a Dark Shadows aficionado, you’ll probably want this figure, along with the Barnabas Collins vampire.

My thanks go to Round 2 for supplying the kit and to IPMS-USA for allowing me to build and review it.