Dragon Models Limited (Dragon or DML for short) is a

Hong-Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

–based manufacturer of

plastic model image:South-Goodwin.jpg, 300px, A young boy starts painting an assembled plastic model of the South Goodwin Lightship A plastic model kit, (wikt:plamodel, plamo in Eastern world, Eastern influenced parlance), is a consumer-grade plastic scale mo ...

kits, diecast models and military action figures. Founded in 1987, the company's products are distributed globally and can be found in most major hobby distribution channels and retailers. The company is headquartered in the

Tsuen Wan Tsuen Wan (formerly also spelled Tsun Wan) is a New towns of Hong Kong, town built on a bay in the New Territories West (constituency), western New Territories of Hong Kong, opposite Tsing Yi, Tsing Yi Island across Rambler Channel. The market ...

district of Hong Kong, and operates a sales and distribution office in Shanghai China. They are known for their attention to historical accuracy and detail, and have worked with many renowned military experts for their product designs. Since its founding, it has released more than 1,000 items.

History

Dragon was established in 1987, as a sister company to model retailer and distributor Universal Models Limited (UML), to design and manufacture their own plastic model kit products. In their early years, Dragon primarily focused on model kits featuring

military vehicles A military vehicle is any vehicle for land-based military transport and activity, including combat vehicles, both specifically designed for or significantly used by military. Most military vehicles require off-road capabilities and/or vehicle a ...

topics, with their first ever item being the

Typhoon-class submarine The Project 941 ''Akula'' (, meaning 'shark', NATO reporting name Typhoon), was a class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines designed and built by the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy. With a submerged displacement of , the Typhoons ...

. The item became a hit due to the subject being heavily featured in the film

The Hunt for Red October ''The Hunt for Red October'' is the debut novel by American author Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984, by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutt ...

. In the 1990s Dragon diversified into multiple different product lines including ready-made collectibles and action figures. These new products include a series of die-cast collectibles including 1/72 scale

military vehicle A military vehicle is any vehicle for land-based military transport and activity, including combat vehicles, both specifically designed for or significantly used by military. Most military vehicles require Off-road vehicle, off-road capabilities ...

s Dragon Armor, 1/400 scale

airliner An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest ...

s Dragon Wings, and 1/72 scale

military aircraft A military aircraft is any Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing or rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary military of any type. Some military aircraft engage directly in aerial warfare, while others take on su ...

Dragon Wings: Warbirds. In 1999, Dragon introduced its 1/6 scale New Generation Life

Action figure An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game, television program, or sport; fictional or historical. These figures are usually ...

series, which featured life-like head sculpts and ultra-detailed uniforms, weapons, and gear. The series was met with acclaim and helped revive the action figure industry with collectors who view it as the successor of the more traditional and toy-like

G.I. Joe ''G.I. Joe'' is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier ( U.S. Army), A ...

products. This series features both historical and modern military soldier topics, as well as movie-licensed and pop-culture subjects. This series currently encompasses more than 600 releases.

Product Lines

Plastic Model Kits

The original and most well-known product category in Dragon's catalogue are their series of scale model kits featuring military vehicles (1/35, 1/72, 1/144, and 1/6 scales), aircraft (1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 scales), warships (1/350 and 1/700 scales), figures (1/35, 1/9, and 1/16 scales) and spacecraft. The series mainly focuses on

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

-era military subjects, although they also offer a range of modern military topics such as the

M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams () is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare, it is one of the heavies ...

. Their model kits are known for their accuracy and meticulous detail, as well as their sophisticated engineering and manufacturing techniques to accurately portray such details. Each kit is thoroughly researched by physically measuring the real-life vehicle (when available) and consulted by military experts that specialize in that particular vehicle. Dragon is also the originator of the terms Initial, Early, Mid, and Late Productions when describing the variation of World War II tanks, a term that is now widely adopted in the industry. Dragon kits are also renowned for their box art, and they frequently collaborate with esteemed military-subject artists such as Canadian artist Ron Volstad and Japanese artists Masami Onishi, Yoshiyuki Takani, Shigeo Koike, and Ueda Shin. Inside a box of Dragon Models kit usually contains the plastic parts to assemble the vehicle, as well as additional metal parts, photo-etch, instructions, and

decal A decal (, , ) or transfer is a plastic, cloth, paper, or ceramic substrate that has printed on it a pattern or image that can be moved to another surface upon contact, usually with the aid of heat or water. The word is short for '' decalc ...

s. Their kits usually contain many parts, and occasionally feature 3-in-1 or 2-in-1 items where the modeller can build 2 or 3 variants of the vehicle from one kit. Throughout the years, Dragon has developed multiple engineering technologies and features with the goal of enhancing the modeler's experience.

