ALANOODLE'S SCALE MODEL PORTFOLIO
King Kong
1/35 Scale vinyl model kit by
GEOmetric Design/Max Factory Custom Craft

Kit #VHO 50
Size: 1/35 scale; just a hair above 8 inches tall
Price: $64.99

Kit Review by Alan Nadel
This review originally appeared on the PC Modeler website

 
Watch the 1933 movie King Kong and you'll see a film with special effects that are laughable by today's standards. What sets this classic apart from other "effects films" however, is good writing, great over-acting and a stop motion puppet that was given a greater range of expression than most human actors.
I've been a big fan of the movie since I first saw it on TV in the 1960s. Unfortunately, there's never been a really good model kit of the big guy. (The classic Aurora kit is the first to come to mind, at left.) Even in the best of recent figure kits, Kong's face is so stylized that all resemblance to Marcel Delgado's actual creation is lost.

 
Click on the above image to view instructions
(Acrobat Reader required)
In the 1990s, GEOmetric Design/Max Factory Custom Craft produced a licensed model kit of the mighty ape. Thanks to the wonderful sculpting of Izume Takabe, GD/MFCC has produced probably the best likeness of the Eighth Wonder of the World in a model kit.

This nicely packaged kit comes in nineteen black vinyl parts, six of which are optional. The instructions include an assembly diagram, building tips and a basic painting guide all contained in a nice glossy "collector's booklet." The booklet also has four pages of behind-the-scenes and rare photos and a wealth of Kong trivia written by none other than Bob Burns.
Detail on the kit is exceptional, especially the face which is a beautiful reproduction of a roaring Kong. The kit itself is easy to work with and wonderfully engineered. The hard vinyl softened nicely under hot tap water and excess vinyl was easily removed with a hobby knife. Parts are numbered and clearly marked "L" and "R". The warm parts popped together firmly and easily at the joints, which are all circular to allow rotation. These joints include the neck, waist, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists and ankles. What one winds up with is an eight inch tall fully articulated figure.
The kit comes with what the instructions call the "Fay Wray option" which includes a manacled right hand and a figure of Ms. Wray. The four piece figure, which measures three inches when assembled is nicely executed. It consists of top and bottom body halves separated at the knee and both arms which attach at the shoulders. Once again, detail is excellent, including the face and delicate little hands.

At the kit's listed 1/35 scale, however, the three inch Fay scales out to nearly nine feet tall! If we are to assume that Fay Wray was between five feet and five feet, five inches tall, then the kit works out to about 1/20 scale. But that would make the Kong model scale out to just over thirteen feet tall. The book The Making of King Kong by Orville Goldner and George E. Turner lists Kong's height, in comparison to the miniature backgrounds used for filming as eighteen feet in the jungle scenes which would make the kit 1/27 scale, and thirty feet in the New York scenes which roughs out to 1/45 scale. I decided to leave the Fay Wray option out and instead posed Kong with arms raised in a menacing gesture. A 1/35 scale military figure was modified to resemble a sailor and placed alongside Kong for size comparison. At that scale, Kong works out to 23 feet, 4 inches tall, an acceptable compromise. I used general purpose super glue to fix him in position.


 
Puttying and blending the seams is tricky due to the kit's furry texture but with a little patience and a pointy object, fur can be sculpted into filler putty. I used A and B epoxy putty with a 4 hour cure time for maximum workability. Extra putty was needed at the backs of the hip joints to hide what closely resembled "panty lines." Ambitious modelers may want to sculpt extra fur detail onto the backs of the hands and to re-texture both upper arms (parts 4 and 5) which seem to be less sharply detailed than the rest of the kit.
Painting Kong was simple enough. The instructions recommend "rabbit fur brown" (advised because the original Kong puppet was covered in brown rabbit fur) and medium brown. I chose to use a darker brown for the fur and flesh to try to capture the coloring of a real gorilla. A base coat of 1:1 flat brown and flat black Tamiya acrylic was sprayed on with a Badger 250 mini spray gun. Lighter mixes of brown were then dry-brushed on over-all and finally a mix of brown, white and yellow was dry-brushed on to add highlights to the fur. Kong's face is large enough to make painting his eyes and mouth easy.

 
When finished, I had spent about twelve hours on Kong: one hour building, five hours filling and texturing seams and six hours painting. The finished model looks just like the real Kong, even down to the dramatic facial expression. Even more so than most vinyl figure kits, this one is easy enough for even the beginner and the kit's poseability makes it possible for any modeler to build a unique figure.
 

Pros: Excellent likeness, easy to build, poseable

Cons: Fay Wray figure way out of scale, detail on forearms softer than rest of the kit, worst of all, this kit was discontinued long ago!

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