The Future of Pre-Dreadnought Miniatures

The future of Pre-Dreadnought Naval Miniatures has well and truly arrived in the form of the new ship line just released by War Times Journal.

http://www.wtj.com/store/

Jim at WTJ has been working for some time on presenting a range of CAD designed, Rapid Prototype Plastic miniatures, and not to overstate it, has in one fell swoop moved the world of naval miniatures one giant leap into the future.

I was lucky enough to be given access to a preview in the form of a 1/1800th scale Sissoi Veliki, as can be seen in the photos here, and boy, was I impressed - these new miniatures have an unparalleled level of clean and clear incised detail, and are designed with beautiful proportions and shape - these have gone from gaming pieces to scale-models overnight.

The miniatures come in a hard plastic that has none of the unsightly lines of Shapeways-style printing processes, nor the odd granular surfaces of the likes of 'White Strong and Flexible' and similar mediums; WTJ has an explanation of what was involved in their creation here:

http://www.wtj.com/store/index_about.html

Now as ever, my basic photography skills do these new ships little justice, although given that they are transparent, I suppose I can plead some mitigation in my defence - you definitely need to see them in the flesh to appreciate their overall quality.

http://www.wtj.com/store/index_paint_guide_hist-photo.html

What is even more exciting about this newly innovated line is that it is not limited to a single scale, WTJ will be producing the same miniatures in four different scales! - Yes, that's the classic 1/3000th, alongside 1/2400th, 1/1800th and even 1/1500th ships - enough to cover the needs of most of us Naval enthusiasts out there, and a few others besides.......

The ships are available for order now, although it has to be stressed that their is some lead-in time as they have to be sent away to be processed, so are definitely a 'bespoke' product, although I am very happy to report that the prices of the line are in no way excessive, given their quality, and are in my opinion, definitely cheap at the price, even in the larger scales.

I really can't praise these models highly enough, and as you can probably tell, am pretty excited as to how the range will be developed - I know that things like all four international variants of the Garibaldi Class being available is cool enough, but then knowing WTJ are about to produce an expanding range of South American ships of the era just about blows my mind........  ;-)

What more can I say, but get yourself over to WTJ as fast as possible and feast your eyes - and moreover give Jim all the support he so richly deserves in pushing the boundaries of what is available to the Pre-Dreadnoughter, and spoiling us all with such an excellent product!