by Frank Spahr

Wallace (surname unknown), somewhat doughy-looking knitwear-loving inventor and cheese aficionado, has set up a business in window-cleaning. Aided by his faithful canine companion Gromit, he forms a rapid deployment force against grimy glass. Aided by a launching system faintly resembling the good old S.H.A.D.O. days, the intrepid cleaners hazard English city streets on their motorcycle with sidecar, the latter harboring some very useful gadgets …

So far, Nick Park´s brainchildren have starred in three animated movies, becoming extremely popular. So, there is no wonder that merchandising has discovered the popular duo. To my delight, Airfix has produced two Wallace & Gromit kits after scenes from the latest movie A Close Shave, the one presented here on the motorcycle and the second – Gromit alone in the fighter plane sidecar, firing the devastating porridge gun. I choose the former, since I was looking for something very politically correct and non-violent to display in my dentist’s practice. I wasn´t so sure how far some people´s tolerance would go facing a porridge gun point blank.

Getting the kit wasn´t so easy. I tried to order it from one of my favorite mail orders in Braunschweig, but they were out of stock almost immediately after initial release. It took some weeks, but – alas – there was that big package. The kit is packed rather nicely, with color pictures on all sides on the box. Beside the styrene parts and the decals plus a steel axle for connection between bike and sidecar, there was glue, a kind of a brush and acrylic paint in all necessary shades included, prompting a friend of mine to the comment: ”This one is for the kiddies.”

I don´t know about the glue or the brush, but the paint is a big helper in achieving this kit´s unique goal: not making oit look like a real thing, but like to replicate a clay model. The acrylic paint gives plastic the appropriate play-dough surface quality. I used the acrylic paint for everything I brush-painted, but not for the red parts. I spray-painted these with Revell red, since I preferred the even surface and did not dare using the supplied paint in my airbrush. All the rest was brush-painted like in the (good) old days.

This leads me to a sentence I had in my head since assembling Gromit´s body: There are those who lament the passing of the good old modeller’s days, when sparsely detailed and ill-fitting kits had to be assembled using – ehm – blood, sweat and tears, the days when men were still men, women still women, and furry little aliens from Alpha Centauri … well, you know about that, don´t you? Anyway: Build this kit, and you are straight back into these days. Honest.

You don’t look for much crisp detail or recessed panel lines or authentically reproduced fabric covered ailerons in a kit like this, but you might expect a more than basic fit in the figures, especially since the „clay” originals never show any seam lines. So this is where work really starts. I used mainly wax as a filler, since it’s easier to use than conventional putty, and my model wouldn’t be touched or used after completion – no kiddies going brrm-brrm with it…

I read Magnus Fridsell´s article on the Wallace & Gromit kits when I was just at this point of writing, and, although I only built the sidecar and cannot speak for the plane, he´s perfectly right. Well, the kits are something for real fans of Wallace & Gromit plus modellers with some experience, definitely not for the 8-years-old mentioned on the box.

I completed the motorcyle plus sidecar first, before assembling the two figures. This gave me the opportunity to adjust the arms correctly. There were a few errors in the kit. The gun should have a swivel mount – it should be easy to correct, but I didn´t use the gun anyway. What really angered me was the connection between motorcycle and sidecar. Airfix provided a very strong steel rod for rigidity, but it is to be glued into a hollow footrest that itself is attached by styrene pin less than 0.5 mm thick. Well, given this assembly, a styrene mount would have done equally (poor). Moreover, the mounts do not fit at all, and you have to do quite a lot of adjusting work until you have the sidecar in the proper distance and angle with the motorcycle. Besides, the mount is nowhere like the one in the movie – with the peg that vibrates out and leaves the sidecar alone.

Having completed the vehicle, I mounted the figures’ arms, Gromit’s arms lifted as he does when Wallace races towards Wendolene’s shop. Having sanded, filled, smoothened and polished, I spent an afternoon with the acrylic paints and completed the model. As always, I discovered some paint job flaws only on the pics, be assured that I corrected them in the meantime …

Summary: Strictly not for the kids, overpriced when considering value for money, but the only available Wallace & Gromit kit anyway.

Surftip

Aardman Animation studios have a fine website covering much of their activities at http://www.aardman.com/aardman-characters/

This article was 2000.originally published in IPMS Stockholm Magazine in January 2000.