Having worked in the field of art for 16 years, the past 5 being in a teaching capacity, and also painting figures professionally for the Confederate Museum in New Orleans, I feel qualified to give a short critique on some of the best and worst figures I've encountered in ACW miniatures. In many ads and reviews of figures one of the selling points we read is about how certain figure lines come with very little flashing. In fact, in 15 years of collecting miniatures I do not remember seeing any with an excess of flashing -- that is until I encountered Donnington Miniatures, positively the worst in the category of excessive flashing! All one has to do is buy an artillery piece and try to cut away the flashing between the spokes of their wheels to prove my evaluation correct. Worse yet is that I always talk to the manufacturers prior to making an investment in their line, one of the questions being size compatability with other lines. The man I spoke to at Donnington assured me that his figures were well suited to fit in with other ACW company's castings. Unfortunately, having received the figures, the only way Donnington fits in with Freikorps, Essex, Stone Mountain, Empire, or Minifigs is if one desires a few regiments of modern day basketball centers. The strange thing is that, even though these castings are huge, there is almost no detail to work with! This brings me to Alliance Miniatures. Having done some designing myself, I think that what happened here was the designer put so much detail into the heads and upper bodies of his figures he, almost like Donnington, made them too large. However, with a little shortening of the legs he was able to keep Alliance on par with other lines in stature. On the good side of this range, the editor of THE ZOUAVE always says he likes figures with wrinkles in their uniforms so that he can use a dry brush technique. Well Brian, I think Alliance had you in mind with their figures! Not only does their zouave with kepi have wrinkles in his uniform, but this is the first 15mm zouave figure I have ever seen with "piping" on the jacket and kepi. The trousers on the Rebel drummer is a mass of wrinkles and his drum is round, not flat like some other brands. This is a good line that is easy to paint and has 3 different kinds of zouaves, plus the basic infantry, cavalry (mounted and dismounted, and artillery. There are also Iron Brigade figures and personality figures of Grant and Lee. My only complaint is that the wheels are too small on their guns. I don't think this problem will be solved very soon because Alliance has lost contact with their designer. (EDITOR'S NOTE): Please see review of Alliance Miniatures figures in this issue for more information on that particular manufacturing line. Back to The Zouave Vol II No. 2 Table of Contents Back to The Zouave List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 The American Civil War Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com