Those of us that enjoy building dioramas will like this new set from MiniArt. The kit titled “Flat Tile Roof” contains all the parts for two panels of tile roofing. These panels can be used single, covering a 9-1/2 x 5-3/4” area each, or used together to formed a peaked roof that will cover roughly twice the size of a single panel depending on the pitch.

Parts:

In addition to one sheet of instructions, the kit consists of four sheets of vac-formed plastic and four sprues of injected molded plastic. The roof sections are made up of the vac formed sheets where you sandwich a top (tile) and bottom (wood beams) together. Cutting these parts out was simple, and I did so with scissors, and then sanded the edges down with some rough sandpaper. The fit is as perfect as you make it, so take your time and work on a large flat area. Once sanded, they can be glued together using liquid plastic glue. Some clothespins where used to hold the halves together while the dried.

The injection molded parts are various lengths of half tubes and curves for gutters and drain spouts. Overall they look pretty nice; however you will need a large round file to remove the large ejector pin marks from inside the gutter sections. Fit on these is decent, and do require a little cleanup for the spout sections to remove the seam after fitting the two halves. Even if you don’t use the tile sections, these spouts will come in handy for a variety of other structures.

Painting:

After assembling, I started painting by spraying the parts with primer. I personally like to use Rustolium dark gray automotive primer, as this goes on very smooth and sticks to anything. After that I used Vallejo acrylics and brushed on a dark brown, leaving the dark recesses the color of the primer. After this, I randomly picked out some tiles using various shades of earth yellows, oranges, and brick reds. I then gave the whole thing a wash with brown oil paint thinned with Turpenoid. Overall this gave the look that the roof is made up of various ceramic tiles and not one homogeneous type.

Conclusions:

This is a nice set that is often overlooked in the diorama world. Not every building has its roof blown off, and this will allow the modeler to quickly, yet effectively model a tile roof. Thanks to IPMS and Miniart and MRC-Model Rectifier Corp. for the review sample.