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One of the earliest examples of great Special Effects in a Science Fiction film, RKO's KING KONG
remains as popular today as it did when it first came out in 1933!
And of all the monster movies of our youth, this character remains my all time favorite!! So let's turn the Spotlight On our
favorite Ape and see what kits have been made to tame the savage beast...
First on the scene, once again, was our favorite AURORA company! Scale wise, this kit is a nightmare! Measure Fay Wray against those palm trees and you suddenly have your own '50 foot Woman'!! But besides that small error, this was a great kit!
Next came this 'Glow' kit version... & the MONOGRAM Luminators version! POLAR LIGHTS' came out with a reissued version of the AURORA kit in October 2000!
Aurora (and later Polar Lights) came out with KING KONG's THRONESTER kit.
Chuck Morrow recently walked into a shop, and
there sitting on a shelf was this KING KONG made entirely of brass!!! He put a hold on it, went home and started asking around
the net if anyone knew anything about this piece!? He tells us it weights about 3 pounds, has oxidation in spots, and Faye's hand
is broken off, but that didn't stop him from running back to the shop and buying it! Take a close look at the base details as well.
You'll see some slight differences on where the builder placed the various trees and stuff that vary from the instructions. Overall,
it's a great piece and wouldn't mind owning this myself!
 MEGO issued a kit based on the 1976 remake of KING KONG. Like the Aurora kit, this too suffered from some obvious scale relationships! This was a SNAP-TIGHT kit. Ironically, since 9/11 this kit has shot up in value. What I recently learned was that MEGO had a 2nd kit in the works. Unfortunately, it never saw the light of day.
Once the styrene companies dried out, the Garage Kit folks took over.
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| GEOmetric |
SFR's Base |
Mike Hill |
Mad Labs |
Mike Hill |
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| Nagle Works |
KONG VS PTERADACTYL |
Resin From The Grave |
5th Sense |
Dark Horse |
Dark Horse |

...and if you ever run across a kit on eBay entitled, "Going Ape In N.Y.C.", it's actually a recasted version of the above Dark
Horse Kit!
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| Tsukuda |
Mike Wood's Joe Young |
Jeff Taylor's SILVERBACK |
Joe Laudati's sculpt |
Mike Wood's sculpt |
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Joe Laudati & Mark Van Tine's |
Resin From The Grave |
Murakami |
Dimensional Design |
Bill's Kitchen |
Tony Mcvey |
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Kobiyashi Kits 'Log Roll' |
LUNAR Models |
Kobiyashi Kits 'Rock Throw' |
Twin Flame Design |
Japanese Kit |
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Kong Lamp seen on eBay |
AFM's Xacto Knife Holder |
Alternative Images' |
Burroughs Model Works |
Bowen Designs |
Gas Grenade |
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Shawn Nagle (KONG) Mike Manit (T-REX) |
Amazing Figure Modeler |
Scott Richard |
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Amazing Figure Modeler |
Mike Wood's Kong Bust |
Kobioshi Kits' 'The Unveiling' |
Needful Things' 'King & I' |
Fantamation Studios |
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Alternative Images |
TimeSlip Creations |
MouldArt |
Murakami |
Monsters In Motion |
Killer Kits |
Tony McVey |
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| Unknown |
Gorilla Skull |
Monkey Business |
Jeff Yagher & Mike Wallace |
Fontegris Miniatures |
Studio Oxmox |
Resin Realities |
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| Murakami |
Model Mansion |
X-Plus |
Posthumous Prods |
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Taylor Designs |
GEOMetric |
Six String Prods |
Tony Cipriano |
Unknown |
Jim Davidson |
Joe Laudati |
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| Killer Kits |
Moohead Models |
Daimos |
Mike Wallace |
Chlouis |
Molemento Pete |
Tony Zang |
Terry Norton |
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| Mad Labs |
Alternative Images |
Ultratumba Prods |
Tower of London |
Mark VanTine (WIP) |
CoP |
Terry Prince |
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Alternative Images (WIP) |
Alternative Images |
Resin In Motion (WIP) |
Paul Gill (WIP) |

Talk about life size! Hollywood Wax Museum in Branson, Missouri! |

A scratch built dio by Shawn Caldwell using the Dark Horse Kong. |

These are commissioned, one-of-a-kind sculpts that Jim Davidson just finished up! Visit his site to see more of his work!
Jeff Yagher recently completed this commission for a client. Based off the measurements of the Bob Burns armature.

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Slightly out of the ordinary... if you like your AURORA Kong wrapped in metal foil!
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This large Kong display greeted attendees to the 2006 WONDERFEST convention, as well as the original 1933 Kong & Mighty Joe armatures, brought to the show by Bob Burns.

Kaiyodo, out of Japan, came out with these bottle cap figures, based on the Peter Jackson Kong!

Came across this one on eBay. The description said:
"Made for the Dino De Laurentis 1976 film, this model was made from the original molds used for the preliminary presentation to sell the film.
The models were given to distributors and other important people in the industry. Very few were made, and they seldom come on the market. The model is 20" high and the base is 3" high."
 Randy Stiefer took this photo at a model show in Texas.
This diorama was done by our own Bill Jones!! Great work on the massive gate and tiny figures!
Bruce Horton took a GEOMetric KONG and turned it into this nicely done diorama!
LAPCO bought SM Clark's KONG sculpture and last I heard, Clark recently bought it back, so I'm hoping we'll see it produced one day! When I asked him why he sculpted this figure, since it was very close to the DARK HORSE version, he replied that he wasn't even AWARE that second DH version existed or he would never have sculpted his own 'Kong Busts Loose' piece!! He notes that he did fix the fact that it was Kong's right hand which breaks the chains first and not the left!
Spot Light On...
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