Beautiful models from Barcelona Universal Models

(Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

I don't have any miniatures made by Barcelona Universal Models (BUM) in my colection, because the sellers where I'm used to buy miniatures never sold them (at least not since I started colecting miniatures). 

BUM is (or was? I don't think they are on business anymore, even though some of their kits are listed on eBay every now and then) a very eclectict manufacturer, who specialized in selling not only miniatures, but whole dioramas (albeit small, but beautiful dioramas anyway). BUM released its first boxed kit in 1993, according to their blog. The owner of BUM also owned GerMan, another miniature company specialized in producing boxed kits of dioramas. 

By reading the reviews made by other wargaming and miniature colectors blogs and some posts on forums (e.g. Benno's) I got the impression that BUM is somewhat a controversial manufacturer, due to the perceived random quality of the contents of their kits and due to not all their miniatures being original sculpts but rather recasts from other manufacturers (or at least that was the impression I got). I am not sure of how much of their production were copies and how much were originals, even though I am sure I've identified some original pieces myself, specially in their Musketeer kits (released under the GerMan label) and Wild West dioramas (all very cool, by the way!). Yet I think only a small minority of their figures were copies and even so these copies were bundled with dioramas and the buildings and terrain were made by BUM's sculptor, therefore making an original work on the whole.

They produced kits ranging all the time span from Ancient China to the Vietnan War, I think, and I've seen them made on 1/72 and 1/32 scales (not sure about other scales, though).

Since I collect mostly medieval and renaissance miniatures (with a few Ancients and Fantasy) I always like to look the medieval kits made by them, and every once in a while I check out their (now defunct) blog to see pictures from such kits. 

However I doubt they've ever listed their whole collection nor published a full catalogue: they seem to me like a small/medium artisanal producer who made kits specifically to be sold at fairs, conventions, etc. (So I guess this is why all their kits are stamped with a "Limited Edition" label).

I've come across with pictures from these nice medieval kits on their website, and I will post them here to help preserve such pictures, since I find them quite good and beautiful models and terrain (and because I find them quite inspiring to build more scenery pieces):

Even though I am not into far west miniatures, this fort is really cool and could be used to play roman-era battles, for example (this could be a Roman fort, or the palisades around a legion camp). Since I do not care that much about historical realism, I'd use it to play medieval battles as well. This fort could be, for example, the wooden palisades around a hamlet or even a medoeval wooden fort.

These medieval and viking kits were released in 2022, according to BUM's website, and are 3d-printed. Obviously they are more on the "toy" side and not much on the "historical wargaming" side, but I think these are nice kits anyway.  

Unfortunatelly, I've never seen them for sale anywhere. Perhaps BUM made a very limited print for these and sold them at a specific convention in 2022~2023. But since they are 3D-printed, it would not be impossible for them to be re-released someday - assuming BUM is back on business, of course.

And I guess the guys from Plastic Soldier Review never got them either, since they are not featured in their website.

(In the extremely unlikely chance that someone from BUM ever reads this post: do you have plans to return someday and release new sets of re-release some, like those I mentioned?)