"Mick Yarrow miniatures?" Topic

Having a little trouble with the search function, so I thought I might ask; Anyone order any of their 1/4800 line?

I just placed a test order earlier this week, both the WW1 and WW2 lines, and I'm interested to see how they will appear. Most things I'm after can be acquired via Shapeways or PFC, but a few of the early-War oddities, as well as many of the merchants seem available from him.

Have some of his WW2 ships. They are OK but the sculpting of some are crude.

From the few photos I can find, that does seem to be an issue with some of the ships. Any specific ones to be avoided?

I mainly ordered for ships like HMS Audacity or HMS Argus, and picked up a few examples of freighters and transports to fill in gaps.

It has been a while, but when I contacted him Mick indicated that the American and Japanese were the newer, better sculpts.

Haven't placed an order yet to be able to confirm that.

Some are OK but some … aren't. There are some photos in the Yahoo 1/4800 group if you can get access to that:

link

Generally I am not convinced by the ones without gun barrels, and sometimes the added barrels are a bit crude (I've replaced some). I wasn't keen on the WW1 stuff, which is a pity as I think a decent WW1 range in 1/4800 would be great. The WW2 British capital ships (e.g. Renown, Hood, Queen Elizabeth, KGV, Hermes) aren't bad – not a patch on CinC but cheap, and available in the UK. To be fair, these *are* very old …

Most Mick Yarrow 1/4800 castings appear to be derivatives of the Leicester Micro Models 1/4800 line from the 1970s, and are extremely crude by today's standards. He seems to have upgraded some with gun barrels, but that doesn't help with the poor overall proportions of most of them. I bought a lot of them back then, when the only alternative was 1/1200 and 1/2400. Nowadays of course we have Hallmark 1/6000. We also have Shapeways 1/4800 if you can put up with the material they're made of, which I can't.

Now having said that, some of the Leicester castings (same as MY), despite their apparent age, are useful representations of their prototypes, albeit undetailed ones. I recall the Italian Navigatori DDs were well proportioned, for example. See Navigatori examples on right of following image

Here are some more Leicester (same as MY). I did some cleanup on the hulls, including build-up with solder:

Thanks for the photos and input! That vast majority of my collection is from various Shapeways designers, with Pfc-CinC filling in the gaps. Looks like I'll use them for a few odd vessels here and there, but it's not the level of detail I really prefer.

There's a review – with pictures – of some WWI models on the Lone Warrior Blog:

PDF link

Seems pretty positive and for the size the models look good (to me and the reviewer anyway !).

WRT the Lone Warrior review, look at the first image, where the Nassau seems to have about 50% more beam than the Bayern, which is not a good thing.

@20thmaine – Thanks for the link! It looks like they will do just fine as filler for now. I'll just wait until a few of my requests make it through the various designers' queues.

Roe, of Tinythingamajigs recently released the Dutch cruisers of the Java-class, as well as De Ruyter. Combining those with the Tromp from C.O.B and some of Snafu's H-class destroyers (modified to better resemble the Admiralen-class), I have most of the Dutch Navy now.

I'm currently working on the USN up to '41, the Royal Navy up to '43, and the RAN and Dutch forces for ABDACOM. Also lots of what-if's and alternate history potential.