Hi everyone!
At the Scale Model Challenge last month I saw the Scale 75 event booth for the first time. Wow! The booth is very awesome and it is really great to see their display of studio painted miniatures. Of course I could not resist myself to purchase two miniatures, who I will review here today.
Scale 75 is mostly known for their 75mm (duh!) range, with historical, fantasy, and steampunk miniatures. Then there is their übercute Smog Riders range, with chibi-like characters, some portraying their big scaled version. Lastly, Scale 75 has a wargames range. This range consists of 35mm figures, most of them originating from their 75mm counterparts.
So what does this mean? I guess it is easy once you have a digital sculpt to just print the mini smaller than the 75mm it was originally intented for. My guess is that this is exactly what they did, since I cannot find any alternate sculpts for the 35mm versions. (If someone can tell me otherwise, please let me know I). Of course, this raises a number of questions: Do you lose a lot of details when reducing the print size? Are the details still sharp and nicely defined in the 35mm version? Are the minis not too thin/fragile at certain parts? And perhaps you can think of more…
I was really curious for this. Particularly because I really love these two ladies in their 75mm form. Unfortunately my entire display space is 30x30x30cm so those biggies would fill it up way too soon. Therefore, the smaller versions are ideal for me, if they hold up of course.
So let’s start the review!
First up is Sarah Kilmister
Sculpt
As I am assuming this is a downscaled version of the 75mm Sarah, I am using the 3d render for that mini as a reference.
I really like the tough pose of Sarah. It is also telling a story, where is she going, who is she facing? Her shape is very nice, and I really like that the mini is not overly detailed, yet at some parts there are nice tiny details to play with. I do wonder how these translate to the cast…
Contents
Sarah comes in a nice blisterpack, in two pieces, together with a 30mm base. What is cool about the blisterpack is that it has a nice picture of the boxart inserted, which on the backside shows the backside of the boxart, nicely done!
Cast
Forgive my pictures, it is hard to photograph these shiny metals. Overall the cast look really good. The details are crisp on most places, but on some spots this could be better. The metal looks really smooth, which is nice! The one pity is that there is a big mould line with a lot of flash running along the left side of her body. That will be a bit tricky to remove, but not impossible. Overall, quite good and I am surprised how much got translated from the original mini.
Here you can also see a comparison of the box arts between the 75mm and 35mm
Assembly
Couldn’t be any easier! The parts go together super well and are secured through a square joint. After assembly, there is no need for greenstuffing, because the pieces fit together perfectly. What I also like is that you can assemble before painting, without getting difficult to reach areas.
Now let’s have a look at Jessica Thunderhawke
Sculpt
When I first saw this sculpt, I fell in love. The bird! The pose! The awesome body! Just great :).
Contents
Jessica obviously comes in the same nice blisterpack as Sarah. There are four pieces: the main body, both her arms, and the bird.
Cast
This cast also looks great! Again some details could be crisper, I don’t think the laces work very well as their are very shallow. But overall she looks great. There is once again a problem with a mould line, this time on both sides of the body, and flash. So that will require some attention. Again the metal is very clean, and I really like how the face came out especially. She is a stunner in 35mm as she is in 75mm.
In this picture you can see how great she looks, despite being scaled down to less than twice her original size.
Assembly
Also Jessica’s assembly should be quite easy, all parts connect perfectly with tiny ball joints. Pinning should be unnecessary, but I think you will have to be careful with the heavy bird. A little bit of gap-filling might be needed, but that should be easy enough. I think it would be easiest to assemble all parts of the lady, then paint and then add the bird. Otherwise it would make some parts really difficult to reach.
Overall
I am super enthousiastic about these minis!
The sculpts have translated to a smaller scale really well. Some details are lost, that is inevitable, but they still look really great! The mould lines are unfortunate, but some cleaning can get rid of that easily as it doesn’t obscure any superdetailed pieces. The prices are very good for these ladies: Sarah costs (only!) €9,10 and Jessica and her bird €16,53. I love how Scale 75 is giving painters who prefer smaller scaled minis, or wargamers, an opportunity to paint their awesome minis. Looking forward to see what they come up with next :).
I hope you enjoyed this review. If you produce miniatures, and you would
like to me to review one of your minis, please feel free to contact me.
