Road Girl comes in two forms. A three-quarter bust and a larger scale academic bust. And I'll look at both in this review... but will split it over two parts so I don't overload you in one go.
So that you know; these are samples that were sent to me and I have known both Tim and Mally for a few years now.
However; they both know that if I let any bias come into this review that I would not feel that I was being honest with you, the reader, or them as creators of miniatures. Plus I'm more likely to highlight things I find so they can improve even more going forward (if that's possible).
Road Girl is based on an original concept design done by John Wigley, this was certain to have a unique look from the go.
Translating the art to a 3D sculpt was given to Charles Agius who has been pretty busy sculpting for multiple different companies of late.
Casting again went to Ciprian and after handling resin cast by him a few times now I am honestly not surprised as his quality hasn't disappointed me yet.
Packaging is the same as Bograth (okay... about half the size). No nonsense but sturdy cardboard box with a good quality sticker showing the miniature and name contained.
Would be nice to see the artists details on the label in future perhaps. Especially when I know Journeyman Miniatures like to support artists at all stages of a miniatures creation.
On the inside you have a snug nest holding a zip lock bag holding the respective miniature.
Now for me I would've preferred to see the parts on the three quarter bust split into two or three bags to reduce parts coming into contact with each other and rubbing.
Also; sadly, a strap on the academic bust had snapped. I cannot really repeat their response, but they were not happy. A few more were checked and I'm glad to say that it doesn't look like customers are having this with their copies and I'm certain that they would be happy to help if you do find this with your copy.
Lastly (and purely selfishly), pop a sticker in please fellas. People like to show support on their figure cases at shows.
Today I'll go over the academic version.
This is a larger scale option aimed at giving you enough variety of surfaces to learn to paint but without having the pressure of a fully sculpted bust. For that I feel they've hit the nail on the head though with perhaps more than your standard "academic" bust.
For £25 you're getting a well sculpted face, lots of hair, some material which could be leather, metal, and a lens.
All quite packed in but without a huge area of one type of surface.
As you can see there is quite a bit of sculpted surface texture which I know can work well with some techniques like drybrushing and washing, but not quite so well with glazing. I feel this may limit your painting choices though I could be wrong on that and hope to see people prove me wrong too.
The other part I'm unsure about is the sculpted eyelashes. If you scaled these up to real size they would likely worry even an experienced drag queen.
The casting is as I expected. Top quality. Ciprian has kept his cuts away from areas of high detail as much as possible with just a faint one being visible running over her shoulder and into he hair. Easy enough to prep for certain.
Something that I'm unsure if you have noticed but I know about is that the sculptor has subtlety broken the symmetry in the face. Originally it was perfect like majority of digital sculpting. But this doesn't work because the human face isn't symmetrical so and excellent change by Charles.
I actually really like this as a painting and learning tool and am tempted to have a crack at it. Especially as it has two areas I'm not confident with. Female faces and long hair (okay; hair in general). Though I may shave the eye lashes down a bit.
Part two will be along later in the week and cover the three quarter bust.
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Don't forget to check out part 2.
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