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Archive for the ‘Round2 Models’ Category
Star Trek Model Kits: All-New 1:350 K’t’inga Model Kit
To say the least, we’ve teased this announcement for too long already. So without further ado… THIS!
Yes, Round 2 has been developing a 1:350 scale Klingon K’t’inga as featured in STAR TREK: The Motion Picture! This is one of the kits we have been asked about since Round 2 got into the model kit business 10 years ago. Rumor and/or speculation has been that development of this kit started back at Playing Mantis before Polar Lights was obtained by RC2, but I’ve found little to no record of that in the development notes I’ve encountered in my role as the chief sci-fi kit product developer here at Round 2. We have been working with Charles Adams for well over a year now on this project. He has supplied the CAD model for the basis of the ship. Steve Neisen is also consulting on the add-on model kit bits that were used on the original filming miniature. Jim Small is also involved in the development and will be building our publicity model. I have been discussing with Charles the possibility of writing some guest blog entries about the ship to share some of his years-long research into the model.
The photos show the mockup (prototype) of the kit and it needs a little bit of explaining. The factory has been working over Charles’ CAD work and adding details that he would have supplied as model kit parts on his own studio scale model. We sent kit parts to the factory to scan. In some instances they used scans and in some cases, they tried to rebuild them from measurements. In some cases you can’t tell the difference. In some cases you can. Our partner factory in China recently took their annual holiday for Chinese New Year and did their best to get the mockup to us before leaving for their break. They were up against the ship date with some details needing adjustment and with minimal engineering to fit the parts properly together. No locator pins, etc. This was a freshly printed rapid prototype and they had no time to test fit or make adjustments, so I’ve been doing my best to cobble it together. have no fear of gaps and obvious glue bombs. All will be revised well before production.
Let’s see what else… answers before there are questions…
- The target retail price will be around $100.
- Yes, we will be putting out a light kit. We’ll show some candid pics of that in a post later on.
- Yes, we plan to do a ST:VI Kronos One version later down the road as long as sales on this first release supports that notion.
- The kit is currently scheduled for September release. Yes, that soon. If we can stick to the schedule, that would mean we’ll have a test shot built to display at Wonderfest in June.
- Distributors can look for this product to appear on our next price sheet which will go out within the next week. (By 3/9)
For now, enjoy a look at the mockup. We’ll put higher res pics on our Facebook page. Feel free to ask questions here and I’ll come back and answer a slew of them all at once in a future post.
Qapla’!
Round 2 Models: Something wicked-cool this way comes…
So you are thinking “Enough with the box! What is in it already?” To be honest, it is probably one of those things that can’t possibly live up to its hype anymore. I’ve poked around a little bit to see what the speculation might be, and if all goes as planned, we will reveal it tomorrow. But for now, more hints…
- Once assembled, it won’t fit back in this box.
- Someone in a message board or Facebook thread HAS guessed what it is.
- Its name does not start with an E or 24 other letters in the alphabet.
See you back here tomorrow…
Coming off the Shelf – Not What Most Expected
A few weeks ago we posted a teaser on Facebook, and many of our followers thought they had the kit pegged as a reissue of the 1969 Hurst Olds we did just a few years back. We are happy to announce that it is indeed NOT the Hurst Olds, but rather a close relative—the 1969 442 W-30. This classic Olds, though similar to the Hurst, comes with its own set of surprises, including W-30 parts, four pad printed Firestone Wide Oval tires, two pad printed Goodyear Blue Streak drag slicks, and an all new decal sheet with improved (and more accurate) striping and emblem options—all boxed up in a new vintage style package.
Coming to a hobby store near you, and online, this March!
Round 2 Models: 2018 off to a good start
It has been a while since I’ve showed a pic like this. It doesn’t show the stacks of boxes and test shots immediately to the right of this view.
In the life of a Round 2 model kit developer, there are ebbs and flows just like in every other job. Sometimes you are working at a breakneck pace to get a release (or several) out on time. Sometimes the work you are doing just isn’t all THAT interesting such as when we are retouching vintage model kit box art or working on assembly instruction sheets (tedious work and the most undervalued part of any kit). And then sometimes, every once and a while, within a week’s time you get deluged with new and exciting stuff to review and comment on and you realize it is all stacked up in one place. So you snap a pick like this one. I’ll be unveiling closer looks at all of this stuff in the coming weeks.
Lindberg Model kits: Jolly Roger Series: 2nd & 3rd Releases!
Lindberg welcomes 2 more 1:12 scale figure kits aboard Jolly Rogers. Because of the popularity of last year’s of the Jolly Roger Series: Hex Marks The Spot, not only will we be doing a second run but we are also releasing the next 2 in the series: Dismay Be The End and In The Pinch of Peril. Each kit portrays a skeleton pirate posed mid struggle within a beautifully detailed scene.
