Lindberg Tyrannosaurus Rex - 1:24

[Mike]

Tyrannosaurus Rex
1:24 (approx) Lindberg

T.Rex is perhaps one of the most widely known dinosaurs, and has been the star of many a movie over the years, from Ray Harryhausen to Steven Spielberg's offerings. For some reason it stirs the interest of little boys and adults like, and although it has now been dethroned as "king of the lizards" by the Spinosaurus and others, it still holds our interest. Perhaps it is because it was found in the western lands that now make up North America, right where Hollywood is found? Who knows.

T.Rex was a meat eating dinosaur that we now believe might have hunted in packs, and may even have had feathers. It was a voracious killer though, and a plume of feathers probably didn't diminish the fear it inspired in other dinosaurs when it was prowling nearby. It feasted on whatever it fancied for lunch that day from Triceratops, juvenile Sauropods or Parasaurolophus, a duck-billed herbivore. It was the largest predator in its habitat, at the peak of the Cretaceous period, just before the extinction even that toppled the dinosaurs from their dominance of the earth.

The Kit
Arriving in a large clamshell top-opening box, with a curious card insert wrapped around the hinge side of the box, you can tell upon opening that this is an older tooling, with large heavily moulded parts that fit together roughly, leaving seams that will need attention. There are eighteen parts in mid-grey styrene, plus a flat base with a peg that fits into the bottom of one of the feet. Each leg is made up from a left and right half, with a peg on the bottom for the single part foot, and the dew-claw fitting into a recess on the side of the leg. The spindly forearms are two parts each, and are unfortunately posed in a rather comical "look at me!" wavey-arm position that will be tricky to fit without some surgery. These fit into keyed sockets on the body, which is another two-part assembly with large sockets for the legs on either side. The tail is made up from two parts too, and slots onto a large peg at the base of the body.

The head is perhaps the tour-de-force of the kit, with a "top" part that includes the top of the head and the back of the neck, into which you glue the top teeth and roof of the mouth. Here there is a nasty ejector pin mark right in the roof of the mouth, but a few seconds with a spherical burr chucked into your Dremel, and it will disappear. The lower jaw and front of neck also receives the lower mouth and tongue, after which the two halves can be joined to create a fairly convincing mouth and head. The top of the head has been moulded using multi-part moulds, which has left a criss-cross of seams across the surface, but again, these can be scraped away with the edge of a blade, then sanded and fettled until they blend into the surroundings. Once complete the head and neck are added to the top of the body, and your T.rex is complete!

Once the build is complete, you still have a lot of work ahead of you dealing with the seams and join lines, some of which are quite pronounced. Careful clamping and fettling of the parts before joining can help to reduce the gaps, but there are going to be plenty that will need putty, and that should appeal to the budding sculptors amongst us. I would suggest Milliput or Magic Sculp as your weapon of choice, as both give you plenty of working time and can be tooled with the aid of water to obtain a smooth finish. Because of the rough finish of the skin, you shouldn't have to work too hard with the seams, and a thin coat of liquid glue over your work will help to blend in your efforts.

Conclusion
The stance of the model is fairly modern, with the tail in the air, being used to balance the body, which is held relatively horizontal. As already mentioned, the forearms are a little cartoonish in pose, as can be seen from the box art, which is a photo of a completed model. The texture of the skin is good throughout most of the body, with the "quilted" stomach area being the only major exception, dating the model to an earlier age. A modern tooling would perhaps be a little skinnier and more athletic looking, but if you were to fix the arms and paint it in a more modern style, it should look quite impressive, especially as it is over half a metre from nose to tip of his tail, and 21cm tall. My estimate of the scale at the top of this review is based upon the length of the largest example found so far, so can only be an approximation.

Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of


UK distributors for

[Basosz]

T.Rex was a meat eating dinosaur that we now believe might have hunted in packs, and may even have had feathers. It was a voracious killer though, and a plume of feathers probably didn't diminish the fear it inspired in other dinosaurs when it was prowling nearby.

That was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the words "Life-like detail" on the box At half a meter it's still an impressive model

On a slightly related side-note, the fairly massive Velociraptors in Jurassic Park were in reality about as large as a turkeys.

[Mike]

Yeah - Spielberg admitted to enlarging their size for dramatic purposes. Might have been a better idea than using the Gigantoraptor though, which Planet Dinosaur would have us believe actually looked like a turkey!

[Basosz]

I have no problem with that Evolution has brought us the weirdest things. Although it really does look like a turkey. LOVE IT !!

[Mike]

Utterly bonkers. Having a dinosaur obsessed son has certainly taught me a bit about the thunder lizards, including how far along our understanding of them has come over the last 20 years.

