Alexander the Great by Historia Miniatures - An inbox review

[Trex]

Hi,

I recently bought this resin bust for my collection and thought of writing an inbox review to share with you my thoughts on the box contents.
I'll be using some blue lettering in my text, to denote links that take you to more relevant information if you feel the need for it.

So, here we go:

What we'll be looking at, is a bust of Alexander the Great.
Anyone paying attention during the history lesson at school, should know who Alexander was, therefore I will focus more on the kit and the relevant historical reference about it, than discussing the man and his story.
Let me only share this picture of the Empire he built back in the 4th century B.C.

This bust of Alexander was recently released by Historia Miniatures, a small Greek company run by Christos Panagiotopoulos.
Christos is a well known sculptor and a member of PF forum, aka christosjager.

The kit details:

Material: RESIN
Pieces: 7 (+1 METAL PIN)
Scale: 1/12
Sculptor: CHRISTOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS
Box Art painted by: CHRISTOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS

The kit comes in a black hard box, sealed with a glossy self adhesive cover in color.
On the cover, we see an ancient gold tetradrachm coin (more on this later) as a background and on top of it, a picture of the actual painted bust.

Notice that on the top side of the cover, we see the bust wearing a helmet, but on the lower front side there is another version of it with no head cover.
Yes, you guessed it, the kit comes with two heads for you to choose from.

After opening the box, we see the kit parts sealed in a plastic zip lock bag.
The box size is marginally right for the volume of the pieces, but there's no protective foam since there's no room for it.

Below the parts, you will find a small leaflet with Alexander's quick biography in English.

In the plastic bag, there are seven resin parts cast in light grey resin and one metal pin to use for the placement of the crest on the helmet.
As you can see, the parts are the body, two heads, two feathers, the crest and a pedestal to put the finished bust on.
The resin is smooth and no cleaning of casting blocks will be needed since there aren't any.
The pieces are made to fit together via resin/metal pins and receptacles.

Below you can see the metal pin for the crest and the 2 feathers for the helmet.
The pin is bigger than needed and you'll have to cut it or deepen the receptacle on the helmet to make it fit right.
The feathers are very well sculpted and very thin.
You don't want to break them, so some caution will be needed while manipulating them.

The main body part looks very well sculpted.
It's depicted according to the famous mosaic found in Pompeii and the Medusa gorgoneion is sculpted on Alexander's linothorax.

On the back of the cloak, there's one small casting bubble that will need some putty.

To be continued...

 

[Nap]

Hi Trex,

Liking this already looking forwArd to seeing more

Nap

 

[Trex]

Thanks Nap.
I'll go on with the head options for this bust.

The first option comes with no head cover of any kind and wears a ribbon around the hair.

We can see the hair is crisply sculpted and cast, although I'd prefer it with a bit more volume.
The crisp detail of the hair will help a lot during the painting process.

Initially, the head gives you a feeling that it has somewhat big eyes and there's been some discussions in other forums about it.
While looking for reference, I noticed that Alexander is indeed depicted this way in many of his representations on coins, sculpts and mosaics.
To my surprise, I also found medical websites with doctors studies that claim Alexander had some kind of eyes disease because of his head posture in the majority of these representations.

Let's take a look at some of the many Alexander sculpts around the world archaeological museums:

Acropolis museum in Athens:

Instanbul museum:

Museum of Olympia, Greece:

Nicosia museum, Cyprus:

Berlin museum:

Munich museum:

Seville museum:

Brussels museum:

Damascus museum, Syria:

There are many more classical and modern representations, so I decided to send an email to the sculptor himself and ask him what he used for reference while sculpting the bust.

He replied that his main references were the tetradrachm coin depicted on the box, the Pompeii mosaic and that he mostly looked at the small ivory head of Alexander found inside his father's (King Phillip) tomb at the Vergina archaeological site.

I will add that the last one is considered to be the most faithful representation of him, since it was surely made while Alexander was alive.

The bust sculptor also told me:

"I wanted to make it look as much as possible like the real one, more real than the "Apollonian" depiction seen in many sculpts of later ages."

Let me add one more detail here, in most representations I've seen, Alexander looks slightly left and upwards and this is why some doctors think he had a specific eye disease.
This is the way both heads of this bust are also sculpted.

From all the above, my conclusion about the face and the eyes is that the sculptor studied his theme and paid attention to historical reference while sculpting it.

To be continued....

 

[Nap]

Trex ,

That is excellent , I must admit the eyes had me concerned initially but the explanation and references are spot on and Christos has done a great job IMO

Looking forward to more

Nap

PS are you planning a WIP in the V bench as well ?

 

[Perseas]

Another masterpiece from Christos' hands and a detailed review with many historical informations!
Thank you very much for this excellent review Trex!

