British WWI 18pdr Artillery EMHAR camouflaged 1/35

Here I post this British 18pdr, built and painted by my father. I found the camouflage and made the pictures  . Not many first world war kits in 1/35, so when we saw this in a model kit exhibition at just 5 € we snatched it. Sad that the crew is just 3, five would have been more like it. Placed upon an improvised diorama.

Review; Airfix Bristol Fighter 1/72 Model Kit WW1 Aircraft Biplane RAF British

After a long time, absorbed by work and other things of life, we return to our reviews at Toy Soldier Chest. This time a classic, the Bristol Fighter model kit from Airfix.

The Box; A nice artwork full of that vintage flavour, well detailed and with a supreme 1910s feeling.

Alternative box.

The Kit; this is a very old Airfix mould, so all the parts are very basic in detail and shaspe. This is luckily not too important in a WW1 airplane, so it does not compare so bad to other modern model kits as some WW2 kits which shared production years.

I am slightly concerned about the undercarriage position, it kinds of look like too low and too far back, examining real photographs. That would be the biggest criticism on the model (besides the moulding marks on the lower wing, which are very noticeable).

The pilots are completely unusable (at least the ones on the original kit, which was the one I built) so I have used a two replacements from my bag of spare pilots (sorry- don't remember from where they came). The machine gun could be substituted for something better, but it still has a minimum quality. 

If you are building the original issue, there is not many problems of fitting, provided you use solvent glue to make fit everything nicely. The only objection to this is the fitting of the lower wing, that needs to be heavily sanded to achieve a good fitting.

In the kit I have added the electric generator which was omitted from the model and gives a extra realistic touch, made with clear plastic and a small bit of plastic sprue. Impressively, the decals after 40 years were still in great shape (well done, Airfix!)

The model I made depicts an unusual experimental camouflage of 1918. The cockerel has been hand painted (I would have preferred to print with decal paper, but as it is white I would require a white ink printer which I am not lucky to posess).

The Veredict; A nice and easy model kit that you can finish in an afternoon (unless you want to top it up to a highest level of detail), while still giving the right feeling about the aircraft. I would you try to grab some early issue, as the crisper parts will save you whole hours of work, sanding and even having to substitute many parts. Even for me which I am not a super WW1 enthusiast, I find this model very appealing.

GREEN JACKETS Italeri 95th Regiment Waterloo napoleon British Infantry review 1/72 Sharpe Bernard Cornwell

Today we review probably the better detailed set made ever in 1/72! the British 95th regiment or Green Jackets from Italeri;

The artwork is very good indeed. If these soldiers had a bad artwork, maybe I wouldn't have bought them. I am not an avid collector of Napoleonic era, and I just have basic knowledge about this era, so, without being able to actually see the figures (I bought them in a shop where I didn't even know if they would have soldiers) the artwork was very important. Congratulations to Mr. Rava, who makes nearly all artworks for Italeri, as this is a masterpiece.

These are the poses;

All 16 poses are repeated 3 times making 48 figures in total.

THE FIGURES - 8.0 out of 10 - (48 figures, 16 poses)

I've decided to innovate and speak separately of every aspect that conforms the figures;

Detail; Superb, wait, no, more than superb. Wonderful? no, more than that. Anyway, I can spot the triggers on the rifles, you could paint the eyes on the figures, it is just the best detailed 1/72 set I've laid my eyes on. And I have more than 10000+ 1/72 soldiers. They are, some of the few figures which have a very clear and distinguishable faces.


Poses; Very curiously, Italeri has decided to give you 3 men of each pose, 3 leaders, 3 sentinels, etc. Which is not ideal but not as bad as you could think. The poses are quite good and realistic, the only criticism is that they are very static, like if they were posing for propaganda photographs, they would look strange in a battle diorama, and they are supposed to be very fast and mobile troops who would be always on the move.

The first man in the third row deserves a special mention as probably the awkwardest Napoleonic soldier. He is holding the rifle as he would hold a baby.

The second man in the third row, is holding his rifle in a very unnatural way, as his hand reaches the end of the rifle. I doubt strongly that this is a confortable pose to fire.


Proportions; Very good, heads a bit big, but in overall quite correct. 


Execution (how the company has made the figures); simply perfect. Flash is absolutely non existant. Zones without detail are very few and perfectly tolerable.

These soldiers seem made to have their bases cut off, as they are very small and thin, which will desesperate people like me who doesn't like gluing them into big bases or dioramas, and many the fall constantly. The only solution is to glue bigger stands made cardboard or clear plastic.



HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 9.0

Besides some small errors in equipment, that as a non-expert I don't notice, these figures are generally right.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 2.0
"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

Detail is very good, so using them to make something different than what they are is strongly not recommended.


