Airfix made a good many non-military figure sets such as this, and most became early casualties of cutbacks to the range, presumably through poor sales. This set should really be seen in conjunction with Set 1, as between them they cover the subject fairly well, though these days zoos are much more likely to have more exotic species than these on display.
This set is made up of:
- Elephant
- Gorilla
- Giraffe
- Hippopotamus
- Zebra
- Kangaroo
- Llama
- Lion
- Baby Gorilla
- Polar Bear
- Seal
- Penguin (2 poses)
A round of applause goes to the elephant, which is an impressive beast that measures about 34mm (2.45 metres) high to the back, and 63mm (4.5 metres) from toe to tip of trunk. This dramatic pose actually helps make it easier to mould (it comes in just one piece), but whatever the reason we liked it. The giraffe too is interesting, bending down to drink rather than just standing there. As with set 1 the standard of sculpting is reasonable and no more. The zebra looks rather too fat, and has poorly defined features, and the lion is pretty small, being no bigger than the size of a reasonable sized dog. The head of the hippo is very strange, and looks nothing like all the pictures of hippos we could find, though perhaps there is some rare breed that this model resembles!
Some of the animals have nice texture engraved, particularly the llama, gorilla and elephant, but generally detail is only adequate. However there is little flash, and if your model absolutely has to have a couple of penguins in it then this is pretty much the only place to get them.