Magic Tracks and EZ tracks

'Magic Tracks' are individual track links that come in a bag, ready to be assembled without the tedious work of removing them individually from sprues. Magic Tracks are designed to snap together through a tight friction fit, so that the track can be more easily assembled than traditional model kit tracks. These can be effortlessly assembled by placing each individual track link together and then glued once the desired effect is achieved. This feature is designed to reduce the time spent on assembling the tracks by modelers.

One-Piece DS Tracks

A few of Dragon's newer kits, such as its Sherman M4A2 kit, include one-piece tracks made from 'Dragon Styrene 100' (DS), a plastic developed by Dragon's own

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

team. A cross breed of

polystyrene Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It i ...

and

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

, DS is an attempt to combine the advantages of the two materials. Delicate details can be reproduced with DS using under-cut molding, reducing the number of small parts. The

Tiger I The Tiger I () was a Nazi Germany, German heavy tank of World War II that began operational duty in 1942 in North African Campaign, Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent German heavy tank battalion, heavy tank battalions. It g ...

hollow guide horns, for example, can be replicated on DS using slide-mold technology. These tracks can also be joined with normal plastic cement. Some recent DS tracks seem to have an issue of being too long or too loose. The tracks may also come stretched due to packaging limitation, but the issue can be resolved by soaking the tracks in hot water.

Photo-etched Parts

Dragon almost always includes a small amount of photo-etched brass in its kits. Originally Dragon relied heavily on photo-etched parts to model engine deck screens, but it has since expanded its use of photo-etching to include optional parts like chains and fenders. Photo etched brass parts are used in kits to make small or delicate parts that are harder to make in scale from plastic, such as miniature eyeglasses, medals, seat belts, machine gun mounts, intake screens, etc. In addition to photo-etched parts straight from the kit, Dragon also manufactures a small amount of separate photo-etched detail sets. It also has distribution agreement with Chinese model accessories company Lion Roar to sell and market Lion Roar's detail sets, which are available for kits from Dragon and other model companies.

Decals

Like its competitors, Dragon also includes

s in its kits. While Dragon sometimes prints its own decal sheets, it usually uses decals printed by Cartograf, an Italian decal maker.

Metal Parts

Turned aluminum barrels, metal tow cables,

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

antenna and brass ammunition shells are common parts included in Dragon kits as an alternative to styrene parts. Small metal parts may also be included to accurately replicate a tank's wheels and lamp wiring. Some kits have as many as 48 metal parts.

Slide Molding

Although it is not a new technique, the use of slide molds allows more accurate reproduction of details than traditional two-piece molds. This is done by using injection molds with moving parts (known as "slides") that are inserted into the mold to form parts and then removed so the part can be extracted from the mold. It helps increase the authenticity of the model and reduce the number of parts by molding details onto larger parts. Weld patterns between plates, gratings, one-piece hull and turret interior are common features included in Dragon kits. The usage of slide mold technology has caused Dragon to rely less on photo-etched parts (See Smart Kit, below).

Smart Kits

According to Dragon, 'Smart Kits' are designed to be easier to build, without sacrificing the level of detail. Extra engineering has been invested in these kits, so that the construction of the models is more straightforward. Extensive use of slide molding techniques means crisply detailed parts are reproduced without the need of photo etched parts. Hence the kits can be built out of the box by most modelers using standard construction techniques. A 'Smart Kit' generally costs less than ordinary Dragon kits, because of the inclusion of fewer metal parts. However, Dragon emphasizes that the model has not in any way become simpler—only the assembly is less tedious. Dragon has so far released thirty one Smart Kits, the first being a Panther G.

