MiniArt Ltd have just updated us on one of their most interesting ''In-Progress'' sets: their 1/35th Scale Japanese Tank Crew.


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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Great set !
Maybe some of the figures don't look like that asiatic, like the one seated and the one on the left, but fortunately Hornet head could be of some help here.
Best,
Julien

Good point Julien. The one on the far right looks really good, but the other faces seem to have the wrong ethnic features. Perhaps the sculptor was trying to hard to bring out facial details? I have yet to see them painted, so perhaps they will look more appropriate under some skillful painting?

The bodys and clothing looks great. The Officer's face looks good,maybe also the seated one, hard to tell with the small pictures. The other three look like Yanks in fancy dress?

Sorry, but the kit faces may not be the round faces one perhaps might think of as Asian, but there is a wide variation in Japanese facial characteristics. That said, we could use a few wide blocky flat face heads, but as the photo of SMAP below shows, angular faces are not unknown in Japan, especially in modern day Japan.

http://bionicbong.com/entertainment/music/smaps-shanghai-concerts-danger-cancellation/

If you watch much Japanese TV or movies, you would be able to find people with those kind of faces.
Granted, western style faces have become more prominent in Japanese and Asian film and fashion and modern diet with more meat and milk has affected growth and development here in Japan, but you can WWII photos of Japanese looking like that.

Best wishes,
Grant

Thanks Grant . I stand corrected Cheers G

Hello,

Thanks Grant for these precisions on Japanese anatomical changes and variations. My comment was not racist, and I hope you didn't take it that way.
I was just noticing the fact that except the officer (that strangely makes a nazi salute), the other faces do not look like Japanese one in the opinion.
The third guy from the left, he looks like as if he did the full moon party during a whole week (have you seen the size of his eyelids ??? ). And his colleague on his right looks like a member of the regio esercito...
You know, it's like if they represent the french gran pa waiving its hand within the forthcoming set by a 1.90m meter figure full of muscle, whereas if you make it small, with a belly, and a red nose, and why not a mustache, you will immediately recognise it's a ww2 Frenchman (and there even are few left still today )
At that scale you must emphasis a lot anatomical characteristics.

But still this set looks awesome and is very welcomed.
Best,
Julien

Thank you for your comments, Geraint and Julian. I hope not to come across as correcting people but providing more information. Julian, I didn't think of it that way and also choose not to walk down that road. Standards of beauty in Japan has changed much in the last 50 years and could swing the other way just as quickly. If you happen to see Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog/Nora Inu, he does look a bit like the one sitting down and the second one from the left kind of has an anime face, which does favor westernish features.

I only know about these things as I tried to find figures to replicate some niseis from the 442nd RCT and had a heck of a time finding less common and more representative faces. Some look very much like native Americans with broad flat faces.

Best wishes,
Grant