Scale Plastic & Rail

French Street from MiniArt

MiniArt kit #36006

French Street

1/35 Diorama – street and buildings package
Price: £42.50 from Creative Models

MiniArt from The Ukraine produce a large number of diorama items, varying from full diorama bases with buildings included, to single buildings as stand alone items to use separately on your own base. The item in this review – “French Street” – is as you can see from the pictures one of their full meal deal offerings. This is the first MiniArt diorama product I have had in my hands, so I don’t have a lot to compare it with, and this review will be very much a first look / what’s in the box, take on things. First impressions: VERY large, VERY cool!

 

Ok, so what exactly is it? Well, the box art pic shows you pretty much what you get in the large but rather sturdy box, and if anything does not do justice to the detail and variety that the kit exhibits. You will end up with a street corner / pavement and section of road laid with rectangular stones, and three – yes THREE - storeys of building along one side and round the corner. The scene is of one which has definitely seen some action, as there is rubble moulded on to the pavement corner, and some of the buildings show heavy damage. The buildings themselves will display detail both inside and out (something I did not realise until I pawed through the contents), and the scope for really going to town on the detailing is readily apparent, without the need for vast amounts of structural scratchbuilding.

 

I should point out that the kit – and it is indeed a kit, not just a block or two to be propped together at right angles and hey presto instant diorama – is a mixture of vacform pieces for most of the buildings, and regular injection mould plastic on sprues for detail items like doors, shutters, lamp posts and so on. Do not be put off if you have never used vacform before – if this is your first foray then it should be a relatively easy one, because the pieces look sturdy enough, and as long as you are patient, they should be able to be set free of their surround without incident. You also get a small selection of signs for shop fronts and street names / directions. The indigenous signs are in French, so perhaps could be used in Belgium also (although check the font and style to be sure) whilst the place names (Abbeville, Lille and so on) also have German written underneath them.

 

 

There is a lot going on in the box! Apart from the base, which measures in at 334mm by 252mm, there are more than ten other sheets of vacform building sections, and seven sprues of plastic detail parts. The street runs diagonally across the base, so that the road space you have measures approx 130mm at its widest, down to 75mm or so at its narrowest, so if you want to put a large German tank such as a Tiger or Panther, there will be overhang, but the vehicle will not be in danger of falling off I think. The road is 330mm+ in length, so you could well put a column of vehicles end to end, and if you include the width of the pavement, which is just over 40mm, then you will have plenty of space.

 

The buildings themselves are a mixture of timber frame, plaster, brick etc so you will certainly not have that drab terraced feel. One building is two storey, and consists of a large shop front and door way at street level, and two double windows complete with shutters on the first floor. The shop front itself is presumably blown out, but again if you wanted to put in acrylic sheet etc for a glass window, then the scope is definitely there. The second building is three storeys high but has had the corner section at ground level blown away (hence rubble moulded on pavement). There is a single door and vestiges of a stone framed window, and above two storeys of two windows each. The end of the street ie around the corner, is timber frame filled in with brick, and does not have windows.

 

I will not describe all the features present as many are repeated across both buildings, but there are some very nice touches, like doors with bevelled panels, multi-part window frames, a complete gutter section and two lamp posts which should really set everything off. The shutters for the windows look particularly nice indeed. The two buildings come complete with relevant floor /ceiling sections, which are detailed both underneath and on top, and there is a combination of tile and rafter visible in the roof sections. The only parts I am puzzled about are some beautifully intricate gates and decorative sections (to represent wrought iron I imagine) which, whilst indicated in the parts layout diagram on the front of the instructions, are to be found nowhere else! I am sure i can find a use for them somewhere.

 

A full instruction booklet is provided, which interestingly lists its steps out in Roman numerals. Colour call outs are not given, but the box art is of course in colour, and I am sure most of us will not lack for ideas in this regard. The plastic used in the kit  is single tone light grey, not too soft  with very sharp detail and virtually no flash. The vac parts are in a similar grey and do not have that very soft look that is often found with this medium. The diorama possibilities for this kit are pretty much endless, and as I mentioned before, if superdetailing is your thing, then this is an excellent base from which to start.

 

As soon as I saw MiniArt were bringing this kit out, I had a particular picture of a befehls Tiger trundling down a Belgian street in mind, and have to admit I cannot wait to get stuck in to it! Highly recommended, even if you have had only limited or no experience with vacform dioramas beforehand.

 

With thanks to MiniArt for the review sample.

 

Nicholas Mayhew