Review: "Yihétuán" (BOXER, Ca. 1900) by Alexandros Models

Good Morning guys

Today we open together a new kit.
The miniature in question is "Yihétuán" (BOXER, Ca. 1900) in the 75mm by Alexandros Models sculpted by Carles Vaquero, and fantastically painted by Alexandre Cortina Bonastre.
Who had the luck seen its live, as I had, knows what I'm talking about.
Here the pic of the boxart

The piece is presented in the classic blue box company, with the picture of the boxart.

Removed the cover we are faced with the classic white hard cardboard box.

Opening the box, we find the two sponges of protection, the explanatory leaflet of the model, and the metal pieces (those little ones, in a PVC bag)

The leaflet is written in two languages ​​(English and Spanish) and has an interesting historical note, a nice explanation of the model and a suggestion of how to tie the hat to the model.

Following you can find interesting links to better understand who are the boxer and the story of their rebellion.

- Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion
- Web gallery of the pictures of Robert Henry Chandless
- Web Gallery with other more 200 pics

And just two interesting books that can help us:
- The Boxers, China, and the World.
  Bickers, Robert, and R. G. Tiedemann Eds (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)
  ISBN: 0742553949
  Amazon link

- Men-at-Arms 95: The boxer rebellion
  Osprey Publishing
  Author: Lynn Bodin
  Illustrator: Chris Warner
  ISBN: 9780850453355
  Osprey publishing link

So I take the two sponges, I open the bag in PVC and as my usual, I have all the pieces in order to get the full picture of the model:
As you can see are a total of 18 plus the base (not counting the metal wire, which I didn't photograph)

And here a zoom of the pieces that are there in the little bag, hands (amazing), the lanyards, ribbons bandages in the wrists and finally the nunchaku.

Then I take my usual tools to analyze it more precisely: cutter, sandpaper 1200 grit, water and pattafix and let's work!

Starting from the bust:
The first thing I notice is that the bust is totally concave, which definitely relieves some grams to the model and also it makes easy to work with when we're going to join the torso with arms and legs.

Many of you could ask, how do yo to put the pins of arms and legs?
The answer is simple:
1- We prepare the pins in the arms and legs.
2- We put a bit of milliput in the hollow of the bust (in my case I preferred to fill it completely)
3- with milliput not yet dry insert the pins of the arms and legs, so as to create the hole for the pin without any problem.
A little suggestion is to wet well with water the pins and the parts of the arms and leg that will be in contact with the milliput, so as not to risk that the pieces of fresh milliput remain attached or that pulling the pins ruin the holes made.

As you can see, the torso has a central thin fusion line, with the dynamics of this piece, it's great as the fusion line doesn't go into sensitive areas of the face, and it is easy to remove with fine sandpaper or steel wool to polish a .
Small details like the rope around his neck, the expression of the face, ears and hair are perfect and don't have smudges, fusion lines and even defects due by the mold.

And now the two arms:
Also here there are the fusion line, but they are practically invisible.
The sculpture of the musculature of the boxer also presents the beautiful and fine veining, indicating stress and muscle tension..Congratulations again to the sculptor!

The right leg of the model, the one that holds all the weight of the model got already the pin,
It's long 3 cm and it got a 1,5 mm of diameter.
The work is already done and well-balanced, compliments to the idea. It's the first time I find a model already "pinned".
And as you can see there isn't the fusion line.

The left leg instead is one of the parts that makes the piece a bit more dynamic or moving.
Here we can find thin fusion line, but it won't be a big problem.

Jacket and sleeves
Part of that can be considered optional, for my opinion.
You can put them, or covering the holes of the hooks with putty if you want the model without them.
By pointing out the beauty of the folds and details of buttons.

And here's the hat, one of the pieces of this model that have caught my eye for realism.
The fusion line is located on the edge of the hat, we can eliminate it in a fairly brief, with the edge of the cutter, and then we make a lot of cuts, always with the cutter, to keep out the texture.

The tail of hair, now comments on the sculpture I think are unnecessary, as you'll see how much I like this model.

And the hands.
This is one of the key pieces of the model, this is the detail that let me say "YES..I want it!!!"
They are the most dynamic part of the whole model.
And perhaps this is one of the most delicate part to clean, because as you can see there are the fusion lines, even if they are fragile and thin.
Pay attention with this clean operation, just make sure not to delete the veins and the various folds of the hand, or not to cut a phalanx, models one or your one.

The nunchaku.
This is the optional part of the model, even here it takes a bit of attention to clean thoroughly.

And here the base for the model.

And finally a picture of the face and hands with the usual 1€cent, to let you know the proportions.

Conclusion:
The piece is really interisting like all the pieces that relate to the oriental culture.

The wonderfull thing is that it can be a good basis for modification or customization, as an Asian who trains in martial arts, any martial art, a ninja, a Yakuza gangster and why not, a nice Bruce Lee if you want to work on his face.

