Thursday 31 January 2013

So Pop to the Top with your first Soda Pop



I picked up this little lady because I felt it was about time I fulfilled the stereotype of a war modelling man with a penchant for suggestivly clad female miniatures..

Personally I feel i perform the role quite admirably..

Anyway back to the model; I have here one Soda Pop miniature from their 'Relic Knights' range. In particular, one Isabeau Durand from the 'Shattered Sword Paladins' sect. I must say I quite like the 'anime' style miniatures. One day I might get round to actually picking up a copy of their Chibi style 'Super Dungeon Explore'!

First Impressions

Wow, this mini is tiny.. the Relic Knights minis are apparently based on 32mm Heroic scale, which should typically mean 'bigger proportions'.. the only thing that is big about her is her over sized sword. She's a thin as a rake.



There are some bits that might prove finicky, including this braid of hair which is on the right hand side..


In terms of flash there was very little, a couple of spurs that needed clipping off, but that was about it. There was a slight defect at the end of the sword, where it looks like the side of the blade has been etched away by something, but other than that good quality.
 
Building the model

The model is designed to have quite a dynamic pose, with the hair and skirt blowing behind the her. For the head in particular that means a lot of weight put on just the neck of the model, which is thin.. so i decided to do some pinning, which had it's own issues as I tried to ensure the drill bit didn't go through the neck itself.

After I'd drilled the holes for the skirt and head I did the age old 'sitting around pressing two bits of metal together' in a vain attempt to get the glue to dry quicker. 



Side profile
Front on.
 
Something that did make it harder putting this model together was that the base supplied is a slotter base, but the model doesn't have the 'bar' of metal for the slot, instead she just has a couple of pins on the bottom of the feet that look like they were designed to go in holes..

Next up, 
The Sword, Arm and Hair.. 


Again, this required some pinning, the sword connecting to the arm pointing forward was easy enough to do, but the the arm that is going from left to right (face on) I gave up pinning, especially when there was, unbeknown to me, a small hole in my tube of superglue and I soon became attached finger to thumb and hand to miniature..

Conclusion

It was a tricky model to put together, it certainly required some patience from someone with fat fingers like myself, but it was a very enjoyable model to put together. If I had to put together an army of these I'd probably get quite frustrated, however Relic Knights itself is a skirmish game, so you wouldn't have to put together lots of models, and it would certainly ensure you got the most out of putting them together!

A quick wash of devlan mud so you can see the detail.
For comparison, here she is next to a Bezerker Dwarf from Mantic's Kings of War range.


I give it an 8/10 - Aesthetically pleasing with some really nice details, but fiddly. Certainly looking forward to painting it!

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