Abandoned by his crew and shackled to a stone, he was left as gator bait for “Dismay Be The End”. The pirate skeleton sits on a mound of sand, chained to a rock, guarding a barrel of grog. Strewn around him are bones and the remains of some creature. A hunger alligator is lunging for his leg. A rubber band powered sword chops at the furious beast. The kit sits at 5″ tall and 10″ wide. Bonus 1:1 pirate coin and medallion are included.
As the sand pulls him deeper, a giant crab is looking for a bite. He has found himself “In The Pinch of Peril”. The seconds skeleton tries to pull him free, but instead pulls his arm out of the socket. The kit sits at 6″ tall and 6″ wide. Bonus 1:1 pirate coin and medallion are included.
Coming off the Shelf – What a Gas(ser)!
AMT is proud to announce the re-release of the “Polyglas” Gasser, with a twist! It is now the “Polyglas” Gasser II! And though the face of the box art may look like the original release, a side-by-side comparison will instantly confirm that there are differences.
With the option to build it street or custom, the Gasser II is packed with plenty of options: like custom grille & divider, diamond-tuft seats, long side lakes pipes, custom chrome wheels and pad printed Polyglas GT tires. Included is a set of colorful decals, similar to the originals, with slight modifications to improve upon the quality and uniqueness of this release. As an ADDED BONUS, we’ve thrown in a set of four FREE Goodyear Polyglas wide tread red line tires, to be used in any way, shape or form you choose to do so—just not with this kit.
So get your glue and paint ready. The “Polyglas” Gasser II is scheduled to hit hobby stores and the internet, in February!
Star Trek Model Kits: U.S.S. Grissom & Klingon Bird-of-Prey 1:1000 scale
With a great license like STAR TREK, there is no end to the subjects we can introduce as new kits, but sometimes the question does arrive of “What should we do next?”. That question is usually tied to the investment needed for tooling the kit. It isn’t easy to do large, grand scale kits very often, but there are plenty of ships to consider at smaller scales like our popular 1:1000 scale kits. Except for maybe the Klingon K’t’inga, we have represented most of the recognizable ships in one scale or another. However, it seems like nearly every time we’ve asked modelers what ideas they had in mind, we often found one ship asked for over and over… The U.S.S. Grissom. The Oberth-class ship is a bit of a departure from the usual Starfleet fare. Though a fan-favorite, the Grissom was infamously taken out by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in STAR TREK: The Search For Spock before other Oberths went on to appear in three more films and several episodes of ST:TNG. The ship is a relatively small design with an accepted length of 120 meters. That gave us bit of pause to do as a 1:1000 scale kit. A kit of this size wouldn’t be substantial enough to stand on its own. Though a 1:350 scale kit of the ship seems very appealing, we felt the need to check the reaction to a smaller investment first and come back to a large scale later if that seems feasible. So, what could we do? We could have reboxed our Enterprise Refit and included it in that like we did with the Botany bay in our TOS Enterprise kit, but I wanted to hold out on that and see if teaming the Refit with a dry dock kit might be viable later on. With the Refit still available and our recent U.S.S. Excelsior release, it became apparent that the last of the ships from STIII: The Search For Spock was the Klingon Bird-of-Prey. A smaller ship with a debatable length of about 90 meters, we could afford to team the two ships together in a 2-piece set and allow modelers to build a collection of every ship from that film. The KBoP is a beloved design and is in my personal list of top 5 space ship designs.
The Grissom is based on CAD work by Angelo Bastianelli and the KBoP will be based on our larger AMT kit. The Bird-of-Prey will come with two sets of wing baffles to build in either cruising or attack modes. Both kits will feature snap assembly to fit right in line with our other 1:1000 snap kits.
A few things to note on the mockups. On the Oberth, the factory made a couple mistakes. they grew an earlier copy of the deck. So the mockup shown here has the incorrect detail on the back the rear edge of the deck also shows more detail than we will end up with in production. They put a base rod hole in the bottom large enough to accept the rods for our 5″ dome bases, but these kits will come with our small bases, so that will be less obtrusive. On the KBoP, they forgot the base hole altogether. More significantly, they were supposed to grow two sizes of the ship. the one shown in thepics measures about 3 1/2″ long and would be comparable to the kit included in the AMT Adversary Set. At this length the ship would have been 90 meters long “in real life”. However, this deviates from the debated, but generally agreed to length of 110m. The second mockup was to be about 4 1/2″ long to bring it in scale with that measurement. The detail looks great at the smaller size, but we will most likely kick it up to the larger size. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Here, for the first time, is a look at the upcoming kits. The set is scheduled to be released by May 1st. So look for it at Wondefest 2018.
