We’ve had more Supermodels than Rod Stewart! Number 4 is on today’s menu..

Super Model International #4 has released the forth of this series of our new favourite magazine – this time on armour subjects. We thought we would show you it a little in our review…

Super Model International No. 4

 80 pages

A4 Portrait (210x297 mm)

Contributors:

• Adam Juszczak / the Secret Garden Sd.Kfz. 234/3 - Hasegawa 1/72

• Robert Chmiel / In Enemy Hands KV-2 - Trumpeter 1/35

• Tomasz Kica / BT-7 - Tamiya 1/35

• Radosław Rzeszotarski / On a Green Island - M3 Lee - Mirage 1/72

ISBN: 978-83-62878-63-5

Available from Kagero Directly for $17,22 €13,56 £10,85 + P&P

With a lot of magazines either suffering or maybe taking a different road and somehow flourishing in this instantaneous era of “we want to know now” and YouTube era, there seems little headway for something new to come into the fold. We have been watching this one – “Supermodel” series from the Polish publisher Kagero – and we have set the bar high by proclaiming them the new middle way in modelling magazine publishing – just enough pictures and text to keep you interested. Let’s see if this – the new armour edition is up to our very high expectations…

With eighty pages in an A4 portrait, this magazine has a glossy cover and inside the stock is matt coated art paper which has a very nice finish that isn’t too thin. The feeling is of a quality publication rather than a classified. The writing is all in English and one of the things that impresses me is that there aren’t several pages of adverts littering this book like several magazines.

Equally there aren’t any half arsed reviews inside just showing a box, with a rough internal investigation and a few pictures in small format you cannot see. This magazine is all about building models. There are a few Kagero products in the pages between these builds that could be down your alley of you are building the subjects – but these do not get in the way.

There are four builds in this magazine.  The text is easy to read and well thought out in sentence and composition of placement in amongst the very lovely pictures shown here. The models re of an excellent quality and they are of a quality that most of us could only dream of achieving but with the help of this book we could try.

Let’s get to it..

Adam Juszczak first of all builds the 1/72 scale Sd. Kfz. 234/2 armoured car from Hasegawa  in a  garden diorama with a large wall made out of all things LEGO ™ !! Adam takes us through his build of this tiny car and he isn’t scared of including some additional products, and some smart thinking in the products he uses he comes up with a very convincing diorama in such a small scale.

Next up Radosław Rzeszotarski takes us through his build of the Mirage Hobby kit 1/72nd scale  M3 Lee tank in the diorama called “On a Green Island” This diorama sees the Lee driving by mistake into a farmer’s field in England.

The small size of the tank when compared with the paint bottles next to it, along with the effects he used to make this tank look realistic and the groundwork on the diorama is pretty interesting to read about and really inspiring.

Robert Chmiel next makes the Trumpeter 1/35th scale KV-2 in the “In Enemy Hands”, this is a very good looking model with what looks to be a lot of time spent on the painting and weathering.

It is nice to see this tank looking so good in it’s final incarnation (complete with a very professional looking base) that doesn’t have anything aftermarket added to it or even any PE from the kit itself. You can achieve a lot just through good old plain modelling skills it seems.

Lastly we have Tamiya's BT-7 in 1/35th scale built by Tomasz Kica. Tomasz  shows us in a six page tutorial with plenty of pictures how to jazz up your kit and how to get the most out of photo etch parts.

There is another interesting part in the painting which helps you understand how he uses colour modulation, a wash of many colours to give tonal variation to the hull, dabbing to make scratches and rust  and final washes and finishing. Again this tank has a lovely little base to go along with it and to bring some life into the scene with two soviet tankers.

So there we have it – a very interesting magazine that actually shows you something about modelling and doesn’t ram ads or useless extras down your throat and is actually a good read – keep it going in this direction Kagero!

Adam Norenberg

This book is available from the Kagero site and their distributors Casemate Publishing and MMD Squadron as well as other retailers in various countries. Thanks to them for this great mag to read.