Eduard 1/72 Prepainted Grapevines
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
When it comes to creating realistic ground cover and plants for vignettes and dioramas, scale modelers have had some challenges at finding results that were realistic and to scale. Eduard has stepped up with a series of pre-painted photoetch plants that help answer that problem, with the range covering regions from around the globe.
The Grapevines
While many of these Eduard foliage sets are simple, requiring little more than snipping the parts out and attaching them to a base, this set will require a bit more effort to get a good looking grapevine. First off, there are the grapes themselves. These need to be folded up, which is the only way to get a good three-dimensional grape bunch. Once those are folded properly, the next step is to get them to hang on the vine properly. Careful bending here should yield some good results.
The most interesting part in the instructions, though, comes with the leaves. The instructions indicate to roll a steel ball on the leaf, over some surface. They don't indicate what kind of surface, but I'm guessing something a bit softer than glass, something that would have a bit of yield to it. Doing this will give the leaves a gentle rounded appearance, much like the real leaf. With ten vines, there is enough here to cover a small backyard garden. If you want to do an entire 1/72 commercial vineyard, you'll need quite a bit more.
Conclusion
This is a great set from Eduard that will add some interesting visual appeal to a small vignette or as part of a larger diorama. My thanks to Eduard for the review sample.