Now, I’ve been mulling “something” over… We are working on another brand-new kit. It will be big, and probably unexpected. I wish I could talk about it. It is really driving me nuts. It has been in the works for a long time already, and we are nearly finished with the CAD work. We will probably get a mockup within the month of January. I was hoping to hold out on this announcement until Wonderfest, but if we manage to stick to our development timeline, the kit should be out in August. In which case, we will probably announce it before that. I’ve been considering announcing it now as a Christmas gift to all of the sci-fi modelers out there. BUT, we all know how these things go. Any number of circumstances could crash down on the project. So I won’t say any more except…
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! I hope one (or more) of your gifts is a model kit, but even more than that I hope you receive the peace and joy behind the season.
Star Trek Model Kits: U.S.S. Defiant kit update
Things rarely go according to plan. I was hoping to show the mockup for our NEXT new Star Trek kit this week, but delays at the factory are preventing that this time. Good news though that we already have test shots for our all-new U.S.S. Defiant snap kit! So here’s a quick look. I’m also showing a look at the decal sheet. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fit the additional registries some have been asking about. (Updated) We are also including a cap (not shown in pics) to seal the base hole for those that choose to use a different mounting method.
We are pretty far along with this kit with packaging underway. Jim Small may be showing off some pics of our buildup soon on social media. We’ll be sure to share those pics on our Facebook page.
Everything shown here is subject to licensor review.
Coming off the Shelf – A Commemorative Classic!
AMT is excited to announce the release of another great item in its Barris Kustom Commemorative Edition line, the Fireball 500 SSXR—loaded with extra goodies!
KEY FEATURES INCLUDE:
• Window parts in clear and yellow-tint options
• Pad-printed Firestone tires
• Complete BONUS trailer
• Expanded decal sheet with 3 historic door logo options
• BONUS commemorative photo insert
• Retro Deluxe “RARE ISSUE” commemorative packaging
So keep your eyes peeled for this retro rarity, featuring yet another sweet classic from the “King of Kustoms”, George Barris. Available in hobby stores, and online, before the Holidays!
MPC Models: Space:1999 Eagle Display Model
When we signed the Space:1999 license a few years back, we felt we’d take a “let’s roll this out slow and see how things go” approach. First, we found great success with our old MPC 12” Eagle kit. It went so well that we did a deluxe version that included resin parts to create the lab pod version of the ship complete with spine booster parts. Continued sales on those gave us enough confidence to tool up our all-new 22” Eagle Transporter kit. One of our intentions at the time we did that was to eventually bring a relatively affordable 22” Eagle model to market that collectors without modeling skills would appreciate. So here we are…
(BE SURE TO NOTE THE UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS POST!)
We had sent the first factory deco sample to Alpha 2017, a Space:1999 fan event, to get feedback on it to check ourselves. We knew the deco needed a color adjustment, but we wanted to know how plain injected ABS plastic would go over.
Here is a side by side with another Eagle from the Todd Morton collection.
We took heed of the feedback many offered that the product looked too toy-like and opted to apply a base coat of paint to it and we added a weathering treatment to boxes inside the cages at that point. We all agree we ended up with a much better result. Here are a couple close up pics of the ABS plastic.
Although the model is –mostly- pre-assembled and it is completely decorated. The deco look is a relatively clean looking Eagle reminiscent of mid-season one appearance of the filming miniature. All of the logos and technical markings are present as is a modest amount of surface paneling and the weathering on the boxes inside the cages. Engine bells come unattached. This was done so that collectors could opt to upgrade to the aluminum engine bells included in our Deluxe Accessory Set.
The nose cone cap is also left off to show the pilots and rear cockpit wall. Just like the kit, the landing gear are spring loaded for an authentic feel.
Suggested retail price of the model is $300, but that varies greatly between retailers. Some may feel this is too much, but we can assure you we have done everything we can to keep the cost as low as possible to satisfy as many collectors as we can. The product is meant to appeal to non-modelers. We know what our usual modeler can do quality-wise, and achieving that level of finish is worth every penny a contract builder would charge, but I doubt you will find a contractor to build a kit with an all-in price that competes with our price point. To get a decent grasp on the demand of the market, we have decided to limit this release to 500 pieces. We will use the reaction to the product to judge whether to offer another version later down the road.
Here is a look at the final pre-production sample. As of this writing, the product is expected be available in December and we are about 75% sold through on the full run of 500. (UPDATE: 11/16/2017 – WE ARE SOLD OUT! BE SURE TO PRE-ORDER WITH YOUR RETAILER. PRODUCT WILL BE AVAILABLE CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS.)
This just in… photos of the production.
Assembly and hand cleaning seams.
Hand applying all of the decals. Nothing is pad-printed.
(UPDATE #2) Check out this promo video!
