Firestorm Models have released two new resin figures of modern dead protesters/civilians



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Thanks!

Without wanting to get into a debate here, I am sure I'm not the only one who finds figures like these to be in rather questionable taste.
Yes, we all know that casualties occur in both war and 'peace', and that by definition military modelling must occasionally reflect the horrors of such conflict.
I am not averse to the depiction of dead combatants or even civilians in the right context and have seen many dioramas that have incorporated such images to good effect resulting in a scene that makes you pause for thought.
However these new figures are too graphic and too current, and would cause me to question why anyone would want to depict such a modern tragedy. By using figures like these, presumably combined with soldiers or equipment from a current conflict, the modeller would appear to be taking a stance either for or against the nation(s) involved.
I choose to model for relaxation and to get away from what's happening on TV and would hate to see a trend towards models with 'a message' however sincere the intentions of the modeller might be.

imo models are models, in the long term, people only see it as that, to be honest they could be used from 70's to the present.
they look well cast, the sculpting is good,
subject matter will be argued upon, but then again, why should we model nazis e.t.c.

I wouldn't say the figures are graphic or too current at all. It would depend on how they are painted. I see no reason to be offended by them. They could be used just as tastefully as any other casualties.

To say that using a "fallen figure" in your modeling is presumably taking a one sided stance is pretty ignorant. As stated, these can be used in an appropriate manner.

Thats pritty intereasting they would make for an intereasting scene especially with the Hotspur from AA. Whilst on this subject I woner if anyone can help me... I remember seeing a fallen solider lying underneath a blanket with his feet hanging out does anyone know who made the figure? Im not trying to be ignorent or offend someone I remember seeing it on a IDF diorama and Im intereasting in accuiring the figure

ATB

If a modeller builds a WW II dio showing germans with US soldiers as POW's, should the modeller be accused of taking the side of the Nazis... or of wishing that the Nazis had won the war?

Besides, throw an Ak-47 next to one of these dead figures and you'll have a dead insurgent in Iraq... or a dead street fighter during the Lebanese civil war back in the mid 70's.

Hisham

I also find this to be in bad taste, a bit like building a diorama of planes crashing into the twin towers. That said I can see Hisham's point but that is not what they are being marketed as.

Scuse me ,but it seems that miltary modeling and dioramas are a depiction of historical reality and graphic results of the reality of war. Sad as it is. But if any of this offends a modeler then perhaps the modeler should quit and take up flower arranging. Nothing offensive there. Or perhaps red flowers are too much the color of blood.......yea can't have that either. Oh well.............

Now that was offensive.

There's really no need to be rude to people you don't agree with.
And there is a controversy here. I don't yet have an opinion about this subject, but you can see both sides being true. And just think about the dioramas depicting civilians being shot into mass graves, and also the outcry that would ensue if someone built a 9/11 dio.
As a matter of fact, I might do one in 1/144 just to see your reaction.

Hi Andras.....not intended to upset anyone but war and death in war is a reality. I personally do not overdo the gore and grisly stuff. But once in a while I depict a dead person and it does not matter whose country they are from. We do these dios to depict reality ...... death in a war zone is a reality. I can not understand such sensitivity from people who make a hobby of military things and war and then get all upset at the thought that people die in war. I do not like this reality myself but it is what it is. Eight men from my own unit died in Irac and I am very much not happy with that. I do not intend to put anyone down but if you do hobbies about war be prepared to accept the misery that goes with it without whining. I am not for mass graves and a diorama with dead all over the place but a dead person or two is not too far out there. The people who died in 911 were murdered same as so many people who die in suicide bombings in public places in whatever country. Such things are wrong.I think that maybe you misunderstood my intention to depict reality with a single dead person or two.

I just feel that there is no need to show dead civilians in a diorama, I do accept that civilians die during conflict but see no reasonable grounds for depicting it. Most military operations go out of their way to avoid killing non-combatants. Now if you showed injured civilians which would allow someone to show military units in a positive light treating them I am all for it.

