MiniArt 1/35 Ardennes Street Diorama Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

MiniArt has released another nice diorama or vignette base in their growing line of such products. This time around, we have a typical Ardennes home that is seriously battle damaged. This kit provides some interesting diorama possibilities as the house is only the front section and if you look from the rear, the kit provides interior walls and details. The front side as sufficient room to part a small vehicle such as a Kubelwagen or Jeep. The windows can be posed open or closed, so the basics are here.

The kit consists of five sheets of vacuformed gray styrene representing the walls as well as one sheet for the base. Three trees of injection-molded parts provide the essential shutters, window frames, etc.

So what would you do with such a kit? As an exterior-only diorama, you can place soldiers doing door-to-door searches, a family talking with soldiers, or even a rest stop for a few soldiers having lunch. If you add some details inside the house and pose the doors and widows open, you can extend the action inside with some furniture and pictures on the wall depicting this house as an ad-hoc command post, observation point, etc. The possibilities are endless.

This is another nice product from the creative minds of MiniArt. These kits are easy to assemble and only lack your imagination to find a story to tell.

My sincere thanks to MRC for this review sample!