KIT #:	1907
PRICE:	$12.00 each
DECALS:	None
REVIEWER:	George Oh
NOTES:	Only positional options.

I've built this kit before, and reviewed it right here in MM because the modeller gets 5 endoskeletons in the box. But this is a different type of type of review, because it reviews a base, rather than a model. You have to know that I stink at building figures (in ALL of its aspects), and that I am a misunderstood modeller.

CONSTRUCTION

This build started with an idea I had for one of these (4-remaining) T.800 Terminator endoskeletons. My intent was to build this T.800 being led past an explosive device (= impending doom), and to add 3 figures to create a vignette. But the base would have been quite large, so I had to come-up with another way to create the concept.

I built my T.800 in a running pose, because I could. For fun, for something different, and because of the Terminator's single-mindedness in completing its mission, I left its right arm off its torso, and instead, placed it's right hand in its left hand. The impression is supposed to be that the T.800 is using its torn-off arm as a club or a flail. To cement-in the impression, I strung a few lengths of wire from both sides of the shoulder socket. This takes away the T.800's weapon because an armed T.800 would shoot, not chase, a target. And a left-armed T.800 could probably not use a weapon because Cyberdyne was programmed by humans, most of whom were right-handed So the weapons are probably for right-handers. Anyway, I had to mount it on a base, because of the inherent instability of a skeleton.

The base was just a small scrap piece cut from a timber plank. With a large drill bit, I dug-out a part of a crater in a corner, then covered the base with plaster that I mixed with black paint and water. After it had dried (for a few days), I dry-brushed the plaster - first with a lot of light grey, and then with a bit of white on the very tops, to create an ashen, fire-ravaged wasteland. The bottom of the crater received several layers of water-effects mediums, to hide its shallowness and flat bottom. Over all of this, I put a thin sprinkling of green powder to simulate the first blush of plants that are reclaiming devastated ground (along with cockroaches, ants and other arthropods).

Evidence of the annihilated humans is witnessed by bleached (resin) skulls and a couple of kids toys (a scratch-built locomotive and a doll - actually an N-gauge figure). Can you see them? But evidence of the human will to survive is there as well, in the aircraft-delivered bomb that is concealed on the base, and in the figures that are not on the base, and so not seen. There is the figure who the T.800 is chasing. He is leading the T.800 past the half-buried and camouflaged bomb. There are two other figures. One is the Commander who is some distance away and is observing the activity through binoculars. He is giving his orders to the third figure - his subordinate. "Detonate........NOW!!!" Can you see them with your mind's inner eye? They're not on the little base because nobody wants to be close to an exploding bomb (even a tiny 250pdr).

CONCLUSIONS

So, there you have it. Like all dioramas and vignettes, this one started with an idea. The execution was limited by my modelling ability (or lack of it). At a recent model show, the Judges saw only the T.800, and failed to appreciate the other remote/unseen/implied figures. In fact, the Commander's order (and the title of the base) was often concealed by whoever kept rearranging the display.