 

[Trex]

Thank you Perseas.
Nap, I'd like to, but I'm afraid my painting skills are not yet up to the standards to present here.
If it turns out any good though, I'll consider a WIP presentation too.

Moving on to the other head option now.

The helmet on this option has an impressive lionhead shape with a crest and two feathers, one on either side of the crest.
On the sides of the helmet, the horns of Ammon Zeus are sculpted.

I tried to find reference for this helmet which was also used in a 2004 film by Oliver Stone.

I found out that the feathers are actually mentioned in an ancient writing, the "Life of Alexander" by the ancient historian and biographer Plutarch.
At the part where Plutarch describes the battle at Granicus river, it's writen:

I know this picture is all Greek to you, so I'll try to translate it for you.

"In the midst of the fighting, Alexander had become a special target for attack thanks to his shield and distinctive helmet with its 'amazingly tall white feathers on both sides".

As a reference to the lionshaped helmet with the horns of Ammon-Zeus, I found that Alexander is depicted wearing it on a marble sarcophagus found in Sidona and depicting the battle of Issus:

The crest is sculpted and cast with crisp detail which will also help a realistic painting.

For the face, I will not add anything more than my previous post, since it's identical with the one on the other head option.

As a conclusion for this head option, we can say that it's also historically accurate.
This option looks more impressive and gives the bust a more distinctive look because of that movie.

To be continued...

 

[Nap]

Trex ,

Thanks very tempted to get this I reckon ..big choice though...with or without helmet !

Enjoying this

Nap

 

[Colin_Fraser]

I like the bust too, even with the big eyes. While I doubt that the real man had such large eyes, the portrait and dress are true to the archeological record from what I can see. And its not Colin Farrell! Good review and great photos so far.

 

[Trex]

Thank you Colin, I'm sure you can do it too, maybe better than me.
Nap, you nailed my next point, the only problem I have with the 2 head options is I can't decide which one to use.
Clever move by Christos, one might buy 2 busts to build both versions.

The kit comes with a round resin pedestal to put the bust on.
It's 5 cm tall and the size is sufficient to support the bust alone.

The body part fits to the pedestal via 2 resin pins underneath it.
For a more secure connection, I would suggest to drill holes in the body part where the pins are and replace the resin pins with metal ones.

Because the resin pedestal is relatively light, round and has a resting surface smaller than the diameter of the bust, the finished bust-pedestal whole might be prone to falls.
So, I would also suggest to mount the whole thing on some heavier, rectangle base with a bigger resting surface.
Something like a wooden block 5x5x5 cm for example.

Even though there are no painting instructions included, I think the box art gives you good inspiration on how to paint both options of the bust.
This is what you can achieve with this bust as we can see on the box.

I am sure we'll have other people painting it soon and getting some more inspiration.

To sum up:

It was a nice surprise to see this release of a very well known historical person which I think is somehow neglected by the big companies.
The fact is that opening the box, you find a generally good quality product.
Searching for reference, one finds out that the sculptor researched the subject.
I liked very much the fact of not having to cut away any resin blocks, I always hate to cut the resin (always wear a mask when you do this by the way).
Although I received all the kit parts in good condition, my only complain would be the lack of some protective foam pads around the parts. If Christos reads this, please include some if possible.


This is it for now fellow planeteers.
I hope I covered most of the questions anyone interested in this bust might have.
If not, feel free to ask anything about it, I'll be happy to answer.

Trex out....



PS: I am happy to conclude this review, I consider it as a small payback for all the knowledge I got from you guys.
I am sorry I had to do this in parts, but it really does take quite some of my free time to set up the photos, research the theme and write this.
Also please excuse any language mistakes, English is not my native language and I had to use a dictionary some times.

 

[cinimod]

Nice, facially reminds me of Sylvester Stallone........dom

 

[Mirofsoft]

Pity he has Manga's eyes

 

[Mark S]

Great review Trex,....very informative, clear, concise, impartial, intelligently reasoned without being a blatant advertisement.
Thanks for considering your fellow forum members by not treating us all like gullible fools....cheers.

I agree with Colin that one can appreciate the exaggerated physical features in this case because of historic references or not.

If Elvis ever played the part of Alexander it would work beautifully.

Otherwise, a very good bust well shared in a way that makes an informed decision so much easier......thanks Trex....cheers.

 

[kagemusha]

A pleasure to read this review ....very good pictures and background information.....a nice balance all round....with no apologies needed for the few language slips.
Thank you very much for taking the time to do this for us Trex

Kindest regards

Ron

 

[Trex]

Thank you Mark and Ron.
Ron, your SBSs are much appreciated, especially because you're using oils (another "old dog" here).

 

[kagemusha]

Very kind of you Trex....us oldies must battle on

Regards

Ron