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Construction Workers (38097) 1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd This new figure set from MiniArt Models depicts a pair of construction workers, or builders, hard at work laying bricks on a site, accompanied by their work-a-day equipment. It arrives in an end-opening figure-sized box with a painting of the contents on the front, and the same artwork split and covered with blue-boxed numbers for painting, and black alpha-numeric codes to match the sprue and part numbers, plus brief instructions to the side that detail creation of the multi-part accessories, and a paint chart that gives codes for Vallejo, Mr Color, AK RealColor, Mission Models, AMMO, Tamiya, plus colour swatches and generic names for completeness. Inside the box are five sprues of grey styrene of various shapes and sizes, two containing the figures, the rest their accessories. The parts for each figure are found in separate sprue for ease of identification, and parts breakdown is sensibly placed along clothing seams or natural breaks to minimise clean-up of the figures once they are built up. The sculpting is typically excellent, as we’ve come to expect from MiniArt’s artists and tool-makers, with natural poses, drape of clothing and textures appropriate to the parts of the model. The two figures are dressed in un-tucked shirts and trousers, with a beret or cap on their heads, one of them laying bricks with a large mortar trowel and an apron keeping mortar splashes off his clothes, while the other man is delivering a stack of bricks on a simple wheelbarrow-like trolley, although it has no sides. Both figures have flat tops to their heads to accommodate their headgear, and the bricklayer has a separate hand, with an over-thick trowel that will need thinning down to more closely represent the thin metal that they are made from. Replacing the blade with a scrap piece of Photo-Etch (PE) brass from another project would be a good option, patterning it on the styrene part. The palette of bricks that the bricklayer is working with consists of a separate wood-grain engraved palette, plus a five-part stack of bricks that are moulded as being roughly stacked, with the upper layer displaying the frogs that assist with adhesion between the courses of bricks once laid. The trolley is made from two frames that are linked by three cross-members and an axle with miniature cart-style wheel, adding two sections of wood-engraved planking to the top surfaces, and a sprue full of individual bricks of various designs, some of which are broken and chipped, with a mixture of flat frogs, or triple hole frogs that penetrate the entire thickness of the bricks, all implying that they are for disposal. Conclusion The two figures and their accessories are brilliantly sculpted with realistic poses that would give any early 20th century diorama a candid appearance. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of