When Moebius announced a kit of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon with Victim”, I was excited. I have always been a fan of the 1954 movie creature, story and Julie Adams. It got even better when they announced Adam Dougherty, the "Kreature Kid". It was a wonderful day when Review package arrived in the mail. Out came the DVD and straight to the basement.

I broke the kit down into three builds- the creature, the girl, and the base. The kit comes with an excellent sandy base with lizard, fossil hand, stones and a nice tropical fern.

I started with the creature himself, and the first thing that hits you is how nice the sculpting is with everything accurate down to the zippers on the back of the legs and on the arms. I built and sanded the arms and the head with no difficulty. There is a small mold seam on the head but took less than a minute to sand off. The body consists of two main pieces which “sandwich” the arms. Fit is great and using Tenex, I had the entire thing together in under an hour. I sanded down the seams and was faced with the only issue in the build. How do you replicate the scaly pattern that was eliminated by sanding the seams? I tired a couple things and in the end took Gunze Mr. Surfacer 500 and a toothpick and slowly applied dots of the material to replicate the scales. I let this dry and repeated the process until the Creature was “scaled” again. I sprayed with primer, added a few more dots of Mr. Surfacer, and the seams were gone.

Now on to the lady! Julie Adams was great in this movie and many others and the figure looks kind of like her but licensing issues prevented a perfect likeness. There are a fair amount of pieces, so take you time and align them all. Each seam will need to be sanded smooth and putty was required on the left leg, parts of the shirt and head. The hair is made up of four pieces and needed putty also. I attached the hair and faired it in with putty. A coat of Alclad primer and polishing and she was set aside.

The base is straightforward. I started by painting the rocks and shading them with Comart gray set. These were washed with black, sealed with Dullcote and dry brushed. The sand was painted with a medium brown followed by a dark wash and then sealed with Dullcote. Last, a layer of warm tan was slowly built up over it and any touch ups done and then finally sealed. The sides were then painted dark gray and highlighted with light gray. The name placard was painted and added and so was the lizard, which looks a lot like the old Aurora kit (the creature in the old kit looks nothing like the movie version though), an homage! The plant was painted in pieces to look shades of green with red veining like a coleus. Why? Why not! A couple shots of flat coat and we're done.

The creature was painted with a general olive base coat followed by a wash of dark brown. This was dabbed off with a paper towel, let dry and sealed. I then dry brushed lighter and lighter greens and sealed. I highlighted the chest plate and under the chin with tan and used smoke to darken the scale plates. I applied sealer one more time and then used tan and dark green to highlight certain scales all over the body. I then used transparent rose/red to highlight the gills, lips and painted the mouth a dark pink. I did not flat coat, but used Alclad semi gloss for a slightly wet look. Once done, he was secured to the base.

The lady has the skin tones painted first with garage Kits USA airbrush paints leaning a little toward the tan side (she would have got some sun in the bathing suit, I am thinking). This was sealed three times and the shorts painted first by spraying with a light gray and getting thick and thinner over certain areas. I changed to almost pure white and highlighted the areas where clothes are naturally doubled like the seams. This was flat coated twice and masked so I could deal with the top. I wanted to replicate the pattern worn by Ms. Adams in the movie so I found a good shot of it (a great tutorial on this is in the last Amazing Figure Modeler also). I base coated the shirt a salmon color and let it dry. The pattern consists of two floral designs in a striped fashion down the sides and a paisley middle. Working back and forth between white and black, I replicated the pattern. Once done, I sealed the kit three times to avoid potential damage to the paint as I continued to gently handle the model.

Once totally dry, she was added to the Creature’s arms and done! Looking over the pictures, I don't like the way I painted the gills- too red. I'll fix it later. This kit is fantastic- great fit, a great subject, and very reasonably priced. Every time Moebius comes out with a kit, it is just that much better than the last. This model is highly recommended for all movie fans and great for fans of the Creature. The paint scheme is not hard and this would be a good kit for early or intermediate builders also.

My thanks to Frank Winspur and Moebius Models for their hard work in bring kits like this to the market and letting IPMS/USA have the honor of reviewing it. Highly recommended!