Category: Recent Kits – Reviews and Interviews

Return to kits for sale

By Steven Krick

History

This build represents the Northrop F-15A Water Bomber, serial number N9768Z.  This aircraft was built originally as serial number 45-59300, which was the first production F-15A Reporter.  59300 was the only F-15A to survive into the mid 1960’s.  It was used for NACA/NASA tests until 1955, when it was sold and registered as XB-FUJ in Mexico.  In Mexico a ‘Droop Snoot’ was installed in the nose section for photo mapping.

It returned to the United States registered as N5093V with a yellow tail scheme.  In 1964 Aero Enterprises installed a 1600 gallon fire retardant tank and operated the aircraft as a fire tanker during the 1964/65 fire seasons.

Cal Nat Airways then acquired the aircraft in 1966 and modified it to a single seater while painting it in the ‘International Orange’ color scheme during the 1966/67 fire season.

F-15 Fire Bomber circa 1965 (courtesy of Bill Larkins) 

In 1968 the aircraft was sold to TBM, Inc and was lost on September 6, 1968.

As a result of the aircraft’s interesting history, there are very many unique and dramatic paint schemes for this bird.  One scheme has International Red on the tail

Continue reading “1/48 Scale Northrop F-15A Water Bomber/Fire Tanker from the Great Wall Hobbies P-61 Black Widow”

Return to kits for sale

By Justin Humphreys

© Justin Humphreys – 2010

Who was the marketing savant who decided to put “pain” in a kid’s toy’s name?

Does Barbie drive a Pain Ferrari? Would the Great Garloo have sold better if Ideal had called him The Big Green Pain Demon? Has Wham-O made a fortune over the last fifty years selling Pain Hoops?

Aurora’s Original Monster Scenes Pain Parlor from the early 1970s

The answer to the last three questions is a resounding no, but Aurora’s creative minds Continue reading “Moebius Models reissues of Aurora “Monster Scenes” -The Pain Parlor and Gruesome Goodies”

Return to kits for sale

By Justin Humphreys
© Justin Humphreys – 2010

For the last seventeen years, model kit aficionados have seen a steady stream of superb replicas of Aurora Plastics’ iconic styrene monsters, from warhorses like the Frankenstein Monster to heretofore un-reissued rarities like Dracula’s Dragster. But one of Aurora’s 1/8th scale beauties has been passed over without fail whenever reissuing time rolled around: Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde.

Why is the good doctor never returned to hobby store shelves? Did that flask that Dr. Jekyll’s chugging spook parental watchdogs into thinking that it would inspire impressionable young chemists to poison themselves with some unspeakable brew? Where’s the logic here? Why has this kit been out of the legitimate kit market for over thirty years?

Moebius Models reissue of the classic Aurora Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde

“No one did it earlier as they said it wouldn’t sell,” says Frank Winspur, president of Moebius Models. “At Polar Lights, they thought it wouldn’t sell enough to make it break even.” Larger kit manufacturers, he says, “felt it was a crappy kit, hard to build, and no one remembered it with any fondness! Crazy stuff, in my opinion!” Continue reading “Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde- Aurora Monster Kit reissue by Moebius Models”

Return to kits for sale

By Justin Humphreys
© Justin Humphreys – 2008

Please note that this interview with Paul Schilola took place in 2008.  Ultratumba ceased production in 2009. – Alan Bussie

Over two decades after his death, the delightfully lurid cinematic monstrosities of creature creator (creaturist?) Paul Blaisdell remain perennially popular. Rather than lumbering, shambling, or fluttering around dive-bombing victims as they did in their original movie habitats, they generally sit stock-still these days… In effigy, that is, courtesy of Ultratumba Productions.

Ultratumba is releasing a series of 50s and 60s-era movie monster models that have, among other things, resurrected Blaisdell’s monstrous menagerie—creatures like “Beulah” the Venusian from It Conquered the World, and the titular BEM from Invasion of the Saucermen with its head like a bundle of vines from a freshly-picked pumpkin patch with a hideous trademark Blaisdell scowl.

Author George Clayton Johnson once told me that “Pulp never dies,” and that’s uniquely true of unique pulp. And nowhere has pulp been more unique or lovingly rendered than with Blaisdell’s monsters. Bizarre, bulbous, bug-eyed, scaly, or all spines and crackly surfaces, they remain a lasting tribute to Blaisdell’s furious imagination. They are 30s “Amazing Stories” covers sprung to life.

Ultratumba’s Angry Red Spider Resin Kit

At first glance, they might appear ridiculous. One modern horror director and movie aficionado Continue reading “From Mexico to Venus with Paul Schiola-Ultratumba Productions’ Mastermind Speaks!”