Acherontia, Mobile Brigada Squad, Luxumbra – Review

It’s been a few months already since the official announcement of the creation of Luxumbra. The proposal of this new company is to release miniatures from the ‘Infinity: The Game‘ franchise in sizes that are higher than those of the original game. The initiative comes from a group of professionals of the miniature world who work for Corvus Belli, the company behind the game and the Infinity miniatures. Leading the idea, Ángel Giráldez and David Anta are the most visible heads. Today we bring you exclusively the review of the first release from the Spanish company, no other than the bust of Acherontia.

Luxumbra was presented in the event ‘Interplanetario’ in the summer of 2016. At that moment they already introduced us to this first release, painted by Ángel Giráldez. The company would not start selling the products back then, but would rather wait a few months. During this time, they would prepare a crowdfunding campaign in Kickstarter. This campaign would also help finance other references still unknown at that moment. The campaign launched recently and it is proving to be a massive success, probably the biggest we have seen for a company in the world of showcase miniature painting.

We have had access to an exclusive copy of the Acherontia bust for us to analyze so you can see in detail, before anyone else, what you can expect from the product if you participate in their crowdfunding campaign.

ACHERONTIA REVIEW

Since the company still does not have the final packaging that they are going to provide the backers, the copy we get comes in a blister without any graphic material. We are not going to take this into consideration as the end product will have a completely different packaging.

The bust in essence is quite simple. It’s composed of only 3 pieces: the bust body, the head, and two options for the left ear: a naked one and another with a futuristic device.

Since this is a 3D modelled sculpture, you can clearly perceive that every detail is very soft and fine. Surfaces are very smooth and we do not see any lines that are result of 3D printing. Take a close look at the images of the face of Acherontia and you will see extremely smooth surfaces, very adequate for a painting job as complex as you want it to be.

This type of finishes are ideal because with very little contrast in painting you won’t be affected by the effect of lighting on volumes and imperfections. At the same time, it enables us to do complicated stuff quite easily with textures and effects. A true delight for painters of any level.

In the body of the bust we can see the level of detail that the sculpture offers. Again, very smooth surfaces, no irregularities.

The quality of the material and the copies is spectacular, the best we have seen in products like this. The resin is very clean, homogenous and very resilient. It can be worked well with the knife, and very thin pieces such as the ears are sturdy, which will help us avoiding undesired damage during assembly.

You can see how the only blob of resin we find is underneath the head, and we will have to remove it to place this piece with precision.

Once removed we see that the head fits perfectly in the body, however, there is a gap in the shape of a line that we will have to fix with putty. Maybe it would have been better that the neck joined the torso just in the separation between both pieces, and not in the middle of the neck. This could difficult the interpretation of skin in this area if we cannot fill the gap carefully and smoothly.

As a counterpart to the great quality of the material, we see a few mold lines. They are very thin and small and they would normally go unnoticed. In this case however, since the sculpture is made of very smooth and perfect volumes, these become more apparent.

Finally we assemble the bust of Acherontia completely. Both options for the ear provide an extraordinary main view.

CONCLUSIONS

The bust is a true beauty. It has simple, soft volumes and exquisite material. We think that it will be a delight both for the fans of the Infinity: The Game franchise and those who are new to the universe. We simply love it!

PROS

• Acherontia shows us the best of 3D sculpting. Great printing quality, with perfect and soft volumes, a great temptation for demanding painters.
• The material is of the highest quality. It is probably the best resin we have seen in the market.
• It’s the beginning of a solid line of miniatures for showcase in the Infinity setting. Something to not take off sight!

CONS

• The most critical eyes will notice the small mold lines in case their copy happens to have some.
• Limited availability currently being as it is a Kickstarter campaign, and the price.

Here you can find links to Luxumbra’s crowdfunding campaign in Kickstarter and to their Facebook site. We also leave you with a link to Ángel Giráldez’s facebook site, where you can see many of the new releases by Luxumbra first hand, and also a link to the Infinity: The Game site by Corvus Belli, for those who may not be familiar with the franchise yet.