Background

Land of The Giants was a science-fiction classic TV show from Irwin Allen, airing 51 episodes from 1968 until 1970. In the (then) far future of 1983, a crew takes off for a sub-orbital trip from LA to London when they are hit by a space storm and mysteriously transport to a world where everything is 12 times bigger than Earth, ala Gulliver’s Travels.

The Kit

Packaged in an Aurora-reminiscent box featuring an attractive painting of the Spindrift just entering space, and at 17 parts over several trees, the kit is simple enough in construction to have its instructions printed on the back of the box. In addition to the instructions, the back of the box also has paint call-outs for Testors Model Master Acryl and Enamel paint lines. The parts are molded in orange and clear plastic and include a free paper fold-up color interior from TSDS, and a decal sheet.

The Build

Parts are flash free with little clean up required. I painted all of the parts first using Testors and Tamiya paints. For a comparison of the kit fold-up interior and the after-market version, also by TSDS, I ordered their decal and interior kit. The kit-included interior and after-market version are both well done and require a little patience and nimble fingers. My chunky digits needed a few tries at folding the paper before gluing it together! The parts went together very easily, although parts 7-9 were a little on the small side for my older eyes, so I painted them before removal from the sprue. I used Testors clear parts cement for the glazings and Tenax-7R for the rest of the assembly. This is a quick build due to low parts count, with the majority of time spent on painting.

Interior

The included version is die-cut and has pre-folded indents that make it easier for someone not familiar with paper modeling, but it’s still a little challenging to fold. The aftermarket interior needs to be cut by a fresh #11 blade and straight edge, but is easier to assemble. The intake grills (part #4) and exhaust grill have a honeycomb look molded into them that can be either painted, filled and decaled if using the aftermarket kit, or be cut out with the photo etch pieces installed if you purchase the aftermarket PE set from Paragrafix. I decided to fill in the honeycombs and paint them white so the colors of the decals would show up better. This worked very well and I think that carefully applied paint would look nice,too.

There were no surprises in the assembly other than all of the parts fit very precisely with no need for filler anywhere. Way to go, Moebius! Since I pre-painted all of the parts, finishing went quickly with my only nit about the kit and the aftermarket interior and decal upgrade kit being the decals. I was disappointed by the fact that the decals were not printed with a white undercoat with the color on top of that so that they would be opaque on the model. Both sets of decals are on clear film, but since they don’t have a basecoat of white, the decals are very transparent and show the color of the surface they’re applied to. It’s noted in the TSDS instructions about this and they recommend that when applying the decals that a white primer be applied to the surface first so that the decals will show up correctly.

Since my build of this kit, there’s been an additional aftermarket item made available for those looking to add lighting to models, also from TSDS at a very attractive price of $7.99. Adding the interior and lighting kits brings advanced techniques, creating an even more unique-looking model at a reasonable price. I give the Moebius Spindrift 2 thumbs-up for a fun build that any age would enjoy. I’d like to thank Moebius and IPMS for the opportunity to review this model.

Additions to the Kit

• Paragrafix, PGX-141 Photo Etch set, $17.95, https://www.paragrafix.biz
• TSDS, T-121 Decal/Interior kit, $9.99
• Available but not used
  • TSDS, T-124 Passenger, window, and stairs interior kit, $15.99
  • TSDS, T-550 Universal Micro-illumination kit, $7.99)