Eureka Miniatures

“100 Club” Figures

by Steve Winter

Eureka Miniatures in Australia has a unique and wonderful program available via its website (http://www.eurekamin.com.au/).

If you’re searching for a particular miniature and can’t find it anywhere, you can visit the website and make a request. Once you describe the type of figure you want, it gets added to the list for public review. There, other like-minded people can see your suggestion and place orders indicating how many of that type of figure they would buy, if it was available. If confirmed orders for your request reach 100 or more, it may get added to the production schedule (depending, obviously, on how backed up the schedule is). Nic typically sculpts four variations of the figure. As both a marketing tool and a service to gamers, this is an excellent program.

The figures are also excellent. Eureka has produced many off-beat, eclectic lines. For review, we received five figures. First is a British highlander loading a Martini-Henry rifle. The rifle and left hand are sculpted as a separate piece to be glued onto a pin on the figure’s right wrist, and the fit is very nice. The soldier is in a plain duty tunic with simple facings on the cuffs. Second is a dance hall girl who would be equally at home in a Western saloon or a Parisian can-can parlor. She is obviously leaning against a wall (or street lamp, if you prefer) with her left foot raised and placed against the wall and her arms behind her back. Third, and possibly the nicest of the bunch, is a female swashbuckler with thigh-high boots, tri-corner hat, a pistol, a heavy dagger with curved guard, and lots of cleavage. She would serve equally well as a pirate or highway-woman (-person?).

Fourth is a naked amazon with a bow. This is a nicely sculpted figure without the usual salaciousness or cone-shaped breasts that so often typify nude female figures at this scale. The last figure is a Hawaiian warrior dressed simply in a loincloth and wielding a notched (sharks’ teeth?) sword, suitable for ambushing Captain Cook.

The highlander, crib girl, and pirate range from 27-30M on the Barrett scale. I call them M because they have, for the most part, realistic proportions. The females might look slight next to beefier 28mm figures. The amazon is about 26M. The Hawaiian is noticeably small at only about 24M. Whether this is a scaling issue or Hawaiians actually were that short, I can’t say. All are skillfully sculpted and cleanly cast, with a minimum of flash. Some of the figures use an unusual basing system in that they are sculpted without a base, but with a slat connecting their feet, like Games Workshop figures. Instead of a plastic slotta base, however, these come with a lead slotta base. The base isn’t really big enough for stability on uneven terrain, however, so you may need to either glue it to another base or shave the lead slat off the figure and epoxy its feet directly to a larger base. Single figures $1.40; available from J & T Miniatures, 31216 County Road 112, Pequot Lakes, MN, 56472; online store at www.jandtminiatures.com.

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