Dragon Wings (1/400 scale)

In 1997, Dragon started the Dragon Wings line of 1/400 scale aircraft, aiming not only at collectors but also airline companies who need display models. These models were sold fully finished. Over 100 commercial and national airline models have been released since then. Dragon was the officially appointed supplier of aircraft models for

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

and

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

for their promotional and souvenir purposes. In terms of commercial aviation, Dragon Wings was most active in the Early-Mid 2000s. The 1/400 line of Dragon Wings also included a diecast space collection series. This collection includes models of the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

, the

Saturn V The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had multistage rocket, three stages, and was powered by liquid-propel ...

rocket of the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and many other launch vehicle such has the

Delta II Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas, and sometimes known as the Thorad Delta 1. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family, derived directly from the Delta 3000, and entered service in ...

rocket. Other models like the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

and the Russian space station

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

. Dragon Wings went defunct in 2014, due to increasing competition.

Military Figures (1/6 scale)

In 1999, Dragon introduced its New Generation Life Action Figure series. The series features fully posable military and licensed 12-inch figures with cloth uniforms, weapons and equipment. The series currently stands at some 400-plus individual releases, with subjects varying from World War II, Modern

Special Operations Special operations or special ops are military activities conducted, according to NATO, by "specially designated, organized, selected, trained, and equipped forces using unconventional techniques and modes of employment." Special operations ma ...

and Law Enforcement, to licensed character figures from movies, sports, electronic games and comics. The equipment ranged up to

paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...

s with aircraft walls, functioning parachutes and many vehicles. During the early 2000s, Dragon Models produced hundreds of action figures, most of them being World War II German figures. However, after 2010, the number of figures that it produced began to sharply decline. Dragon Models stopped producing 1/6 scale action figures in November 2012. *Other action figure/model kit series: ::Warrior Series (1/16) – Figures of tank crew and infantry ::World's Elite Force Series (1/35) ::'Nam' Series (1/35) ::54mm Figures

Die-cast models (1/72 scale)

Dragon has released 'The Warbirds' line of mainly 1/72 scale die-cast fighter aircraft ranging from World War II classics to the modern day aircraft. In 2003 Dragon introduced another line of die-cast models – Dragon Armor – to complement with its Warbirds series of fighter aircraft. Dragon also markets a line of 1/144 models ('Panzer Korps') of German World War II and modern tanks.

Facilities

Dragon has several large regional divisions. The most notable is in

Shanghai, China Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, which produces its own exclusive lines of products. Recently, their China division relocated to

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

. Its headquarters is located in

, Hong Kong. Previously, the company maintained a subsidiary in

Industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

for marketing and distributing products for Dragon and other affiliated model companies in the US. This operation has been discontinued.

John Adam hoax

In 2005 a militant group calling themselves the "Mujahedeen Brigades" posted a photograph depicting an American soldier named "John Adam" with his hands tied behind his back with a rifle pointed at him. His purported captors claimed that they would execute Adam if the United States did not comply with their demands, which called for the release of several Iraqi prisoners. Media sources questioned the photo's legitimacy and a military specialist for

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

commented that the image had several inaccuracies, one of which was the figure's uniform jacket. Soon after a spokesperson for Dragon noted that the man in the photo appeared to be the action figure "Special Ops Cody" and that the gun pointed at his head was an accessory that came with the toy. The toy had been manufactured exclusively for sale at

AAFES The Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES, also referred to as The Exchange and post exchange/PX or base exchange/BX) provides goods and services at U.S. Army, Air Force, and Space Force installations worldwide, operating department stores, ...

in the Middle East. Sales of the figure rose after news of the toy's name spread.

References

{{Reflist

External links

New official page of DML and sisters companies.Official page with links to DML's other divisions, with links to model reviewsOfficial page of Dragon Models USA servicing customers in the USADatabase of Dragon Wings model aircraft 1:400 Scale
Model manufacturers of Hong Kong Hong Kong brands Toy brands Companies established in 1987 Toy companies of Hong Kong