Lindberg

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Kit Number: 70275

Reviewed by  Paul Bradley, IPMS# 35554, and daughter Robin

MSRP: $15.00 My daughter Robin is 6 and starting out in modeling, and when John Lloyd at Lindberg offered IPMS the opportunity to review some of their kits, I jumped at the chance to do a couple of their line of dinosaurs. We took this kit on vacation with us and built it over two days with a minimalist tool kit. Mr. Rex is a large beast, and this kit ends up being 20 inches long and 9 1/2 inches high. The limbs, tail and body are all made up of two halves, while the feet and hands are single part. The head is almost a model in itself with 5 pieces. A stand is supplied and needed, as I miscalculated the center of gravity and he ended up nose heavy. As far as accuracy is concerned, it looks like a Tyrannosaurus, has the right number of toes and doesn't drag its tail, so it has the old Tamiya kit beat. The pose is rather undynamic, but old hands and a razor saw could improve that. Robin did the bulk of construction, and found things a bit more difficult than the Velociraptor model we finished earlier - much of that was due to the size of the parts. None of the sub-assemblies went together particularly well, and I ended up using superglue on some seams to speed things along. There are large seams and gaps everywhere; it's nothing the hardened modeler can't take care of, but a bit frustrating nevertheless. Robin didn't really care, and I have introduced her to filler so she was happy to tackle that chore to the best of her ability. The mouth parts were a little cumbersome too as they needed trimming to fit well. Robin's favorite part of modeling is painting, and once again I allowed her to choose her paints from my stock of acrylics. In this case, she felt that Mr. Rex would be rather handsome in RLM 24 Hellblau, with RAF Sky undersides. He's really rather cute. The mouth was painted in a deep reddish purple and she tackled the teeth with off white.

Once finished, this kit makes up into an impressive model, and at a very reasonable price. For older kids, as well as the more experienced modeler, the parts fit might be frustrating, and the pose is rather static, but Robin got a big kick out of building this one and I am sure that other kids will too. My sincere thanks to Ernie Petit at Hawk for supplying the review sample! Lindberg models are now available from WalMart, leading hobby stores and at their website, www.lindberg-models.com/.

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