You can also pull out a fantasy version about it, full of tattoo, adding a shoulder protection, an hair style like Kazuya of Tekken (Guys you must knnow that I discovered my cards) and a beautiful huge weapon in Final Fantasy style, (eh I'm still one of those dinosaurs that few time in years likes turn on the Playstation 1 to remember the good times)

The piece is not easy, but the satisfaction of having a sculpture so interesting in his hands, and endless ways to paint it will give you the right energy.
So if you like, I'm sure that will end up in your wishlist, and why not also in your cabinets.

Enjoy!!!!

Cesare "Trevis_11" Trevisiol

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Throgg the troll king

Hello Guys

Today what I'm showing you is one of my latest works,
It's a collaboration with the talented sculptor and friend Carmine "Thor" Giuliani who oversaw just all part of the sculpture and editing.
The subject is taken from a book illustration of "warriors of chaos" warhammer fantasy or rather "Throgg the troll king" that Carmine decided to add a troll in a dog version to emphasize its status of superiority towards common trolls.

After assembling the scene, I decided that I would have opted for a very thin and rocky terrain.
So I started giving to airbrush the bases of the two pieces and a first draft of lights and shadows, the idea is to make more light the "little dog" and much darker Throgg ...

Throughout the painting process I only used Allegro colors.
For Throgg I used the dark green to which I added both to the lights for the shadows of cool colors
While on the "Dog" I prefer to use a mixture of different green with warm tones.
So that the two subjects are different not only for a game of light/dark, but also for a warm/cold tones.
To accentuate this warm/cold effect, because I was not really satisfied, I made a further washing with pelikan inks, on Throgg I used a purplish blue, instead on the dog a yellow-orange ink by pellikan.
(You can do this operation without making the typical glossy effect by inks due to the fact that "Allegro" colors are really very opaque)

At the end, for the ambience, I chose very simple colors so that it simply meant that it's a background for the two subjects..

The piece was a real challenge for me but at the same time it's a great satisfaction to be able to put the brush on a "unique" piece like this one especially if the work of sculpture has got a so high quality

Andrea "R.I.P." Nicolini

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Crusader! Crusader!

I want to show my latest piece. It is a 90mm crusader knight by Romeo Models.

As you can see it's quite a big piece. That's one of the reason I do not usually paint 90mm scale historic miniatures. They are big, but more importantly they are heavy! Quite heavy and if you can, imagine holding such a piece for long straight hours. A real pain in the ass.

That's why I like more 54mm, basically.

Said that, 

Here's a brief explanation of what I did.

Preparation and cleaning 3-4 h

I cleaned the various parts of the biggest metal chunks starting with sanding all the fusion lines on the biggest surfaces. Than I had to use an x-acto knife to partially clean the fusion lines inside the folds on the arms. Manually I had to cut quite a large part of it as the "step" of one side to the other was impossible to fill with milliput.

After the manual cleaning I used a Dremel and cleaned throught the parts, bringing them to shine.

After that I cleaned all the parts with ChanteClair (degreaser for house cleaning) and an old tooth brush.

After that I put some softened milliput to fill all the little gaps. Than I sanded it smooth clean and again the degreaser.

Then I pinned everything with brass rods. And I mean everything, sometimes with multiple rods. Every main piece (I didn't glue the dagger, the sword, the shield and the ribbon) then was glued using superglue to fix it in place and then epossidic glue to give it resistance (I did it at the same time). After I left it for a day for the glue to set, I immediately noticed that one half of the gown was warped and had taken a more slight ample curve. Basically there was this big step between the other half and the rest of dress. I took some green stuff and sculpted (I tried to) on the other parts so to par them.

Finally I took it and primed it black, then a little spray of white.

Painting 30 h

I used my airbrush to spray all the figure with the base color of the white, Iraqi Sand Vallejo, then I used Vallejo Air white to reassert the overall white tone. After that I used only my brush.
Basically I used only Iraqi Sand for the base, then in sequence english uniform, camo black brown and a little black to create the shadows.
The lights were created on the gown using vallejo buff for its yellowish tone, than 2nd Light from the White Set Andrea, then White. The upper part was done the same way minus Buff.

After many hours of light and shadows I tried to clean every surface but eventually there were too much dust speckles and in few areas you can see them clearly ( dust is such a big problem in my room).
The face was done using the skin recipe by Stefano Lancioni, he just posted it the morning I started the face and I said "What the Heck! I must copy it!" (the results are not the same obviously).
Lancio's Skin
The red was done with Napoleonic Green, Basic Red and Vermillion(Vallejo).
The leather was done using everything I had on my palette, mixing and adding everything. So I really don't know what I used except for the final steps with brown ink and chestnut ink with black ink from GW to give it some satin or gloss finish.
The shield was done spraying the base color with the airbrush and then I used oil (why? because I felt trying).

The figure comes with a little scene but I left it to the client to do them as requested by himself, like he asked me to leave the piece like that so he could create a little base on a plinth.

Overall the pictures are showing exactly the figure (no tricks taking pictures from far away, light and cold bulb and everything else) as I painted it but there was some overexposure so a few intermediate steps for the white were lost and the shadow are more harsh than they really are.

Andrea "Kraan" Buratta

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