| THE RAT
KING
PROJECT #178
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: THE RAT KING
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE; SUPER GLUE; MODELING PUTTY; ACRYLIC
PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: "ENTER: THE RAT KING" (TMNT)
"Those nasty humans will bow before me when the
city is ours!"
Preamble: The Rat King was a pretty
strange guy, even by TMNT standards. We never really learned from the
cartoon just why he is the way he is, but he's obviously got some major
psychological problems. He's a sewer-dwelling human who seems to be
convinced that he's a particularly large and powerful rat, and he even seems
to have developed a rapport of sorts with genuine rodents, capable
of communicating with them and even controlling them. He's seriously
disturbed.
Playmates Toys went through a phase for a few
years where they really grossed up their action figures in a major way, adding
creepy crawly creatures of all sorts to many of the figure sculpts. I
guess they'd gotten this idea that kids were into this sort of thing (this
was the era in which Toxic Crusaders was popular for a short time,
after all), but personally I didn't care for it. As if the rats and
spiders and giant centipedes crawling all over him weren't bad enough, he
was sculpted in such a manner that suggested that the rats had also been
nibbling away at his hair, and his nose, and his face. Ick. In
my opinion, this sort of thing ruined a figure, and the only reason I ever
bought the toy was because the Rat King's prominence in the cartoon managed
to outweigh how disgusting his action figure was.
The Rat King was one of the duplicate figures
I got in an eBay lot, and so he became another victim of my TMNT kitbashing
stint, not so much because he's a favorite character of mine, but because
he so desperately needed it.
Construction: After a quick trip
to the VCR to draw up a cartoon model for use as a reference, I was all set
to begin. The first step was to chop off the offending rats, bugs,
and bones that were attached to the character's outfit. This was kind
of an interesting challenge, since I couldn't just chop these parts off and
call it done; I had to carefully cut the plastic into the shape of the existing
bandages underneath. Basically, I had to resculpt entire pieces of
the toy, except I was using existing plastic instead of Sculpey (which I
try to avoid using if at all possible).
The comparatively plain spots left behind after
cutting away at the figure bothered me, so I did my best to emulate the raised
stitches and surrounding fabric patterns. The only parts I ended up
absolutely having to rebuild (I used modeling putty) was the hole that remained
after I cut off the rat that was molded to his back. I also took the
opportunity to cut away at the gloves, since his hands are mostly uncovered
in the cartoon, and I redid the bandages on his face by cutting them off
and replacing one of them in a different place, using an extra one from his
leg, which I glued in place. I also filled in his bald spots with putty
to give him a full head of hair. Then it was time to paint him, using
somewhat vibrant colors than the original toy. I ended up painting
the entire thing except for his face. The soda pop grenade belt is,
of course, from the Genghis Frog action figure, but the Rat King had one
in the cartoon, so he gets to wear it.
Comments: I'd call this a substantial
improvement. My daughter, who was three years old when I finished this
project, didn't agree. She thought the Mousey Guy was adorable and
she was heartily displeased that I'd chopped the mousies off this version
of the toy. Go figure. |
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