Disclaimer: this article is written in response to receiving a promotional copy of product.
I have been a fan of the Artel “W” miniatures for quite a long time, with their highly detailed, intensely characterful sculpts. I had the chance to paint up two of their models as part of a commission some time ago - Jack "Captain Blood" Meinhardt and Jessica "Steel Neck" Bruder . Both of these miniatures are “true scale” 28mm, with a crazy amount of detail packed in on the surface.
After posting up these miniatures over on the EVA Studios Facebook page, Artel W made contact with me and offered to send out a few of their new Pacific88 paint sets to trial, as well as one of their new models at the time. The Pacific88 range had been recently released, and I hadn’t yet had the chance to check them out for myself.
A few months later and the package made its grand journey all the way from St. Petersburg to my little patch of turf in Australia. In it I received two models I had purchased, the limited 54mm Katerina and The Assassin, and three items that Artel had included for me to try - the 28mm Katerina and two paint sets, fleshtones and Non-Metallic Metal.
A few big events, a change of job, a move and an international jaunt later and I finally got to be able to finish up the delightful Katerina and her little display, and write out my thoughts on the whole process. In it I received two models I had purchased,
The initial packaging for Artel models has been and always will be delightful. From their brown paper and red wax seal wrapping, and to survive the Australian postal system (you know Football is effectively the national sport, even with the post) they are well packed. The casting quality is fantastic, with no major defects or errors, and the fit of the joins in the model work well.
The detail on Artel models is as much a challenge as it is a delight, as the detail on the digital sculpt does not always shrink down to the 28mm scale in a manageable fashion. I struggled a little with making the detail in the breastplate stand out, for example, as it was small enough to be caught in the shadow of the detail above. Whilst I feel like the detail could be exaggerated for the 28mm scale, it certainly works for the 54mm scale.
The paints I picked to test out were two of their line of paint sets, the Pacific88 acrylic colours. At the time of writing, the sets I have are sold out, though hopefully they will come back in stock shortly. I chose the Flesh tones set, a set of seven 10mL fleshtones and tints, and the non-metallic metal set of 6 18ml bottles. They have an interesting, thicker spout which is certainly not clog free, but is less prone to the paint wastage that I've experienced with other containers.
The coverage of the paints is pleasantly smooth and opaque, with the paler fleshtones thinning a fair way before becoming chalky. They are quite strong in pigment, to the point that I had to remember to dilute colours much more than I normally would before putting a glaze down.
The Non Metallic Metals collection puzzled me for a while before I realized that the colours as a group were best suited to chrome. I got the chance to bust out my test model once more and took a chance at a chrome effect (something that I'm not well versed in, or had tried before this!) with reasonable success. Some areas I made grave technical errors on regarding the placement, but it was enough of a challenge that I could get to know the colours well.
The flesh tones have come into play in my normal painting routine, primarily as tints for other tones. I feel a little hesitant to use the smaller sized bottles as I don't want to completely use them up, however they work brilliantly to modulate tones.
I have found that they tend to dry a little fast in the Australian Summer, and had a limited life even on my wet palette. They also have a little less flex to them once dry compared to other paints, similar to the Reaper paints I have used in the past. This is not something I forsee becoming an issue on many miniatures, however.
Katerina was painted up over quite some time, and I really enjoyed her. I'm certainly looking forward to when I have the time to start work on the 54mm version. Overall I've been quite pleased with the Pacific paints, and I can see them becoming a permanent addition to my workflow.
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