SCALE MODEL NEWS

Jetliner fans: this latest Revell airliner is for you, as it features the latest twin-jet from Airbus, the A350-900 XWB, which first flew in June 2013. The A350-900 XWB kit is neatly detailed and moulded, and now Revell has shown us a model that’s finished and painted. We’ve featured this Airbus kit in August and November 2013 , so it’s good to see the kit moving on from test-shot to general release. The A350-900 kit is a new-tool 1:144 scale production that, according to Revell, includes these features: * Recessed panel joints * Cockpit detail * Detailed engines with rotating fan blades * Separate control surfaces * Detailed landing gear and bays * Landing gear extended or retracted * Detailed lower fuselage centre-section * Navigation lights in clear plastic * Antennas included * Display Stand * Decal Set for the Airbus A350-900 F-WXWB Airbus House Colours, First Flight June 14, 2013 It certainly looks about as good as you can get in 1:144 scale, and will compare interestingly with t...

The single-seater Bat-Pod emerges (in slightly contrived fashion!) from the wreck of the bigger Tumbler in the first movie of the Dark Knight trilogy. This Moebius kit focuses on the fat-tyred two-wheeler. Mat Irvine: Moulded to 1:25 scale the Moebius Bat-Pod is a small kit, measuring around 150mm (6 in) long, and consists of a number of very small parts, making it a project that’s not for the faint-hearted modeller. The kit itself does not include a rider, but from the beginning Moebius announced it was releasing a set of similar-scale figures. Initially there would have been a set of four, featuring Batman standing, riding the Bat-Pod, and driving the Tumbler, plus Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker. The four-figure plan was modified, so that currently available are the standing and riding Batman figures, issued as a double-kit. However, the Joker and standing Batman figures were issued in a special-edition foil bag, for the 2013 San Diego Comic Con. If you use the riding Batman f...

This surely has to be the definitive book on the Batmobile. It's a big full-colour title by Mark Cotta Vaz, published by Titan Books. The Batmobiles book has had some good reviews, including this one from buyer ‘Portland 182’: “This is a really excellent book, written from Bruce Wayne's/Batman's point of view, talking about the various characters and gadgets featured in Nolan's trilogy, as if they were real world events/objects. “It features a variety of pull out plans, and stuck in inserts, so that it resembles one of those history books that have facsimile documents, but the content is all Batman related.” On the downside: “The tiny niggles are that the enclosed stickers tend to glue themselves to the opposite page and damage them. Some tissue paper separators would not have gone amiss. This problem is likely to increase over time, as the glue seeps out from the stickers. “Also some of the 'post it' notes are glued over the pictures, and a few cm's to the...

Mat Irvine: This is going to be about as complex a model car kit in this scale (or any scale) you are likely to build, and initially the packed box of parts looks daunting. Most of the complexity is down to the fact that the Tumbler is hardly an ordinary vehicle design, and the way a conventional car kit goes together doesn’t really apply to the Tumbler. The Moebius instructions are very clear, albeit with a couple of errors, corrected in later printings (below) and primarily regarding the way the rear airfoils fit. But once that element of construction is sorted, and considering that the Tumbler is such an unconventional design, the kit goes together very smoothly. The Moebius Tumbler kit is moulded mostly in black styrene, plus a clear runner, vinyl tyres, and a hefty metal axle for the rear wheels. The colour of the movie Tumbler is black of course, so it’s up to you whether you overpaint the plastic or not. Painted finishes always look better though, and here the finish I used was...

Here’s more on Revell’s new kit of the SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo combo that will allow anyone to ‘fly into space’ - with two provisos: that they have a spare $100,000 or so, and can demonstrate that they are ‘reasonably fit’! Mat Irvine: The previous post on this 1:144 scale WhiteKnightTwo-SpaceShipOne kit gave most of the details, but as I helped Revell out with some details, advice, and a check-though of test shots against instructions, here’s a bit of background. In all you get five runners (below) three in white styrene, two in clear. However, because WK2 is in effect two aircraft joined together, two of the white runners are identical, as are both the runners moulded in clear plastic. Because many of the parts are identical, and plenty of them are very small, it is vital to pay close attention to the instructions, and not to remove parts from runners until they are required. This applies especially to the two WK2 fuselages, and the four engines, as at first glance, many co...