Steve Iverson’s Aurora King Kong

The Polar Lights reissue of the original Aurora King Kong model.  I built this using the replacement head from Cult of Personality.

The model was glued together with CA and I reenforced him on the inside with hot glue, wires, and screws so he would not fall apart.  Aurora kits tend to not hold up well over the years!

The replacement head was sculpted by Mark VanTine and is a major improvement over the original head that comes with the kit.  This one actually looks like a gorilla! I’m not sure how clear it is, but I resculpted the hair on Fay Wray, and lengthened her skirt to cover her knees a little.

In this picture you can see the replacement palm fronds as well as some of the replacement trees.  These were missing from the reissued kit.  In comparing the reissue to the original kit, I noted that the detail on the trees and girl figure were not quite as sharp as the original. It may very well be that part of the kit was lost and retooled.
I used putty to fill in the area behind the nameplate to make it appear to be part of the rock outcropping.  The base was painted grey, then a wash of dark brown was applied.  Lighter brown, green and yellow were drybrushed in different areas. The trees were painted light brown then washer several times with dark brown. The leaves were light green stained with dark green.

The seams on the ape were hidden with putty and obscured with texture stamps to blend the seams into the fur.  Kong was than painted a light blue base.  Black washes and stains were applied to bring out the texture.  Drybrushing of blue-grey also brought out the highlights.  The inside of the mouth is grey, the tounge is red, and the teet a light yellow.  A wash of brown was added. The eyes are dark brown with a bit of gold on top. All the paints were acrylic hobby paints.

Just for giggles, here is my new Kong with the original that I build 30 years ago.

Steve Iverson