When I think back to the days of putting these models together, I remember really loving the instruction sheets. They were an experience all their own. The drawings were far different from the paintings on the boxes. They resembled the actual model peices more than the box art did.

I also really enjoyed the fact that they gave a paragraph of history about the monster that was being assembled.

There was a black and white reproduction of the box art. This seemed natural, for a good majority of the world--esecially on television, seemed black and white.

Half of the fun of instruction sheets was that they were meant to be as entertaining as possible. When I was a kid in the early 60's, and saved up my allowance money for a month to get enough to buy 2 models from our local Pay N'Save, I wanted to cherish every aspect of these kits that I could!

You can click on the image to see a hi-res version that shows the "about the Mummy" copy below.

On the instructional part, it says basically to "not be in a hurry" and take your time. Did I ever take my time? No. I was way too excited about getting started.

The next step was to get glue and paint. I could buy the glue, either Revell or Testor's regular airplane glue at the local Food Fair down the hill from us. However, I always got it at Pay N' Save, because Food Fair didn't carry the paint I needed.

I would generally get the 8-pack of Testor's Enamels that came with a brush and thinner.

Painting the models was easy enough with the painting instructions on the kits. Generally I followed them to the letter, but sometimes I just painted things with the colors I liked the most.

I eventually acquired many different paint colors by combining different sets.

Paint thinner was another story. Being locked up in a small room with the smell of paint thinner and model glue is a great memory. No, I didn't get high off any of it, but those smells today will bring immediate memories to mind.

Handling, sticky-not-quite-dried parts that sometimes stuck to instruction sheets was enough to give my fingers a second skin of dried glue and paint.