MiniArt
Russian Street
1/35– Kit no 36026
Lets look in depth at the Russian Street diorama that landed on our desks this very day - hopefully it lives up to the pictures on the boxart!
Kit no: 36026
Subject: Russian Street
Scale: 1/35
Kit Type: Plastic injection moulded - (176 parts)
Product Link: MiniArt
Those prolific diorama, figure and military modelling people
at MiniArt have sent another kit of interest us this month. From their military
diorama series in 1/35 they send us the kit no 36026 “Russian Street” – it looks pretty simple – but in the simplicity
lies the appeal, lets investigate more…
Box contents
The usual attractive looking box artwork supplies six sprues of building accessories and
three sheets of plastic, much like Vac-form, and a black and white instruction
sheet of four sheets and sixteen process steps (some multiplied to make
duplicates) to complete the kit. This looks to be a fast construction process. The
thing that strikes me straight away is that the perspectives are covered here –
you have a high rear to fill out the diorama with a smaller foreground. I will
go through the parts to show you about the construction
This kit has a large base part “slab” of plastic on which everything
rests with a clear track for the walls of the building to sit on snugly. This foundation
is strewn with rubble and the cobblestones in the street can be easily painted
to make a great representation of the real thing. You may want to add rubble
and distressed brickwork but this is suitable if you do not.
Here is the base to show the scale with a smal schwimmwagen on it
Roughly half of the base section is cobbled road and the
other half is the base behind the building, a compromise has been made between
the foreground and the background. I like a large base and this to me is too
little footprint. It is a little “tight” in front where you may have room for
nothing larger than a small AFV to sit on. This size diorama is however perfect
for soldiers or cars though. Everyone has their personal preference and most
people will be perfectly happy for this space. Having some room on the rear
allows you to show the diorama from the rear which is better than most kits in
other mediums which only have one “show” side
Front wall…
The walls are the sandwich together type where you are to
trim around the edges of the plastic and glue the walls together.
Rear wall section
The sheets of plastic need to be trimmed to make the shapes
of the walls that sit on the large bas slab of plastic. This can be tricky but
the key is to have lots of hot glue on hand to joining the two halves of the
buildings together. A regular brick wall for instance has lots of joins
horizontally but with this method of construction you must eliminate the
vertical seam that is the join of the two pieces together. This is easy with a
bunch of “hot” glue which will melt the two halves together almost. Having
Superglue on hand is also handy because it can fill in any gaps you may make if
you “over-carve” or cut off too much of the kit. There are positives and negatives
to this approach – but once you get a method that works it’s a lot easier to
construct these kits.
When building this kit you could not do too badly by looking
at this link at
which there is an excellent painting and construction guide that shows you a
great bunch of techniques to help in construction of the diorama. It certainly
is a revelation and shows you with a bit of technique this can be made up
pretty well.
nicely detailed brickwork to pick out the detail
The bricks and the fascia of the building are of the smaller
brick variety which looks great even unpainted. You can see the patterns of the
brickwork alternate and certain areas inside the building where the damage to
the building have taken the rendering from the building away exposing bare
brick. Bullet holes and damage to the brick work is replicated here for you so
you do not have to go digging into the plastic and fill it in yourself. This is
one of the minuses of plastic buildings in dioramas MiniArt have circumvented
and made into easy work for us builders. Well done to them for such a good
surface on the walls.
Two examples of the
instructions…
The instructions
would have you build the building and street accessories first – I would do it
in the other order – if you had an irregularity in the fit or wanted to change
something minor in the walls construction you have the option to “cheat” the
fit of the accessories then.
There are on offer here:
There are on offer here:
Window and door “furniture”
and frames in two times two sprues
Streetlamps and
electrical tram poles in two sprues
…And a fence and
outside wooden seat pair of sprues
Usually from these sprues you get some spares as well which
is a good little gift for another diorama you are making. These sprues carry
some flash and the fence especially takes some clean up but comes out
beautifully in the end. The wood grain in this fence looks great with a black,
then a lighter base and then a highlight colour in a dry brush – here is a
fence I painted recently – nice stuff – you can see why it’s an easy inclusion
in their other diorama kits.
Unconstructed
unpainted fence – the potential is there for great depth - just a quick clean up and....
The excellent end result - Here’s one I painted
earlier – it is the same sprue as above
The street tram electric poles are a great addition to this
kit – with some thin wires you could use these poles to depict a broken down
tram system above the tracks in the base section near the curb, (or footpath
for the Aussies) this draped so it is hanging unevenly on the ground looks
great and fully portrays a broken down system – all we need now is a busted
tram!!
The window frames and the door section again is a transfer
from other kits in MiniArt’s modular fashion which I think is pretty smart. The
windows and door frames fit inside the joined pieces of the wall and disguise
the cracks you may have in the totally flat holes. A great way to mask mistakes
and a cost saving no doubt to MiniArt. This is a good solution for modellers as
well so I think everyone wins here.
Lovely window
furniture
Street lights and
pole bases
The tram lines - nice and robust will look lovely painted and weathered a little or a lot
The only thing this kit is missing is maybe some signage
identifying it as a Russian street or a poster or two for the walls – this however
is a stylistic idea and I know every building in Russian history did not have a
sign or a slogan on it. It’s just a little thing to break up the colours and
give some interest. If you have any other MiniArt kits though you could
probably get them from those as they commonly include these in their dioramas.
All in all a simple diorama with good dimensions and a lot
of “high” coverage at the back of the scene to make a better picture. MiniArt understands
the rules of a good diorama and now they have the formula they are making kits
still different from each other but similar in basic plot. Hats off to them for
making the little differences to make this a winner and quite a convincing
diorama when built up.
Some pictures of the
kit made up from the MiniArt Site - thanks to them for the kit – it’s a beauty!