What if someone created a dio with dead civilians that has nothing to do with a military theme? What if it was military themed, but the "supposed dead" were killed other than military forces? Does it really have to be goody two shoe?
What if I placed a NATO figure over a dead civilian figure? Will people take the time to wonder "why" and "how" or immediately get bent and deicide that he was "supposedly" killed by a soldier? Everone has an opinion. If you don't like it (either way) move on.
I'm sure we all agree to disagree.

WOW!!! when did we become so PC here.

Kudos to Firestorm.....great to see "outside the box" figures being produced. These figures can be used for any modern scene....Middle East, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc...

They have realistic poses and they are inexpensive.....better to see these figures than another SS Tank Commander smoking a cancer stick IMO.

I hope Firestorm comes out with more modern figures.

i have no problem maby next time some alive

IMO this is not the issue of PC or not PC, but rather of good/bad taste.
As it was written by lespauljames: building nazi vehicles may be considered politically incorrect…
Showing tragedy and horror of war may be achieved without presenting so realistically made figure of dead civilian. Even keeping shown casualties only to soldiers is somehow different (war, if not avoidable, should be run by soldiers and soldiers only).
Tragedy of civilians may be perfectly shown without placing their dead bodies on dioramas. Can you imagine a diorama showing a death camp? “Entering a gas chamber”? “Auschwitz crematory no.4”? It would be FAR AWAY from a good taste, and in the same way I don’t feel an urge of showing any dead civilians on my dioramas.
Check this Final Farwell diorama by Keith (DOCDIOS) – it is brutal, it is tragic, it makes you think for a while but in my feeling it has a great amount of good taste. Tragedy is rather symbolic that realistic there. We all know that people shown on this diorama are going to die within next few hours, we all know what fate awaits them, but this diorama shows great sadness of these people, resignation, loss of hope before anything else. There is no thrill of gore in it, just a picture of horrible fate made by some men to others…
OK, I’ve got carried away… .

Andrzej.

The point I was making about these figures is that they are marketed as 'dead protestors/civilians', not insurgents, terrorists or any other term for armed combatants.
It's not a case of my being too sensitive or squeamish, I simply believe that there is no need for such graphic depiction in what is supposed to be a hobby...and by 'graphic' I am referring to the poses and the overall concept rather than the existence of any 'gore'.
I think the marketing and use of figures such as these reflects how de-sensitised many people have become to violence.
Essentially it's a question of taste and, for me, these are in poor taste.

As a ex soldier who was unlucky enough to have to visit N Ireland, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other places on our many policing actions, i always saw more killed protesters/civilians Than combatants,Don't forget that the average terrorist does not wear combats or a nice ill fitting uniform but street cloths,so any one doing a dio of any modern day conflict will find these very useful indeed.it is just simply down to the modeler to decide were what when to use them.

And don't forget the bombers in Majorca as said to be led by 3 good lucking women.i can not see them running around in a uniform can you ?

When Pat posted this News Report, I just knew that it was going to create a stir...

Alfred summed it up for me:




Sorry, but I DO honestly believe that people are becoming a little hyper-sensitive. The reality of war has always been that civilians are victims (leaving the minefield of terrorists apart). It always has to be done sensitively, no one should try and shove it down anyone's throat but, IMO, it shouldn't be ignored either..

Use them or don't use them, but quite honestly, these aren't, IMO, particularly graphic or offensive. We can dress it up as much as we want, but the reality can't be ignored...

If the manufacture felt that there would be more people against it, than for it. Do you recon they would have released it. This brings me back to the question I posted about modelling wounded soldiers.

Whilst everyone has a right to express an opinion, I think anyone expressing 'distaste' on the topic of modelling "civilian casualties" really needs to ask why is a civilian life more valuable than a 'military' life...........or indeed some civilians more valued than others? Allow me to explain my own personal take on this matter.

