One of the plagues of our little hobby is the necessity of buying miniatures by mail without seeing them. (I appreciate that this is changing, but the change is slow and some of the photographs aren't great. This is understandable, as minis are hard to photograph, but that leaves us with the same problem.)
I usually ask around TMP before buying, but invariably someone says they have them and like them, and while that's usually a good guide, its not always. So I felt like sharing some impressions in the hopes that it will help.
I bought a bunch of Peter Pig 15mm pirates (Range 10), probably half of the different packs in the range. I'm painting them as quick as I can because I want to play with them.
Most packs seem to have three poses. There's only a little flash, though sometimes its between the legs or between raised arm and head, so it takes some work to get it all. Nearly every piece needed its bottom smoothed, but that's trivial. They're clean and bright.
Structurally they're great – no weak ankles, no guaranteed-to-break weapons. They're all one piece, no assembly.
The poses are great. There's a peg-leg-and-crutch guy with a parrot on his shoulder. There's a kneeling figure firing *two* pistols. The women are interestingly feminine without being lewd (I plan on playing with kids).
The detail is good. You can see ears, mustaches, the bows on their hair, etc. The sculpting is the good kind that helps you paint it. The muskets have a groove between the forward part of the stock and the barrel, making it easy to paint those parts brown and black and get a convincing look.
The downsides? Some of the tricornes are just a smidge bulky when viewed up close, though at a distance they're fine. Some of the feet (or boots) look a little too much like boots (or feet), I imagine I could paint them as either and they'd pass. There are a couple that were leaning too far forward to stand up easily. I bent them back to make them more stable, not sure if I was supposed to do that. Some figures with both arms in front of them (holding a musket, ferinstance) don't have an opening between the arms, its solid tin from elbow to weapon to elbow; this si annoying, because there are parts that are not flesh, sleeve, or weapon, so what color do they get painted? A very minor problem.
On the whole I like them a lot and would buy them again. In fact, I think I'll buy more…
Andrew
receives a gift from his wife…
