We are excited to announce that we've recently purchased the rights to all of the 10mm Castle Arts Japanese buildings, which were sculpted and owned by Alessandro Passini. The master models and moulds for all of these arrived at Pendraken HQ this past weekend and we'll be sending them down to Ironclad in batches, for John to get them into production.
Who are Castle Arts?
Castle Arts manufactured a variety of products, including 10mm Japanese buildings and a range miniatures to go with them. Alessandro recently decided to retire and his website ceased trading at the end of December. Initially there were no plans for the ranges to continue elsewhere, so we're really happy to have been able to purchase these and keep them available.
How do they match up with Pendraken figures?
The buildings have been scaled to 1:160 we believe, so they will be a touch smaller than the buildings we produce ourselves, but we don't think the difference is enough to be noticeable. With these being for the Samurai period it's unlikely that you'd be mixing in any of our buildings anyway, and with this range being so comprehensive, we won't need to add any extra buildings in the future.
What's available?
There are 37 buildings in total, including:
- Dojo and walls
- Village houses and an Inn
- Shinto Temple and gate and bell
- Modular Castle with walls, towers and gates
- Osaka Castle
- Modular fencing
- Horiyuji Temple complex including a pagoda and halls
- Monastery with fences and gate sections
When will they be on sale again?
These are almost all resin products so they will be getting forwarded down to John at Ironclad for him to check over. Some of them may need new production moulds but we won't know that until they've all been checked. We'd hope to have the first batch in production around Salute time, but we'll keep everyone updated as we progress.
Will you be changing anything?
There are no plans to change any of these models at all.
Did you buy the Castle Arts Japanese miniatures range?
We didn't buy the miniatures range, only the buildings. Our own range could do with some work so we've decided to completely overhaul our Samurai figures with brand new sculpts and more pose variety. This job has been scheduled for April/May/June so the new figures will be coming online around the same time as the last of the buildings comes into production.
I think that's all the information for now, give me a shout if there's any queries.
We'd like to thank Alessandro Parrini for his time and help during this purchase, we hope he enjoys his retirement!
