- Year: 1992
- Size: 4 inches.
- Product Line: Produced by Kenner (Tonka).
The Gorilla Alien might not have been as outlandish as some of Kenner’s other ALIENS figures from this period, but that didn’t stop it from being a surly looking brute. Below are some prototypes of the figure made during its development.
First up, is a pair of images of the wax sculpt for the Gorilla Alien that would ultimately be used to generate molds from which the figure was finally made.
Images courtesy of Derek Ho.
Next is series of photos from different stages of production. On the left is an image depicting several figures including a complete protomold, a first test shot of the figure along with a first shot of the left leg cast in purple. In the middle image is a kit-bashed/scratch-built Gorilla Alien concept figure. Such improvised concept figures built from extraneous materials and often pieces of other toys was a frequent process at Kenner. On the right is a wax head sculpt with tooling and corresponding unpainted hard copy.
Here is a first shot test sample (Left) compared to a series production run figure (Right) that would have been available for purchase back in 1992:
Here is another sample of the final retail Gorilla Alien next to a test shot sample of the figure. Most notable is the translucent plastic used in the torso of the test shot. While it was common for Kenner to cast parts of prototypes in color due to whatever was at hand at the time, using translucent plastic for this purpose was rare. Middle and right images are also of the translucent Gorilla Alien.
Images courtesy of Eric Fischer.
Here are some more images of a different sample of another translucent torso Gorilla Alien. It differs slightly in color from the sample immediately above and is missing both arms. The translucency of the torso enables the observation of the arm’s action feature mechanism in operation.
Images courtesy of Barry@ToyCurious.com
