Wizard of Oz
Box Scale
Polar Lights
Surrender Dorothy!
Polar Lights offers this kit in two versions, painted and unpainted. The painted version was built here. While pre-painted, several areas were enhanced with highlighting and washes. Starting with base, which was painted in a solid grey, layers of highlighting were added and heavy washes used to bring out the texture and grout lines. The witch looked very good out of the box. Light highlighting was added to her dress. While the face was in good shape, some light washes were done to bring out the details in her ears, wrinkles, and nose. The mouth was totally repainted as the original looked very crude. The bristles of the broom received additional highlighting and washes. The Yellow Brick Road was given a brown wash to bring out the seam lines. The flying monkey received the most over work. Out of the box, the figure was a very flat blue. Several washes were used to bring out the fur. The face received the most work with lots of additional deep shadows added and bright highlights.
Assembly was very easy as the parts count was very low. The kit provides two sets of hands for the witch, one holding the broom and one set just open. I could not get the set that holds the broom stick properly aligned. So I used one from each set, left hand holding the broom and the right hand waving at the crystal ball.
I did break the first rule of model building… test fit everything. I first glued the crystal ball to the base in the center, where no texture was present. Assuming that this was the proper location. However in order to get better views of the figures some adjustments were made. The witch was moved toward the back and overhangs the base a little. The flying monkey has a peg in on leg to better secure to the base. In the kit provided mounting location, the figure was not displaying all the work done to face. I drilled a second mounting location to allow for better viewing of the figure. If you build this kit, dry fit the assemblies before final gluing. Locate the parts where it looks best to you.
