Verlinden kit number 1713 title " Vlad the Impaler" (Count Dracula). Display here as a hero icon who defeated the invading Turkish army.

A mounted figure... He looks decidedly evil, wears full plate armour and mounted on his horse. He wears that distinctive cap, that other models and busts of Dracula have incorporated in their designs, the one with a big precious stone mounted on the front.



The kit:
- head
- Torso
- Hip and thighs
- Arms
- Legs
- Gauntlets (hands)
- Sword (handle) & scabbard
- Shield engrave with heraldry dragon (to be hang on the left side of the horse)
- Others parts including: arm-pit plates, skirt plates, spurs (on the boots), feathers (mounted on hat), etc...
- The horse comes in 2 halves, separate parts of head, neck, ears, tail, etc...







Conclusion:
My only 2 cents is the horse is abit skinny to bear the weight of a full plate armour knight... Anyway I like this kit as it's a medieval subject :-) I intend to scratchbuild a visor-helmet in exchange for the head and maybe arm this guy with a more heavier weapons?? :-D

enjoy,
CPTan

An interesting kit CP. However, I must agree with you on your comment with regards to the horse. I also noticed the significant amount of flashes on this kit.

Many thanks CP for this interesting review. You've really got my interest going in what else you have in your stash and instead of you coming over my place I may have to go over your place instead just to see the rest of your resin. :D

The horse appears fairly well sculpted. I'm more of a donkey man myself. As Arg says there seems to be a fair bit of flash. Personally from the few Verlinden kits that I have, flash seems to vary quite a lot depending on the kit. All in all this appears to be a nice kit and the armor should be a nice painting challenge as well as the horse considering they are at 120 mm.

As a sidenote, Vlad here riding past a row of spears with human heads impaled on some of them should provide a lovely but gruesome dio base. ;)

Correct me if I am wrong but there is generally two types of resin models. The resin by Verlinden seems softer than others like CMK, for example.

Now that's an interesting observation my friend. You are likely to be right and you are a chemical engineer.

Some of the Verlinden kits that I have do seem to have 'softer' resin though I don't know about CMK as I don't own any "yet". Personally as you know from my occasional complaints that I'm a bit unhappy with Verlinden over their modern subjects including WWII although I suppose it doesn't really have to do with the type of resin used.

I can't see it well here but I was looking for small details on Verlinden mouldings. I believe soft resin does not work well with sharp details. Again, I maybe wrong.

My comments maybe bias as I am now contaminated with white metal figures.

:D :lol: :lol: You mean both of us are super contaminated with white metal. At the rate both of us are breathing white metal dust we may not even be able to pass the metal detector at the airport.

Interesting observation on the resin. The ones from Preisser are sharp too. Are there a lot of different resin compounds used for modeling purposes?

I know CMK uses poly-urethane(PU), the same type that Blackbox used for their sharp after-mart cockpits. I think most of them use PU but at varying densities which affect the resin hardness and most likely the porosity.

Thanks for the review. Eventhough I'm not a figure modeler myself but I always like to see the completed models with all the small details. The details on the horse as well as the figure looks ok but not very sharp (maybe it's my eye, maybe its the photograph or maybe the resin itself is the reason).

As for the resin, correct me if I'm wrong but from what I know and been told, there are a few types of resin available but the ones used for casting is the PU.

From my experiments with resin, I believe that the output soft and hard resin depends on the amount of catalyst used, type of additive used and the quality of the mold itself.

More catalyst used will make the copies faster to set but it will generate more heat that will affect the mold. Additive used such as culture marble powder, shell based powder will affect the finishing as well. Usually more additive will result the mold having softer detail as it willl make the resin thicker and hard to go through smaller and minute detail. As for the quality of the mold, usually an RTV mold will be able to produce a good quality copies only for about 50 copies and if more copies are produced with the same mold, the details will be less sharp.

By the way, this is only based on my experience, reading and asking around lah...

Sorry CP we have gone slightly off topic here but this is an interesting discussion on resin and thanks to Imran's experience on resin and casting and Kenny's observations it does make for good knowledge for those investing or planning to invest in resin kits.

That's why I like reviews as it gives us a critical first hand look at the model without having to buy it. Of course the poor reviewer didn't have the same benefit as he already owns the model. But then again we can all learn from each other's good and not-so-good buys.

Thank you Gentlemen.

Guys,

Don't bother about off-topic lar... since the discussion are very informative :-)

I'm not sure about what type of resin of this kit, but it appears "soft" due to the detail are not as sharp as the others (at least compare to another kits "German knight").

CPTan

CPTan,

As for the Verlinden product, I believe they did use the same PU resin as any other resin manufacturers. The reason that the details is not as sharp might possibly be because the ones that is in your keeps comes from the later batch when the mold quality starts to detiorate. The reason I said this is because looking from the excess flesh on the horse, it seems that the mold is starting to warn off thus resulting the details to be softer.

For your information, with each cast using RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanising) rubber, each copy of the parts will remove a slight layer of the rubber resulting the details will be softer by each copy, that's what a friend of mine who is also running a business of selling aftermarket resin parts said that an RTV mold will be good for only 50 copies before it is totally unusable.

Ok, back to the topic, is the harness on the horse (the harness from the horses' mouth to the sides) are also in resin? Or do they provide some kind of material to replicate that?

Ok, since it's mentioned that the original poster doesnt mind going off topic, i have my observations too. The Hobby Fan resin sets have vanilla smell. They actually smell very nice. I know, i know...i'm not supposed to inhale these resin dust....

Hi Target_J,

All resin parts, including the harness. And they don't have vanila flavor :-(

CPTan