[Basosz]

I love the fact that Brontosaurus (which is the actual "Thunder Lizard") never existed The skeleton was actually pieces of different species, and it was "just" an Apatosaurus. This was all due to the intense competition between palaeontologists trying to one-up one another

[bhouse]

This was all due to the intense competition between palaeontologists trying to one-up one another

As Darwin reasoned, pretty much everything comes down to survival of the fittest, and palaeontologists are no exception!

[Mike]

We should just clone the things (I know that's not as easy as Messrs Attenborough & Spielberg make out) and find out who is and isn't right

[SMD70]

This is the Jurassic Park Lindberg kit that was around in the 90's reboxed. I had the Velociraptor kit and enjoyed that back in the day so might look for this. Need to do something about those arms though!

[hgbn]

As Darwin reasoned, pretty much everything comes down to survival of the fittest, and palaeontologists are no exception!

Its not the strongest that survive but the most responsive to changes

[Aimee'sDad]

'Look at me wavey' arm position? Lol

Edited April 6, 2014 by Aimee'sDad

[Basosz]

We should just clone the things (I know that's not as easy as Messrs Attenborough & Spielberg make out) and find out who is and isn't right

This is not merely "not as easy" but downright impossible. Recent studies have found that DNA just does not keep for 65 million years. And that's just the nearest sauropods. For things like Stegosaurus you need to go back 150 million years. Researchers found a few incredibly complete Mammoths and they even have problems getting that DNA and they've only been dead for a few thousand years. The best course is to re-activate dinosaur DNA in birds like the famous Chickenosaurus. Literally a chicken with a dino-tail.

Its not the strongest that survive but the most responsive to changes

Actually, it's the best suited to the environment. The mutations in DNA are random, this is true, but the most suitable to the environment will procreate even without any mutations. Like when one of the most recent ice ages set in, the woolly mammoth already existed in mountainous areas. They never needed to change because they were already properly attired for the cold conditions. Their habitat just simply grew by a ginormous amount. However when the ice retreated they almost literally cooked off because they did not change (fast enough) for suitability to evolve.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Basosz

[bhouse]

Its not the strongest that survive but the most responsive to changes

Exactly - hence "fittest". Fit in this sense means most appropriate...

[Mike]

Tiny didn't stay in the box long. The Boy insisted on a tape-up (one of his favourite hobbies when he's in my workshop), and one thing led to another, and I started gluing parts together a couple of days ago with liquid glue. The large assemblies were glued with epoxy and clamps wherever possible, and this afternoon I finished off the alterations to his arms, so he doesn't look quite so frantic! I increased the angle on the shoulder end to let them sit closer to the body, then adjusted the wrists to be a little less "jazz hands". Obviously, there's a mass of seam work and even more putty work to be done before I can consider putting any paint on, but I think he doesn't look too bad now, especially when you consider the original date of the tooling

Sorry about the wide expanses of photo-booth sides on display, but he's a bit of a big chap, and I really couldn't be bothered breaking out the 80cm tent, as I always spend longer putting it away than using it The pair of tweezers over his tail is a counter-weight to stop him toppling forward and breaking his teeth. Wouldn't you know it? He's a nose sitter... stick a bit of weight in the tail of yours, and if you judge it right, you might get away with him standing on his own two feet

[Carts]

I had this kit back in the day,and the reason I ended up not finishing it is the too small lower jaw and the odd pose of the arms,which comes directly from the Stan Winston maquette which was used as the primary source for the sculpt.

[markjames68]

Not sure if i missed it but this tooling isnt that old (1993 iirc) it was lindbergs foray into Jurrasic park merchandise, i got one when it came out and was quite impressed with it for the price, it does need a bit of filler but makes a good modern T rex

[Mike]

1993 is quite a while ago in dinosaur terms... 21 years now We've learned a lot since then

I'd not noticed the lower jaw... will have a look in a sec.

[Basosz]

As stated before, this thing is obviously missing feathers... Now I'm trying to think of a way to make those... I think I need to buy this and make it as scientifically accurate as possible.

Thank your boy for pushing you Mike

[Arachnid]

Mike

A BBC programme a couple of years stated that T-Rex was not a hunter killer, but a scavenger,hence the small front limbs, if it is 1/24th why not pose it next to a 1/24th Airfix Hurricane as a dino-pilot L.O.L.

[CockneyCol]

I quite like this, may have to get one at some point as a diversion and cure for modellers block, just airbrush one colour into another, should be fun.

Cheers

Col'

[John_W]

My daughter built the Tamiya T Rex. This looks to be a much better kit.

[Panzer Vor!!!]

Purple with yellow dots soundz cool

[Kallisti]

Yellow so he can hide in the custard and spring out on the unsuspecting elephants walking across it!

Nurse! Time for my medication!

[Panzer Vor!!!]

No elephants ------------giraffes

[Brad]

I really wish there were more kits of dinosaurs around.