FROG/Novo
FROG - originally International Model Aircraft Ltd. - were the first British manufacturer of plastic model aircraft kits. They date back to before WW2 and originally produced a range of flying toy aircraft (their name is an acronym of
"Flies Right Off the Ground"!) and later produced the "Penguin" (as they couldn't fly...) range of static aircraft model kits, made from a celluloid-based plastic. After the war, they started production of styrene plastic kits.
1/72 aircraft were always FROG's main focus, but they also produced a range of WW2 and post-war Royal Navy warship models, initially box-scale (HMS Tiger and Trafalgar) and later settling on the constant
scale of 1/500. A number of Renwal 1/500 and Hasegawa 1/450 kits were also issued in the UK under the FROG label. FROG also produced a handful large-scale civil ship and boat models - a lightship, coastal tanker and RNLI lifeboat.
FROG's warship kits are generally comparable to Airfix in mould quality, detail and accuracy. Their 3 larger civil ships are generally very good in detail though newer reissues suffer from poor moulding quality.
After FROG's demise in the late 1970s, virtually all of their kit moulds ended up in Eastern Europe. Initially reissued by Novo, they have since appeared under a wide variety of labels including Eastern Express, Kopro and Maquette
(Revell Germany have also reissued a number of FROG kits, though I don't know if they have ownership of any moulds). It's certainly good that the kits are still available, as FROG have many unique and interesting subjects - aircraft
as well as ships - but unfortunately the quality of the kits has suffered over the years, probably due both to mould damage and wear, and poor quality control at the factory. Most newer issues have much more flash and mould lines than the originals,
as well as soft detail and surface flaws. See the HMS Exeter review for a particularly bad example of this.
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1/100 South Goodwin Lightship |
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1/420 Cruiser HMS Tiger |
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1/500 I-class destroyer HMS Ivanhoe (Mastercraft re-issue) |
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1/500 Cruiser HMS Exeter (Kopnak re-issue) |