Hi there!

I’d like to show you a Smart Max (SMOG, Victorian Fantasy) model I was commissioned to paint recently. It was Lord Baron Mantes from the Deluxe 50mm Miniatures series. At least that’s what was written on the box.

It is a model of steampunk-genre, which I am fond of. I’ve already painted it, but let me first tell you few words about it.

Packaging

I have to say the packaging is poor, very poor indeed. It is just a soft and thin box. The visual appearance is nice, but this box will not make for a good protection of a miniature. All parts were packed in the folic bag. The base was put inside the box separately.

The packaging gets the score of 2/10 (1 for the box – just because there is a box; and 1 for the bag – for the same reason as the box). No instruction was added. The model is not that complicated, though it would still be helpful to have some manual or catalogue photo during assembly.

So, what do we get…

The whole set include 21 parts: 2 mechanical “sleeves”, head, body-can, cloak (kind of a tuxedo, actually), smoke, 2 mechanical hands, shoe, 2 flaps, 2 rotor blades, 2 parts with some pipes, wheel, part of an armour, odd spiral lolly pop to be attached to the hat and the base of course.

Quality

Very uneven. I haven’t found much excessive flesh, though there were some lines to be filed. I found them mainly on these mechanical sleeves. Preparing them for paint was time consuming due to their shape. You can see it on photos below. Also, there were quite many holes and bubbles which required filling.
The main body has a few protruding elements and need to be treated with due care. My copy was slightly damaged – a piece of a collar was missing. I couldn’t find it in the box, so I assume it had been a manufacturing mistake. I had to repair this part by myself. One of the parts was covered by something that looked like a spilled resin. I had to cut this off to reveal one of the rivets.

Oh well, let’s proceed.

Furthermore, some of the parts had pieces left after had been cut off from frames or inlet channels. Fortunately, these were not difficult to repair.

Those were the main drawbacks. Other details were so much better. The head is like not from this world! Face, goggles, teeth and nose, ears, metallic hat with rivets – PERFECT! It is definitely the best part of the set. The wheel is also cast perfectly. Can’t say anything bad about hands, flaps with rivets, smoke and other details either.

Individual elements fit pretty well. There were not many gaps to be filled. The only real problem was the aforementioned damaged collar.

The base looks very good too. It’s thick, full; texture of the cobblestone is very nice. The base is made of a different material resembling marble.

The final score

To conclude my Lord Baron Mantes review, let me say that the model is surely well cast, parts are clean and detailed, but there were few imperfections and damages (and that awful packaging). This decreases the overall score. Price is rather high, but if you can live with small defects the model will make for a nice piece in your collection.

Final score: 7/10.