Morland Studios produces 32mm and 54mm figures; 200mm busts; along with bases and scenics with the focus on quality display miniatures. Morland Studios is the home of the Officially Licensed Nene Thomas, Howard David Johnson, and Order of the Stick miniature lines. Justitia, the Roman Goddess of Justice, is a 54mm metal figure sculpted by Sebastian Archer that was released in February 2015.

The kit comes in a somewhat square box stuffed with confetti-like paper to pad the parts. Pulling out the parts, you get a 54mm white metal figure, a black plastic base, and a zip-lock bag with the remaining kit parts. The zip-lock bag contains two chains and three white metal parts. The Howard David Johnson painting on which this kit is based is depicted on the side of the box.

I would recommend that you wash all the parts to remove any remaining mold release. There are small mold lines present on the parts, but they are easily cleaned up with a mini-file or a #11 scalpel blade. You can see in the picture below that the scale bowls had excess white metal.I used a fine ball tool in a Dremel to grind this out of the scale bowls.

To attach the two arms, I drilled out holes in the mating parts and inserted brass pins fixed with Super-Glue. Each length of the scale bowl chain has to be cut into three equal lengths per the instructions included in the kit (see photo). I spent time drilling out the chain attachment holes for the scale bowls, but I had no luck in looping an opened chain link into these attachment holes. In the end, I used Super-Glue to attach the chain link to the exterior of the scale tray attachment. Attaching these three chains to the upper part of the scale puzzled me for a while. My “Solution” was to run a brass wire through the three upper chain links and slide the wire through the scale balance holes (I had drilled these out when I drilled out the holes for the scale bowls). Once glued, I snipped off the excess wire. There is probably a better way to glue the chain to the scale balance and I am open to suggestions.

I began painting once the arms were assembled to the body and before I attached the scale trays and chains to the scale balance. I primed the figure with Vallejo Light Flesh and let dry for a week. The hair is painted with Vallejo Medium Brown followed by a wash with Vallejo Dark Brown. I used Vallejo Transparent Red brushed on for highlights. Her crown is painted Vallejo Uniform Green and washed with a Dark Green. I used a Light Green for the crown highlights. I used the Vallejo Dark Brown for her eyes and eye lashes. Her lips were painted with Vallejo Red. I highlighted her face and arms with Vallejo Light Flesh. Her cheeks have a tiny drop of Rosy Flesh which achieved the look I was going for on her left cheek, but not so much on her right cheek.

Her dress was painted with Vallejo Bone White, thinned down by 50%. I was trying to go for a “See-Through” effect which worked in some areas. I continued using thinned Bone White in the non-“See-Through” areas until I got a the effect I was looking for. I dry brushed Bone White on some of the dress folds to make them less transparent. The scale balance and bowls were painted Vallejo Metallic Gold as was the sword hilt and handle. I also painted a gold necklace around her neck. The sword blade is painted with Vallejo Metallic Silver with the blade edges highlighted with a Chrome Sharpie.I used a Vallejo Sepia wash on the scale balance to bring out some of the highlights.

Then her sword arm broke off where it was pinned. This began weeks of trying to re-pin the sword arm and fix with Super Glue many times, trying to keep the joint smooth.I finally surrendered and got it to stay, but the seam from the re-work drove me crazy. In the end she is wearing a gold bracelet. I’m betting it was very stylish in her day. Final assembly was with the chains and scale bowls.I’m still not pleased with their look and have bought a finer chain that will hopefully look better.

There really isn't any way to screw this one up, and like the other figures in the series, she is a good representation of the original painting by Howard David Johnson. Overall I'm quite pleased with this kit and I ended up learning quite a bit. I am looking forward to completing another kit in this series!

Highly Recommended

My thanks, of course, to Morland Studios for delivering this excellent figure and to IPMS/USA for giving me a chance to assemble and paint it.