Incredibuilds: Aragog: Deluxe Model and Book Set (Harry Potter) by Jody Revenson
| Incredibuilds: Aragog: Deluxe Model and Book Set (Harry Potter) by Jody Revenson | |
|
| |
| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
| |
Reviewer: John Lloyd
 | |
| Summary: Some people will cry Arania Exumai at the idea of spiders in their bedroom – but many Harry Potter fans would be more than keen on the idea of building their own celebratory one. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 40 | Date: November 2016 |
| Publisher: Studio Press | |
| ISBN: 9781783707249 | |
|
Share on: | |
|
| |
Aragog the giant spider, don't you know, took six man years just to build, and weighed a ton. After countless trial models and pieces of visual design work, he could finally be constructed, and he stretched across eighteen feet of the studio floor. Or, conversely, he is about seven inches long and seven wide, and you put him together in a day or two, for the cost of this book-and-gift set and some craft paints.
It does, I'll admit, seem a little late in the day to be producing 'making-of' guides to Harry Potter movies, but this isn't just a book about that – it is, as you can tell by now, a proper little kit for the under-twelves to build their own permanent, wooden version of Aragog, the key spidery character from the second HP story. The text is fine, as far as it goes – giving us the word right from the horse's mouth as to what the concerns were in producing such a memorable movie creature. I did think it could go a little further – here are lovely set photos of the monster model and the actors on set – but the set background is clearly vivid blue with markers on. The inquisitive young reader (and I'm ignoring the young fan of DVD extras, here) won't have that oddity explained. They might also be wondering why it's imagery from the sixth film, and not the second.
But that's only thirty-two pages of this item, the rest is contained in the wrap-around bonus section. Snap the seal on it and you get access to a simple (20-instruction) guide, and the pieces on one sheet of plywood you can easily punch out and fix together. Here the pieces of my plywood sheet had numbers that were a lot sharper and easier to pick out, when compared to the others in this series I sampled, but that may be part of the random process of working with what was once living material. These kits are at the basic level of construction – I won't say the same about the painting, which has to be done in different stages, and I'm sure takes a lot of doing to replicate the suggested artwork.
That said, you will certainly gain some knowledge of what goes into making items for films – the making of this character from a much-loved film could lead to untold possibilities. The very least of which will be a good item to situate around your bedroom, unless you are of course the stereotypical arachnophobe.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
You don't really need much supervision, and certainly no scissoring, for the above – unlike Pattern Play: Cut, Fold and Make Your Own 3D Animal Models by Danielle Kroll and Nghiem Ta, which is more hands-on.
Please share on: 
Facebook, 
Twitter and
Instagram
You can read more book reviews or buy Incredibuilds: Aragog: Deluxe Model and Book Set (Harry Potter) by Jody Revenson at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Incredibuilds: Aragog: Deluxe Model and Book Set (Harry Potter) by Jody Revenson at Amazon.com.
Comments
Like to comment on this review?
Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.
