This is a new series of entries on the larger project I mentioned in the Retro Review of the K'Tinga kit, and is a pre-cursor for something else. The whole purpose of starting this build is to have a paint subject for my 1:350 scale Klingon K'Tinga which I got for Christmas. What a beautiful model kit!! But this is the kit that came before and I'm building up a Round 2 re-pop that came out a few years ago.
UNBOXING
The parts didn't change at all with this kit from the original except for the stand and the socket for the rod in it. I first opened this up 5 years ago in case anyone is keeping track with the previous entry.
This is what you get, 3 bags and a small decal sheet.
Part count like many kits of this era are low, 31 parts exactly plus the base and rod for the stand.
COMPARISON
I decided to compare this kit with TOS Klingon D7 (1:650 scale) model I have...
I built both of these models as a kid in the 80's and 90's and I remember their proportions were similar, but just how similar. The K'Tinga is listed at 1/537 scale where as the D7 is 1/650. Essentially the K'Tinga is a upgraded version of the D7 for the films much like the TOS Enterprise was refitted for the TOS movies, but the lines of the hull were much different. Let's see how the K'Tinga and D7 compare...
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| 1/650 D7 on the left, 1/537 K'Tinga on the right |
I was pretty surprised how close the main body of the Klingon ship of both classes are basically the same. Light blue is the TOS D7 and the green one is of course the K'Tinga.
The engineering section of the K'Tinga model appears greatly bigger but I always felt this was disproportional to the studio model.
The neck for both has the same girth but you can see the K'Tinga is elongated by about at least an inch!
The 'bulb' which I think is the most inaccurate section of this model is virtually the same size in profile as the D7.
From the bottom you can see how disproportionate the K'Tinga (top, old broken model I built in the late 80s). The K'Tinga bulb isn't as wide as the D7 version.
The Bridge section is virtually identical (ellipsis and domed cylinder) meanwhile the D7 is actually larger here!
From the bottom, you can really see the size difference.
Using a bit of math here and photoshop, I've compared what 1:650 should look like to 1:537 and how it should size up.
It's pretty close. You can see that scaled up, the D7 is larger than the 1:537 scale K'Tinga which is what I hypothesized.
1:350 K'Tinga comparison...
As I previously mentioned, the purpose of building this model is to test painting techniques for the larger 1:350 kit which was released in November 2018 by Round 2.
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| 1:350 K'Tinga, 1:537 K'Tinga, 1:650 D7 |
What's really noticeable is how the neck droops on the old AMT kit. This was a problem with many of the models of this era, very difficult to built them aligned properly without heavy modification.
Comparison of the engineering sections.
And the bridge section.
Scaling up the 1:537 to the 1:350 K'Tinga you can see the differences. The 1:350 is supposed to be 1/2 scale model of the studio model, making it 1:187 scale at about 4 feet long.
The 1:650 scale D7, sized up is pretty much bang on to the 1:350 K'Tinga which is what I expected it to be.
CONCLUSIONS
I think the 1:537 K'Tinga and 1:650 D7 are the same size as the K'Tinga studio model was supposed to be, but the proportions are quite off. The 1:537 K'Tinga has a special place in my heart as it was the only 'movie' version of the Klingon ship for decades and I grew up building it many times.
Despite it's flaws, it does build a nice, highly detailed model, one that was even used in DS9 as background ships supposedly.
https://fordosmodels.blogspot.com/2019/01/retro-review-klingon-battle-cruiser-pre.html
Happy Model Building!
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