Moebius Models

Gigantic Frankenstein

Reviewed by  Dave Morrissette, IPMS# 33653

MSRP: $109.99 Website: www.moebiusmodels.com Like many modelers in the "getting near 50" range, I started a lot of my building on Aurora kits. In amongst the planes and tanks, I fell in love with their monster kits. One of the kits that was the neatest was Gigantic Frankenstein- wow, 20" of moveable arms and a boulder and chain to make sure he didn't run off. Problem was the kit was $5.00!!! Back in the mid-1960's, that was huge money when a lot of kits were well under $1.00. The kit disappeared quickly, as never reissued and as the years passed, it became one of the "grail" kits for Aurora and monster collectors commanding prices over $500. The instruction sheet was selling for over $150 on E-bay when I stated writing this. Frank Winspur and Moebius Models to the rescue. For the first time in over 40 years, Gigantic Frankie lives! The kit comes in large parts - the body consists of 13 parts for the coat, shirt, pants and boots. There 8 parts for the head and hands only. The stone is a couple parts but the chain is a large pile of pieces- more on that later. The arms are meant to be moveable and a piece of elastic is included but I glued the arms in place. I started the build by gluing all the major parts together. There are some large sprue gates and some I took off with a razor saw to not mangle the plastic. I used Tamiya Extra Thin and a lot of clamps and tape and got some decent seams to fill. For these I used Aves Apoxie Sculpt- this is a two part water thinning putty like Milliput but so much better. I followed the same process for the hands but not the head. The eyes have hollow irises (like the original) and I had a spare set of plastic eyes from another project so…. I ground the entire eyes out with a Dremel them used epoxy to place them and get them aligned. I then backed them with more Apoxie Sculpt. After that was done, I glued the head together and seamed it also.

I masked the eyes with Silly putty and primed the entire kit with Wal-Mart Gray sand able primer. A few touch ups and another coat of primer and we were ready to fly. I wanted Frankie to be pretty traditional so I went with a coat of dark green for the face and hands of Tamiya grey green. I used several shades of Kitbuilders Freestyle paints and some ModelMaster. I little dark red on the lips and under the eyes. I then put washes around the eyes and dry brushed with lighter green. I brush painted the hair black. The same process was used for the hand with black fingernails and blue for the veining. These were flat coated with several coats of Krylon matt clear. The coat and boots were coated Floquil weathered black, transparent black was used for low lights and lighter gray for high lights. The pants were painted as jeans with sea blue as a base followed by black low lights and a dry brush of light gray with tan for the wear areas. The entire figure was assemble with only one issue and that was I got the head a little low in the collar and had to adjust the neck bolts but cutting them to get them to fit.

The rock is straightforward with two halves. The chain was difficult. Each piece need seam scraping on both inside and out. The chain comes as whole links and also links that have to be joined together. Fit wasn't bad but each link had to be clamped and sanded then primed and sprayed with Alclad. I think if I were to do it again, I would see if I could find some craft chain that was already assembled and seamed just to save the time. The chain and the rock were attached and the old days have returned! This kit is a blast. Fit is good and there are a bunch of paint options from black and white, to the green to flesh. I can't recommend this kit enough. My thanks to Frank and Moebius. Check out their web site to see all the new things coming up.