FIDEL CASTRO

Manufacturer – Parks Plastics

Re-issued by Ram Hobbies

Material: Styrene Plastic

Scale 1/10

Fidel is one of the three “Born Losers” in the series of kits put out by Parks Plastics in the ‘60s. When Ram Hobbies re-issued these in the early ‘90s I grabbed a set because they reminded me of the silly figure kits and Nutty Mads from my childhood.

I have no idea who sculpted any of these kits but they did an excellent job. This representation is a good, satirical poke at the Commie dictator with a very good likeness. He is shown in a ridiculous position standing on a base that is packed with all kinds of goodies that are intended to make fun of him.

This opaque white, styrene kit has a lot of parts just like most styrene kits. And it goes together like most styrene kits of old with some offset seams and gaps. Overall it wasn’t too bad except for the left hand. That area needed more putty work than the rest of the kit to fill in the gaps around the fingers and the chicken. The color of the plastic presented a little extra work because you can’t really see the seam quality until you primer it for painting. Then all your little imperfections show up. So it’s back to the putty, sanding and then priming again.

The kit was fun and easy to paint. I did the whole thing in acrylics with both hand painting and airbrushing. I figure humor kits are just for fun anyway so I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about historical accuracy. Other than researching Fidels’s uniform color, I rendered the kit any way I wanted to.