Scale Plastic & Rail

35cm Round Base, Concrete with gravel edge, painted.

35cm Round Base, Concrete with gravel edge, painted.
Catalogue # 32N003P
Available from Mark.58, for €45.00

Being in dire need of a base onto which to mount my newly finished 1/32 Shinden model, I was guided over to a French site which I had never heard of before. It was like the Holy Grail! After so much time looking for model bases, here was a place that hand made them, and not only that, they looked absolutely amazing. These aren’t your regular display stands, neither are they cheap, but sometimes you have to pay a little extra for high quality. Having purchased a light foam-resin, unpainted base recently, from the US, this ended up costing far more than this did, and this one I consider to be far superior, and immediately ready for use.

The base I ordered was quite large, and physically quite heavy base. With a diameter of 35cm, and a thickness of 7mm, this base is a serious piece of kit, requiring somewhere large to display it. There is of course, an option to purchase this base in its raw, unpainted form, but the difference in price between that, and the fully painted and furnished base was a mere €10.00. Mark does a wonderful airbrush paint job, and it made sense to me to go for the finished item.

Cast in a pale grey/cream coloured resin, this item is very well detailed and depicts the hard-stand of a WW2, or even jet age airstrip, constructed from concrete slabs, and edged on one portion by a rough area of gravel and grass.

The finish on the base is applied by airbrush, and with the concrete, this is extremely subtle; mixing both the natural look of the resin with some subtle highlighting and shading in order to give the concrete an authentic look. Some ‘cracking’ on the concrete slabs is also moulded in, and this is depicted with a dark and realistic wash. The ‘rough’ is depicted in a darker hue, as gravel, interspersed with ‘grass’ and looking suitably unkempt, but cut down. The effect is very, very good.

So what do we think?

This really is the ‘Rolls Royce’ of model bases, and I have seen nothing as good, anywhere. With this product, you do pay more, but you get exactly what you pay for, which is, in essence, a mini masterpiece in its own right. As previously stated, you can purchase this base in an unpainted form, for €35.00 Very highly recommended.

Overall: 10/10

Many thanks to Mark Toillié for both a wonderful product, excellent communications and expedient delivery. Please check out more of Marks amazing work in several scales by clicking THIS link. Remember, these are handmade products, made to order.