Metal EarthMoby Dick Book Sculpture 3D Metal Model Kit Fascinations

I love metal earth! They can be a bit tedious and hard to put together, but it feels so good to see it coming together. You can definitely figure it out as a beginner you just have to be careful not to make mistakes or break any of the pieces as most of them do not have any extras. A detail I LOVE about this sculpture is the fact that it has tiny words on the pages, it just adds so much. If this is your first one (first of all I would probably recommend doing a simpler one first, though you definitely could do this one) pick up some simple tools. I just used jewelry tools: some small pliers, cone head pliers for bending smoothly, and small wire cutters.

Well, I'm up-selling my talents here, but this is my first Metal Earth model so I feel like a genius for putting this together.Difficulty: Moderate. Some people took about 2 hours to make this. I paced myself.Tools used: The Metal Earth set, tweezers, different sized pencils to bend the pieces around, and medical forceps. I'd have liked to have a more angled pair of tweezers or more pointy/narrow forceps/pliers to twist and bend some of the smaller pieces, an infinite amount of patience.Tips:1. Really look at the picture to know how it fits together before you go bending things this way and that. The pieces can snap if you over bend things.2. Turn the cutters perpendicular to the sheet when cutting the connection parts. Make sure you get the edges at the connections cut down as much as possible, but don't stress if it's not perfect.3. I set out a board with post-its numbered from 1-# and put the pieces on each one to keep track of everything. You get extras of the waves, so don't worry if you have extra pieces at the end.4. The Pequod: The sails take a while to bend into the right shape to fit altogether on each mast. I bent them on the angle of a pencil to get the bottom part of the sail curved more than the top. The sides of the boat are incredibly frustrating. Keep in mind that when you place the boat on the base of the book, it has to screw into the bottom. So you have to curve the bottom of the ship to fit in place on the book and the sides to cinch in the front and the back of the boat. Captain Ahab's harpoon keeps getting hit by the sides of the ship as you're curving things. Don't stress about the masts and the harpoon getting bent this way and that as you're shaping the boat. Just fix everything at the end.5. Moby Dick: It's his bottom half that is the problem. The directions say to shape the whale's tail first. Don't. While you're curving the bottom half of the whale you'll keep knocking the tale and the sides can snap off the main connection. Wait till the end to curve it. Just like the ship, the bottom half of the whale needs to be curved to cinch around itself, but also screw into the book.6. The edges of the book aren't really a problem. It's best to see how the pieces are to fit together and then curve it into place.I recommend watching a YouTube tutorial by any one of the people who film themselves putting these kinds of models together in case you're a beginner like me.I love that it's so tiny. The original artist, Jodi Harvey-Brown, who created the Book Art this model is based off of really made something special for all of us to enjoy.

A great model. Lots of cool details. Downside is the ship, as usual tiny wires are my bane. So if you struggle with that, it might be a little bit of a problem.

Follow the directions. Long-nose pliers a must.

I buy these for my boyfriend who loves building things. He just fnished building this one yesterday notes that it was challenging and fun to build. The finished product looks beautiful!

Bought this on a whim for my 17 year old daughter after she finished reading Moby Dick. It was challenging for her to put together but she had it done in a couple days. We were all so very impressed with its tiny details. It turned into something we will keep. I am thinking about getting some different models for different kids for Christmas and turning them into special ornaments for the tree as they complete them.

This is super tiny and very hard to assemble, I had problems getting the super tiny tabs to fold over to hold pieces in place and even ended up using super glue to hold some thing because I couldn't figure out how to get them to stay in place. I was disappointed in this kit and would not buy a metal kit again, I'll stick to the wooden ones. I do not recommend this kit.

Received in Good condition and DVD played without errors. Were fun to watch again