Sunday, October 24, 2010

Review: Sabol Designs Custom Monastery


In early September while browsing the internet one night, I came across a website I had not visited in some time, Sabol Designs. While browsing, I noticed where custom terrain work was a service being offered. In all honesty, I already knew what I wanted, just could not manage to do it myself.

What I had wanted was the Italian monastery offered by http://paperterrain.mybisi.com/product/italian-monastery So, out of curiosity, I sent a request asking if they could use the paper terrain set and create this piece. Having tried my own hand with the same set, I knew it would be a challenge. Thankfully, they could and offered instead to do it as a solid piece set.


I was very skeptical since there was little work to judge for the quality I may receive. The price was reasonable to say the least ($85 for the piece and $15 for shipping). They decided to do it cheap to see if it could be done. I said yes and in little over a week, I received my pictures.















The base is hollow and made from plastic/resin, similar to Games Workshop hills. The highlighting and shading is top notch, would be a center piece on any game table. The windows are Games Workshop "bitz". Doors are a little on the small side, but doesn't take away from anything. The buildings appear to be made from palsticard and the whole structure is quite tough - I can pick up the piece by grabbing onto the buildings rather than simply the base.

It exceeded all of my expectations and I would give this a five star rating. Literally, I could not see anyway to improve upon this piece or compare it to anything I've ever seen at this scale.