Painted Figure Review 

HCH Figures. 

Review by Martin Buck

This company supplied two figures: Roman Officer code AR7A and Celt Carnyx Player AC2.
From the accompanying letter these figures are:
Supplied from stock.
Supplied unbased with separate shields and weapons for the customer to attach.
Shields designs are hand painted not transfers.

The Roman Officer is 25 mm from sole of sandal to eye level. My initial impression is of a 'neat' paint job with all the detail picked out. The flesh is nicely shaded and highlighted; the eyes are neatly done without too much white showing. The front of the figure is mainly armour and this looks effective. The back of figure is covered by the red cloak. The cloak is shaded with black and not highlighted; this looks a little harsh and given that red is a difficult colour to paint the lack of a highlight could be forgivable.
The separate shield has a hand painted design which looks effective. Paint will need to be cleaned off both the reverse of the shield and the forearm to get an effective bond.

The Celt Carnyx player is the same size as the Roman Officer. Much of the above comments apply to this figure, the flesh is a little darker and the red and black stripes on the tunic are neatly executed. On close examination the lack of highlighting is more apparent on this figure, both the yellow ochre tunic and the dark green trousers lack this finishing touch and the tunic isn't shaded.

I don't want to sound harsh and if I saw these figures in a unit of, for example, 30 figures the overall effect would be pleasant. It is on the wargames table that these figures should be judged and if they were painted to a higher standard the price would have to increase.

These figures are £3.20 each, which if you allow 80p for the price of casting leaves £2.40 to pay the painter. The National Minimum Wage is around £4.85 so effectively we are paying our painter for less than 30 minutes work, how well can you paint a figure in 30 minutes? Think about that, try it and then look at the photographs again and decide if that is fair price. When looked at in this context I think these figures are fine.

Please remember to mention Wargames Forum when contacting traders!

Return to What's New?    Return to Home Page