Darren Baker reviews Tamiya's Livestock set, which consists of a fair selection of animals to include in your diorama or vignette.

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Thanks!

Hey Darren, nice review of an old but nice kit. As you mentioned, there seems to be a lack of animals in dio/vign, with the exception of pack animals. This kit is a good start but needs some work. The chicks can be sanded down smoth and add plastic wings, tail feather spread and leg/feet and you have a decient bird. Heating the neck of the goose will allow you to re-bend the neck to a different pose also, standing guard or in the water. The real problem is with the piglets, all the same pose so only one is useable at a time. As you mentioned, a good paint job will bring them out. I now try to add an animal to every dio/vin I do. The one I am currently working on has a frog, a water moccosin, river trout and a squirle. Hoping that someone releases a new set of birds soon. I think that most people don't realize just how many animals are around them everyday and have a tendicy to forget them when building or they aren't available. If interested, the critters I am using for the dio I'm doing now came from a company called Busch (www.busch-model.com) kit #1220, dandelions (lowenzahn).

Good review Darren. I think you're wrong about Tamiya being a spent force though. Their rate of issuing new kits is not great but when they do they're on the money. Look at their Austin Tilly, The JS II, JSU 152 and BT -7.

Bob I am actually toying with the idea of utilising one of the piglets as a pigroast, this will allow more than one in the same diorama and allow some brutal modifications to the pigs body. That is a very good suggestion about the geese and one I had not even considered thank you.

Pat you are correct in what you have said. My comment was aimed at Tamiya having gone from the market leader in terms of content, it was not aimed so much at the quality of the products which in some respects is far bettter than most.