I don’t know why I want to post this, its just a general observation about MiniArt. I find it amazing that the company, which in my opinion makes excellent kits, grew into a major kitmaker without producing a single Tiger or Panther. And that is all I have to observe.
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I’m very cool with that. I like it that they do vehicles that have lots of smallish variants. The T-54/T-55 group has given them a lot of kits, and I imagine there are more to do. The T-34 should keep them busy for quite awhile also.
MiniArt’s kit choices seems to really emphasize subjects that can be approached using modular designs that can be expanded to address the evolutionary developments of their prototypes. Some subjects fit this philosophy really well and others maybe not so much.
You can get a lot of mileage out taking a Panzer IV and incrementally changing your base kit with the addition of a few new sprues to make a totally new version. That that new kit and then add some more new spues and create a completely new third version, and so on.
Break your kits down even more so that entire subassemblies can be swapped around between versions and then those subassemblies can be made into separate accessory kits, themselves.
I think with some other subjects, though, there’s just not so much room to capitalize on this modular approach to kit design. T-34’s, M3 medium tanks, the T-44-54-55, all offer lots of opportunities to create entirely new and quite distinctive kits using the modular approach.
What wouldn’t surprise me in the least would be for MiniArt to take on something like the Sherman tank. Taking their modular approach, they already have suspensions, engines and many other details with their M3 series. New hulls and turrets and adding modules already created for the M3 and… poof! MiniArt M4 Shermans!
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they extended their T-44-54-55 series to include the T-62. Still miles and miles to go with those subjects. They haven’t even begun to scratch the surface with related combat support vehicles that use many of those same common components, like the BTS tank retrievers.
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I wouldn’t complain about that.
I wouldn’t complain about that.
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I have built two types of their Caterpillars from WWII and was very pleased with the kits and precission.