Workbench Miniatures
Author: Spencer Pollard
Price: £8.00 GBP (April 2013)
All colour, 40 pages, high quality paper, (mostly) advert-free content
My thanks to Spencer for supplying our review sample and for his chat at the recent Milton Keynes ModelKraft Show (UK).
Intro
You may remember that we reviewed Issue No.1 towards the end of last year, so do take a look at that and as promised, here is Issue No.2 – and very interesting it looks too.
Many of you will no doubt be sad at the loss of Military in Scale, the title that Spencer used to head up as Editor. It was the only paper scale model magazine that I used to buy every month and when he departed it was a great shame. You can’t keep a good man down though can you because here he is – risen Phoenix-like to launch his own brand new title called Cold War Aircraft Modeller. I don’t think Spencer is fixed yet on the frequency of his new publication – quarterly looks likely at this stage from the publication of Issue No.2 but check out his blog for the latest info.
Content
What I like about this new series is that Spencer has clearly spotted a niche in the magazine market that hasn’t been explored before in this detail. If you think about it there is a wealth of models available in all the major scales of most Cold War types and so there is plenty of opportunity to cover a great many subjects over the coming months.
You will get a flavour for what’s in this new issue from the photos above and Spencer has managed to obtain and include several good recent kits like the Great Wall Hobby MiG-29A in 1:48, plus their 1:144th scale Avro Vulcan; I’m not generally a fan of this very small scale because often models can’t help but look toy like, but you only have to look at what Haris Ali has achieved to know that an impressive model can come from quality small-scale kits.
The quality of the builds is very high, but as ever with any paper model mag I’m left frustrated by the lack of detailed build-up images. I know and fully understand why there aren’t more in any paper mag but that’s why I started SMN to provide a real alternative. Having said that, we all like a good read and this magazine is as good as they get.
The magazine… quality
You can see from the attached pics that the quality and standard of production is very high with all pics sharp and well exposed. Layout and presentation is very engaging making you want to read on and get further into the publication as each image draws you in. Writing style and approach is very good – readable and enjoyable from all the contributors.
The price
You can’t ignore this in a review of this kind and so I would simply make a couple of observations. Yes it is £8.00 and that’s expensive, however, there aren’t any adverts (except the back cover) so it’s all content – pretty much all 40 odd pages so that’s a healthy amount and significantly more than you will get in just about any other paper scale model mag available anywhere. So you’ll just have to decide whether the cover price is acceptable.
Recommended…
I did like the content – it’s right up my street although that price may put some off. My advice is buy the first two issues and see what you think. Quality is good across the board but of course coverage won’t be as in-depth as your SMN, and if like me you still like great books and the occasional relevant and timely paper mag you can always treat yourself because you won’t have to dip into your wallet every month!
Geoff C.