As Hisham correctly pointed out, they could quite easily pass for insurgents / terrorists or 'freedom fighters' (dependant upon your politics and which side of the fence one stands!) by the simple expediency of placing beside them an AK or RPG 7. Or using some slight reworking of the clothes, why not WW2 French Resistance or Poles fighting in the Warsaw Uprising in WW2? Moving to more recent times, one could also use them to make a mini dio / vignette of, say, SAS storming a building or even a cut away airliner display of a hi-jacking special forces assault. That's what makes our hobby so versatile; the options and sheer choice of variety just by thinking slightly beyond the knee-jerk "O.M.G......dead civilians!" mindset.

Interestingly enough, a couple of years ago, Verlinden released some1/35 'dead' figures marketed as "Dead Iraqis / Taliban" or something along those lines (I bought a set for a Afghan dio)............and no one batted an eyebrow. I think as well some other firms have likewise modelled dead Taliban / Mujahadeen etc (MIG?) but I will stand corrected. Clearly dressed as being of Middle Eastern and Islamic appearance with the headscarves/Taliban style turbans (sorry I don't know the proper name) these Verlinden ones differed only in the fact that the new ones being discussed seem to be of Caucasian / European appearance.

So - why do we never have no fuss/debate over dead Middle Eastern / Arab "Civies" ....but disquiet about those of European appearance? Put them in a display as Hijackers or more recently such as 'Freedom Fighters' in, say, Chechneya - and what's the difference between that theatre of conflict and those in the Middle East / Afghanistan?

No one is advocating anything as distasteful as a Tiananmen Square Dio nor a Waffen SS "Einzatzgruppen" in Russia etc. when using these latest figures. Coupled to this, I am most certainly not standing on any PC soapbox. However and as mentioned previously, it seems quite apparant that some dead 'civies' - i.e. Middle Eastern / Arabic ones are more acceptable to modellers that others?

Let's leave PC and politics to the politicians and those who live their lives on a hair trigger looking for offence where none exists nor was ever intended. Bottom line, if you don't like the figures then don't buy them and ultimately market forces will dictate whether these figures are wanted by modellers or not.

Gary Needham

My initial post about these figures was made purely to gauge other modellers opinions about them. It certainly wasn't a 'knee jerk reaction' and at no point did I comment on the ethnicity of the figures which, as it happens, don't represent Europeans any more than any other nationality...the suggestion of the last poster that my comments are in some way racially sensitive are crass and ill-informed.
I stand by my comments, particularly in reference to the description as 'protestors'...since the figures are depicted as dead they have presumably been killed by the army, riot police or opposing faction that they are demonstrating against.
As the news footage from Iran, Gaza, China etc has shown, these protests...often perfectly legitimate...are commonly met with a disproportionate use of force.
My question is simply why would anyone want to depict that in a diorama?
I've already stated that the use of dead or wounded combatants can be tastefully and quite movingly portrayed. What I think is significant however is that none of the major injection manufacturers have ever felt the need to release such figures.
It would appear I'm in the minority here with my views so I'll leave it there.

Like Jim Rae says I knew when I posted the story that this would come up. I see nothing wrong with the figures. As it happens just after I put the story up I was watching a documentary about the 60s and there a lot of conflicts and events these figures would be suitable for




Why not Iain? Why is a dio showing Russian and German soldiers engaged in vicious hand to hand fighting any more acceptable than a dio showing a dead civilian. If as you say it's just a matter of taste then as my Latin teacher taught me "De gustibus non est disputandum" -there's no accounting for taste.






There are plenty of subjects that the major injection manufacturers have never felt the need to release (see the various wish lists posted on every modelling site) it doesn't mean there isn't a market for them.




Darren there is "no needc to show the effects of war at all in Dios but we do.



that's debatable but this isn't the place for it.




It's not the job of modelers or model producers to show the military of any nation in only a positive way. There are plenty of Civilian figures that could be used to depict Europeans recieving food aid from the back of a UN truck in Bosnia but I don't think anyone has made that dio yet.

It is a matter of taste and if people don't find them tasteful then don't buy them. If they see them in a dio at a modelling show they have a choice to just pass by or complain to the organizers.

True there are some graphic subjects that we wouldn't show on Armorama But no one has the right to say what people can or can't model.

Maybe the major manufacturers dont see it selling as well as German SS figures.
Sarcasm guys. Don't read into it too much.