Well, I have the first issue of "Figure International", the new magazine put out by Andrea, and distributed in the US by Squadron. The magazine is printed on really nice paper, all in color. You get 52 pages for US$9.95. There are Spanish and English language versions, I have the English one.

The articles include:

Part 1 of a history of military miniatures.

Painting a Poste Militaire 90mm French Napoleonic Chasseur à cheval.

An interview with Ray Lamb, founder of Poste Militaire.

Tips for holding small objects while painting.

A guide to the "uniforms" of the Knights Templar.

A painting and assembly article for a knight of Aragon (90mm).

Painting a 54mm officer in the Georgia Rifles (American Civil War)

A guide to building and painting Andrea's new Aliens vignette.

New kit releases.

Show reports and announcements.

Movie news.

A reader's gallery.

There are ads on the inside cover, and on the back cover.

The reader's gallery for the first issue is pictures of famous figure painters' work. Very impressive. The publishers intend to make this a general figure magazine, with tips and articles from experts inthe field.

The magazine is put out by Andrea. The new releases mentioned cover a variety of companies, but not all, and this section seems rather selective (Napoleonics, Ancients, ACW, & Medieval). I don't think we're going to ge much WW2 or modern armor related stuff, but we'll see.

I like the magazine. It's expensive, but some of the figures are extremely well done. For example, the French cavalryman on the cover is amazing. It's a parade ground figure, so too clean for my tastes (and abilities!!), but very nice indeed. Detailed information on paint mixes is given for all figures, although largely for Andrea colors. I was least impressed with the Aliens vignette, more for the style of painting. There are lots of good painting/building tips in the magazine.

The translation into English is not bad. There are a few spelling and word errors that require some puzzling out, but it's better than the egregious errors in the translations in Military Armor International, the Steel Masters captions and so on.

If you paint figures at all, this magazine is well worth a look.