Yedharo Models' "King of Destruction" (fka "The Green Giant")

Yedharo Models is one of the "New Wave" manufacturers that are quickly taking root in the 21st c. hob- by. Probably best know for their series of Zodiac-centric busts and figures ("War of Zodiac"), they can hardly be pegged to a particular scale, or even genre--though they have ably evinced a preference for "fantasy".

The talent behind Yedharo is one Fausto Gutiérrez López. To those of us who value the byline, Fausto is no stranger: his ample skills can be found under the Andrea and Pegaso brands. I can also say that he is eminently approachable, as it was my pleasure to discover recently. . .

While the "Incredible Hulk" has never been one of my favourite Marvel personalities, I am very much taken with the character in the Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, and Hulk 2099 storylines/ series. Which brings us to this posting. . .

While browsing through various on-line retailers, I stumbled across a figure titled "The Green Giant", produced by Yedharo. "A rose by any other name" being what it is, this piece was obvi- ously inspired by the gladiatorial Hulk in Planet Hulk! It was listed as TBR. So I went to the Yedharo site (their website under construction), and saw that their "King of Destruction" had been released in October 2009 (to see a painted sample, click here). Was "The Green Giant" a deriva- tion of this piece? Had the former been discontinued in favor of the latter?

Well, the only way to find out would be to go straight to the source. And within the hour, I had a response from Fausto! He was very forthcoming and candid, and explained that it was "The Green Giant" that had been 'retired' in favor of "King of Destruction", to mitigate the overwhelming similarities to the "Green Scar". Fair enough. The changes would be easy enough to reverse if I were so inclined.

The figure is now before me. Marketed as 54mm, this is a "hulking" brute of a piece. Cast in 7 pieces (no groundwork) in a soft-ish grey polyvinyl resin, the casting quality is VG+++ (I cannot bring myself to give it an EXCELLENT because of the presence of stray shallow surface bub- bles/divots; BUT I must emphasize that these are relatively few in number and quickly dealt with.).

I'm very much looking forward to diving into this piece, but it will have to wait 'til next year. Let the ideas simmer for a while. . .

FOLLOW-UP
I must say that I really do like this kit! I filled all of the air holes(no more than 10, all shallow) on the body and leg prior to writing the above: the pieces were curing in the oven as I wrote. Perhaps not surprisingly, the casting  was noticeably harder and felt "heftier" once it had cooled down. I then dry-fitted the pieces that came with a locating peg, and the fit was EXCELLENT! Finally, I reduced some of the pouring sprue nubs, and the resin ground like a dream! Arguably the best kit I have purchased this year!!!