FUNNESS - 6.5

"I feel that many reviews are oblivious to this point - there are fantastic figures, which you can´t say anything against, but they are just too "correct", maybe too static, and so just boring. So I feel that this is an important point when deciding if you buy a set"

They are better than the Revell as they have many soldiers with the forage cap, which gives them a very different aspect, at least in my opinion, among so many Napoleonic soldiers which you can hardly distinguish if unpainted. 

But they lack a bit of life. They look tired. This set would be fine for a regular Napoleonic army, but not for the 95th regiment. For example, making a prone man as in the artwork would have been very appreciated. 


WARGAMING VALUE - 7.0

Many arguments said in the funness aspect comes here too. We can add there is no musician like in the Revell set.  

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 6.0

"The price value ratio of this soldiers will vary between every shop you go, and the best I can do is judge by their average price on eBay and online stores"

They are more or less at 11 €, which is not very good value, considering the 41 men and all the flaws mentioned. Also, two sort of "sentinels", or soldiers just forming, are unneeded in this theme.



PAINTING AND GLUING - 10.0

To paint is excellent, it is a special matte plastic, very unusual (at least my example, I have seen others that look shiny as HaT figures). Gluing is also good.


OVERALL VALORATION - 7.5

In overall, I like very much these figures. They are different than the usual Napoleonic ones, not one of those 48 forgettable-if-you-don't-paint-them soldiers. The Revell alternative is also very good, and I just prefer these for the men with the forage cap and maybe I would say a bit for the proportions.

Conclusion; Excellent attempt at sculpting, weird pose selection.

Would I recommend buying them over other alternative sets? ; Yes, but merge both and you will have the perfect representation.  


If you have enjoyed this review and want to say thanks, the best way is to click in one of the advertisings in the blog. Every little help will be appreciated. 






PAINTED EXAMPLES

I haven't painted mine yet, but if you do, please send me pics to tam_cob@hotmail.com and I will include them here!

Here there is some examples painted by the MicroModels shop (although they are very well painted, for some reason you can't appreciate the faces correctly, probably due to too thick paint, don't be fooled by this pic, each figure has a very sharp and well defined face);

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!

TAMIYA BRITISH SPECIAL AIR SERVICE (SAS) JEEP 1/35 REVIEW

Welcome to my first review of a model kit. I humbly strive to have all 1/35, 1/72 model kits and miniatures reviewed on this site. As obviously impossible as that is, I will try my best.

Let´s go on with the subject then;

BOX ART >> The box is the typical Tamiya one, with a nice illustration over white background. Always easy to recognize, artistically well done and describes perfectly what you get.

THE KIT - 9.0 >>

As usual with Tamiya, everything fits properly (even better than usual), the mould is as fresh now as it was back in the 80s when it was made for the first time, with perfect sharpness. It is indeed a very nice kit, unlike some cheap (or not so cheap) kits from lesser known manufacturers which you can be sanding and fighting to makea simple mudface fit .

The building is a piece of cake, and the resulting model is flawless. But in this world of near-perfection kits, I think we must focus onto other aspects, the aspects that make  one kit different from another.

EXTRAS - 8.5 >>

This model scores high on extras. You are given two very nice pilots, and all the equipment you could ask for and then some, boxes, petrol cans, machine guns, sand racks, flasks, etc.

POSSIBILITIES - 3.0 >>

The possibilities of this kit are somewhat limited, as if you have bought this kit instead of a regular Jeep, you can only make the Long Range desert group version, so there is not much to speak about here.

The basic possibilities I can think of are (besides the obvious);

Pink version, showing heavy discolour due to sunlight

A german captured version, which could be very interesting

Israeli army version for the 1950's

Egyptian army 1950's

PRICE/VALUE RATIO - 6.5 >>

It doesn't get a good score here. The average price on eBay is more or less 15 €/13 GBP/18 $, and let's face it, you can buy bigger and more interesting vehicles for not much more.

OVERALL - 8.3 >> 

Even if the price is usually high, it is a fine model nevertheless, and makes a good build of a Jeep that could be boring otherwise. There is a good balance between a nice detail and finish, without having to glue each miserable bit of unnecessary detail which you won't see anyway later. 

Sorry if my review can seem simple or inaccurate for the super-expert that researches the brand of tyre used during the summer of 1941, and each model takes him 6 months to complete, but it is oriented for the old-school fan that likes to build a model from time to time, and modelling is a  hobby and not an endless job. 

For those who think the plastic extras are not good enough, fine enough, etc, there are many resin-sets on eBay that will upgrade this model to the level they are searching for. However, in my humble opinion I don't think the kit needs any part replacement, as I show you in the images of the straight out of the box kit I built and painted myself;

IMAGES OF FINISHED JOBS