This is the first volume in what may be a new series from Casemate. This is a how to book for armor modelers that concentrates on the subject parameters. These sorts of books have become more and more popular over the years as much for the photos in the book as for the skills they share. For those new to doing this sort of construction, the techniques may well appear quite daunting, and taken as a whole, I can see how that may be the case. However, these builds are really a combination of many fairly straight-forward procedures.

I'm not an armor modeler so have never heard of the author though the biography states he is one of the world's best armor kit builders. I can tell you that his results are superb and not something that I could accomplish. Each of the articles takes a subject from the very beginning, through the addition of the usual mass of aftermarket, scratchbuilding, painting and weathering until the final  appears. This is all accompanied by dozens of well lit and crisp full color photos. I guess we cannot have a how-to book today without the usual empty airbrushes and equally dry paint brush tips appearing in the photo. I'm not sure why some feel the need to include these sorts of things, when a simply pointer would suffice, but there it is. I call it the 'FSM effect' as I first noticed it being used in Fine Scale Modeler magazine when it started in the 1980s.

There are five subject kits used in this compilation. They are the Dragon 1/35 Panzer IA, the Tamiya 1/35, T-34/76 'ChTZ', Easy Model 1/72 'Maus', Bronco 1/48 SU-152, and finally a figure, Mig Productions 1/35 Russian Infantryman. Most of the articles are in the 20-30 page range and each follows a similar format in terms of how the build progresses. Of course, the figure article concentrates on painting and the base as there is little in the way of parts. To be sure this is not just photos, but there is a fairly detailed description that accompanies the build progression.

In all, it makes for a superb book that provides a lot of information and great photos. Even the airplane builder can learn something from this one. I'm sure you will be as impressed with the book as was I.

May 2019

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