Diorama He-Man w/Battlecat vs Skeletor w/Panthor Dio

Hi to everyone! I hope you've all had good holidays.

Just today (day after Christmas) I received my long anticipated "Battle for Eternia" (He-man/Skeletor dio) sculpted by nimajneb and produced by MFA2000! Let me say, that I was excited and dove into the box minutes after it arrived!

As of this writing, MFA has announced that there are still several of these kits available to those wanting. Maybe this review with help your decision if this kit is for you.
The kit is posted in the "new kits" section and is also available by contacting MFA2000 from his blog.

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This is an "out-of-box" review of my opinions of the casting and the kit. Pardon the many pictures, as there were MANY parts to this kit that I wanted to go through...

*First off, my overall opinion is... WOW. This is an IMPRESSIVE kit. The scale of the thing is HUGE! I still didn't understand the full scale of the piece from the producer's initial photos. I'm still wrapping my brain around the scale.

*This kit is definitely for the more experienced resin model builder who likes a challenge as there will be a lot of flash and seam cleanup. In addition to the cleanup, there will be a lot of pinning required to hold the parts together well. I generally try to skimp a little on pinning (only on load bearing part seams), but the shear weight of the assembled parts of this kit will require good pinning to support the glued parts.

*The castings are good quality. There are a few bubbles here and there, in the expected hard to cast areas; but nothing too difficult to repair with a little putty. Most of the castings are very clean (little to no pin holes), so that once the flash and seams are cleaned up, the parts will be in good shape for paint.

*For this review, I have already removed a lot of the flashing that arrived on the parts. Most of it was very easy to remove by hand and therefore was not a factor in this review.

This is definitely an "A" kit and will be loads of fun to paint once assembled. Now I just need to find the time to put this thing together (its like having 4 kits in one!)


He-man: Upper/Lower torso, right sword hand, two left hand options (with/without shield) and the sword. (Flash and pour sprues to clean up)


Nice clean casting, just seam to clean:



Skeletor: Torso, staff, two sword options, left and right hand. (Flash and pour sprues to clean up). The main part of the staff is a good bit flimsy cast in resin. I sense a lot of trouble with this not holding straight and eventually snapping. I plan to cut the head of the staff off and mount it to a metal rod to replace the staff. That should work a lot better. Otherwise, great casting.


Great sculpted detail on Skeletor's face! You can see the seams running down the torso needing cleanup:



Battle Cat: Wow! Great sculpt and detail. (Flash and sprue cleanup. *The Major difficulty will be in part fit of the two body halves)


The body is cast in two pieces to allow the body to be hollow.


Major issue with Battle Cat will be part fit for the two body halves. These will have to be sanded down flat to remove the excess resin and get the seams to match up. Once that is done, I plan to pin the parts in several spots to assist with the part bond.


Dudes! check out the scale of the cat to my hand!



Pathor: Again, great sculpt on this beast! (Same flash and sprue issues)


Same part fit issue with the two body halves. Shouldn't be a problem, just going to take some time:




The rest of the small parts (shield, Skeletor's armor, the two cat tails and some foliage) come on a couple of casting trees with a lot of flash:


I left the parts attached to the flashing just to keep them all together until I was ready to start assembly. As I mentioned earlier, the flashing does not appear to be a problem as most of it will pull off easily by hand.




The base comes in two parts (He-man/Battle Cat side and Skeletor/Panthor side). I've decided that it will be best displayed like this and I will not attempt to bond these parts into one (for easy disassembly for packing). I've placed a 24 inch ruler for scale. This base spans about 30 inches!


The two parts of the base are cast in brush-on resin paste and are hollow underneath. They are light-weight and range between 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick walls. They appear sturdy enough. The Skeletor side should be fine, as the cat sits on the base. For the He-man side, I am going to mount it with sturdy square rod pins running up through the legs of the cat to support the leaping cat's weight without a support rod under the body. For this, I plan to have matching square metal sockets in the base that the cat supports will slide into. That might require me to add more support under the base to securely hold the pin sockets. I might consider filling with plaster or resin (something) to add support.



And again, my hand for scale as I've used rubber bands to test fit some of the pieces.



This kit will require a lot of time and work, but I think it will be worth it, as this is a fantastic work of art. It will be the best kit in my collection... certainly the biggest!

I hope my review has helped someone interested in "Battle for Eternia". Let me know what you think

darthstitch a écrit:Ca me met un coup de nostalgie

comète a écrit:

darthstitch a écrit:Ca me met un coup de nostalgie

tu l'as dit................vieillard

StormyWeather a écrit:Excellent!!!!!!!!!! un paintjob digne de ta sculpture!