Lt. Sheeba Shayne from FeR Miniatures

Back in 1968 Jane Fonder starred as Barbarella in the movie of the same name, and this movie became one of my favourite Sci-Fi movies from that era I will explain why below.

Jane Fonder, who is always a yes for me, was sent on an erotic psychedelic quest to find the elusive Duran Duran (no, not the band from the 80's) and watching this as a very hormonal teenager it evidently left a big impression on my young mind.

Now skip ahead to 1974 and we see Pam Grier starring as Foxy Brown, the meanest chick in town (don’t shout sexism coz that’s what the tag line said) yet again sent hormones blazing in here R rated ass kickin rampage across the big screen watched by very happy 1980's teenaged Normski.

So let’s step forward about 34 years and let’s take FeR Miniatures and Romain Van den Bogaert, Barbarella and Foxy Brown, and smash them all together in a big tub of resin and pour it into a mould and what do we get once its cured?

In fact Pam Grier actually starred as Sheba Shayne in Sheba Baby later in 1975 so you can bet your next wage Lt. Sheeba Shayne is a sure fire product of those movies. The Sci-fi element I am still sticking to Barbarella.

As mentioned in my previous review, I purchased this bust during the FeR Miniatures day and here is my follow up from the two purchases.

As you can see, we get the nicely done packaging we all know from FeR Miniatures, a sturdy black box wrapped in a nice printed sleeve. Comes in at the price of €50.00 and can be purchased at https://ferminiatures.com

So what’s inside?

As you can see by the photo we get 2 stickers and 10 parts cast in resin, all safely protected in 2 layers of foam.

Romain Van Den Bogaert as mentioned is the sculptor of this bust and you can tell just by holding it that it is a Romain sculpture as his style is very distinctive.

The face alone echoes all the other female faces he has sculpted in the past and you could easily just paint the head as it would look great on a plinth by itself.

So we see a traditional sculpture with this piece and looking at it closely you see that some of the details are quite rustic and not as sharp as a piece sculpted in 3D.

On face value you can see it looks like a nice sculpture but up close you can see that some of the edges and details are not refined and some of the detail could have done with being worked a little more specifically the little box at the bottom of the collar.

When I looked over the cast quality and took some photos it was quite easy to see there is some smoothing to be done before undercoat is applied.

There are several fine mould lines in places and there has been some clean up done which is always nice to see as a lot of companies leave all the clean up to the customer which is a blatant liberty.

The issues I don’t think are acceptable is the bubble on the laser gun on the pointed end and it has had clean up done so it must have been seen so to send that out to a customer knowingly is not right in my eyes.

There are also 2 small holes in the metal collar that will require filling.

There is also a bit of piping missing from the torso under the right boob, but it seems to be missing on the box art too but its shaded out. as well as an unfilled crack that seem to run through all the detail of the checked pattern.

The other issue isn’t as bad but on the bottom of the bust on the back is a small gap (seen on the torso image above) that was probably caused during prep for moulding the master but I was not there so don’t know why this chip is present.

The tiny gap will get sorted quickly but the bubble will require filling sanding and buffing unless a replacement is asked for.

The clean up that has been performed on the mould line on the side of the torso will require more work to get it smooth for painting too, issues like these brings the quality of a product down considerably.

But this is not the norm for FeR Miniatures as my previous purchases have all been pretty good quality so this copy in my experience is a one off, but I would like to know if anyone else has had a copy with the same issues?

Going back to the start of the review I feel the style of the bust is right on the nose for my tastes but I would have liked to see some emotion in the face rather than the static look she is wearing.

The outfit hits the 60s/70s Sci-Fi genre really well with the colourings very modern bringing the silver Sci-Fi outfits into modern day with quite an X-Men style colour scheme painted by Marc Masclans.

The laser gun is very 1950s, so bring this and the movie influences together and the styling of the piece is right up my street.

The pose its self I find a little static but what I do like about it is the anatomy of the piece.

We see all too much the body perfect with flat stomach and perfect boobs but Romain has given the stomach a more natural look and the boobs don’t stick out like they are pumped full of silicone so a more natural figure sits much better with me for this model.

Final thoughts

All in all I feel this piece is not for everyone but it does spark some nostalgia for me and for that reason I am happy to have purchased this bust. I would have liked to see a more dynamic pose but this is not a massive issue.

The paint job makes the bust look a lot smoother than the cast is and some of the details are not as sharp as others which on reflection is not great so this bust will require work to get it to the painting table.

I often get annoyed at purchases that don’t reflect the quality expected but I would rather receive a bust in this standard to review than a hand-picked perfect copy because this does not reflect a true customer experience and no one benefits from a review that blows smoke up a company’s pipe as there is nothing learnt from either side.

Quality control is lacking across the board in this hobby but I am confident in saying that this is an isolated experience from FeR Miniatures for me at least.

If you purchase a copy of Lt. Sheeba Shayne get in touch and see if your experience echoes mine and let us know your thoughts on this miniature. 

As usual you can check out FeR Miniatures via their social media outlets on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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