Figures & Dioramas

On the heels of all the other great releases, Frank Winspur and Moebius have added a "Deluxe" version of Bela Lugosi as Dracula. IPMS reviewed the kit here: http://web.ipmsusa3.org/content/bela-lugosi-dracula-broadway

I'll concentrate this review on the differences and there are quite a few. The first obvious one is that our friendly neighborhood vampire has found himself a lovely female victim. She is passed out from fear in a lovely gown and fits right up against Bela. This did necessitate a change in the position of Dracula's arms and cape to accommodate the second figure. last, the base has an added column and a bat and rat.

This review is for the 1/35 MiniArt Ardennes Street, which is a road section with a damaged building and a small culvert.

As with most of these MiniArt kits you get extras, and these are worth it too. There is a full door, some window panes and some window shutters plus a rail fence. The culvert is really neat too, and I plan to dress mine up with a small piece of pipe, and some trickling water.

The building is not difficult to build, but it does need some reinforcement in the form of styrene stripes. As you can see in the photo, it helps the building stay together, and it provides a place for the putty later on. I have built three of these MiniArt 1/35 buildings, and while I do like them my main pet peeve is that they don’t have much surface for glue to grab onto. However, as you can see from my previous two reviews, once the putty work is done and once they are painted they do look nice.

As you can see there is plenty of room for a Tiger, so most vehicles you might want to put on the base will fit.  Do not worry about the gaps in the top of the building, as you see from the photos, the roof will cover those gaps.

In less than two months, France lost 290,000 men killed or wounded and 1,900,000 taken prisoner in its massive defeat that heavily relied upon a strategy based on solid defensive fortifications.  Germany’s leaders were not going to fight the First World War again, in spite of all appearances.  After their successful Blitzkrieg through Poland in September 1939, they seemed to have run out of steam, settling down to wage a “Sitzkrieg” or “Phoney War” (dôle de guerre).  While the world waited through that first bitter, particularly severe winter of World War II, France began calling up reservists.  Confident that their investment in the Maginot Line stopped the Germans in their tracks, and in their superior quantity and quality of French armor, French generals became overconfident while morale in their conscript army wore thin as time ticked by.  “Observers, including the British general Brooke, were shaken by (the French army’s) insubordination and slovenly appearance.”¹  Soldiers, especially citizen soldiers, hate to “hurry up and wait.”  Finally, on 10 May 1940, Germany launched its lightening war of combined arms driving through Belgium, Nethe

Plusmodel has introduced a wheelbarrow diorama piece that should provide some opportunities to be creative in deciding what the wheelbarrow will be carrying.

Opening the Bag

First, a little background on why I selected this kit. Previously, I had written over a dozen IPMS reviews across several scales and categories. Then I took a break from modeling, and when I returned a couple of months ago I wanted to start with something easy. This subject looked like a good start.

The contents of the bag include 6 resin pieces and an instruction diagram. The pieces are a light grey resin with very light flash around the wheel. The wheel and axle were deformed.

This HO scale rendition of Mel’s Drive-In from the movie, American Graffiti, comes with a colorful and attractive box art. It’s a multi-media kit, with the exterior structure in plastic, but with the interior supplied on pre-printed card stock. The instructions are easy to follow and consist of 7 steps.

The suggested colors are listed, but are basic, such as white, grey, and brick red. After a little online research I found an interior shot which I used for reference. The research indicated that the diner had a black and white floor.  I simulated this by painting the floor white, then using black decal trim film for the tiles.

The clear parts are made of some unknown type of flexible material.  At first they appeared cloudy, but upon closer inspection, I discovered a removable sticky protective film on them, similar to what comes on a Plexiglas sheet from the hardware store. I removed the film by using a sharp knife to turn up a corner, then peeling it off.  This peculiarity isn’t mentioned in the instructions.

When Moebius announced a kit of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon with Victim”, I was excited. I have always been a fan of the 1954 movie creature, story and Julie Adams. It got even better when they announced Adam Dougherty, the "Kreature Kid". It was a wonderful day when Review package arrived in the mail. Out came the DVD and straight to the basement.

I broke the kit down into three builds- the creature, the girl, and the base. The kit comes with an excellent sandy base with lizard, fossil hand, stones and a nice tropical fern.

The Panzerfaust ("armor fist" or "tank fist") was a cheap, single shot, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II.  It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded launch tube firing a high explosive anti-tank warhead, and was operated by a single soldier.  The Panzerfaust was in service from 1942 until the end of the war.



Plus Model from Czechoslovakia continues to add to its list of quality aftermarket and modeling supply products; this time with a package of EasyLine Panzerfaust 60 weapons in 1/35th scale.

The package contains five tubes molded in light grey resin, and a small decal sheet with red markings that say Achtung! Feuerstrahl! ("Attention! Fire Jet!") for each.  The parts are protected in easily removable resin jackets to prevent damage in shipping.  Once clipped, sanded, painted, and weathered, they look right at home in any WWII diorama or on a German AFV.

If you have been waiting for a great way to display your favorite 1/72 scale modern US Navy aircraft, your wait is officially over.  I have personally been waiting for at least two decades for someone to release a molded plastic version of a modern aircraft carrier deck section, and Italeri has answered my prayers.  This kit provides a large portion of deck showing a section of the catapult, jet blast deflectors (JBD’s), and JBD control station for what appears to be a Nimitz-class carrier, number 2 catapult area.  Measuring an impressive nine and a quarter inches wide and about 15 and three quarter inches long, this base will hold any aircraft launched from a US Navy carrier deck since the Nimitz was first introduced.  In short, I cannot recommend this kit highly enough for a more realistic display of your favorite Tomcat, or any other Navy plane flown from 1974 to today, from the decks of these fine ships.

Plusmodel’s Aero Line continues to release excellent figures for the 1/48th scale modeler, and this one is no different.  Their latest is not one, but two figures, packaged together in a sturdy plastic sleeve mounted on cardstock.  The instructions are in two parts – the front shows the two figures in a small size with all the packaging information, while the back shows the same photo, only much larger and more useful for the modeler.

Inside the plastic holder you get two figures molded in light grey plastic.  Each figure is molded as a single piece with minimal flash and no imperfections.  The flash is easy to remove, as is the mold pour block.  These two figures are perfect for either the first-time figure modeler or the experienced one.  Each figure is unique in its pose and both are very natural-looking.  The faces are sculpted perfectly, as are the flight suits and speed jeans.

The instructions don’t indicate whether the pilots are USAF or USN, but the equipment and helmets look more like USN.  The helmets are the APH-6 type.

Here is another new company producing military figures. If this is their first offering, I am very impressed. Not only is the subject matter refreshing, but the figure is very well cast.

This pilot is in 1/32 scale which would make it ideal for any WW II Navy or Marine aircraft in that scale. The pose is rather casual, which is a nice change of pace. It’s cast in three grey resin parts and three metal parts. The kit includes two heads, one with a soft cap and the other wearing a flying helmet. It even includes a chin strap – nice touch. The castings are crisp and sharp and required only minor cleanup.

After the cleanup, I assembled it with CA glue and primed it with Duplicolor Light Grey auto primer. I used Vallejo acrylic paints on the complete figure. One must remember that to paint yellow, it must be undercoated with white, otherwise you come up with a mustard color. I added a touch of red to the yellow and then drybrushed the yellow. It’s a more realistic Mae West color. I highlighted with yellow and a touch of white. Shorts are a light tan shadowed with a light brown and highlighted with a sand color.