Monday 23 July 2018

Afghan motorbikes (Eureka Miniatures)

Family coming home tomorrow, so this will be my last post for while, as I will quickly become too busy celebrating having them back!

Eureka Miniatures has some of the nicest modern Afghanistan figures on the market today, especially for civilians who might be trapped when their home suddenly becomes a battlefield.  I keep an eye out for when they add more to their collection, so when I saw these advertised a few months ago, I knew that I had to get some.

I ordered one of each of the motorbikes, which includes two Afghan families sharing a ride on a bike, one chap who has pulled over to make a phone call, and three bikes with an armed insurgent riding pillion.  The riders include one armed with an AK-47, one with an RPK light machinegun and one with an RPG grenade launcher.  Sculpting by Kosta Heristanidas is exceptional as always, but I have one minor quibble which is that the vests worn by most of the men are too short.  They look right on the two family men, extending past the hips, but on the other figures are cut off above the waist, which is incorrect.  On the other hand, I didn't take the time to do the easy fix of extending the vests with greenstuff, so it's on me as well :-P  

Pictures are regrettably poorly lit, as I didn't have time to wait until morning to take them with natural light.  If I get time I'll redo them, and also touch up the painting where I've seen a few things that I can easily fix.

Added to the four bikes that I picked up from Empress Miniatures, I now have a small fleet of 10 bikes to add to the streets of Kandahar!


Here's a group shot of the six Eureka bikes:


The two family bikes.  Note the length of the vests on the fathers.



And here's the chap making a very important phone call.  Note the length of his vest!  As I described in my story of Engineer Ezzat in an earlier blog post, phones are common in Afghanistan and most of the time they are used for completely innocent purposes.



Here are the three armed bikers and riders.



Some group shots showing the Eureka bikes next to the Empress ones.  They mix quite well, no problems having them on the same table.







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