I am a BIG fan of tamiya. 90% of all my armor builds are from tamiya. My problem is with there figures. Boy! do they stink!. I can see if the manufacturer includes them in there kits, that they lack detail. But when they sell them individual packaged kits, man! are they terrible! The faces really are bad. I just hate to buy hornet heads and then stuff them on top of the tamiya bodies. Thats more money that I should NOT be spending! Why cant tamiya put the same effort in detail to there figures, like they do with there armor kits? Just frustrated...

Old Tamiya figures are bad but the new ones are good. I'm building the British infantry on Patrol and the crew that come with the Churchill tank and they are great. The detail on the uniforms is better than the Dragon British or Commonwealth figures. I believe there are some other new Tamiya figures that are also good.

Also, the Tamiya 1/16 figs (especially the new ones) are brilliant. The faces are extremely detailed, right down to sculpted pupils in the eyes, individual teeth and a tongue! There still is some fit issues though, particularly with web kit.

I dunno, guys... I've not that long ago finished doing Tamiya's WWII US Infantry set, and I'm sort of slowly plodding along with the WWII US Gun and Mortar Team set, both in 1:35. I have to agree that the faces are not that great and that some of the moulding leaves something to be desired. Some of the torso edges are a little rough, which is no big deal with some sanding/filing. But the one that's really a pain in the butt, is where the gaiters meet the boots, and the gaiters themselves. I've had problems with a few of them having missing lines... where does the gaiter end?

It depends on what's readily available to you, but I've had DML (particularly Generation II), Masterbox, and MiniArt recommended to me (if you read the Opinion Poll thread back around April.) After availability, I guess we all sort of have to face the fact that we have to deal with a certain degree of flaws or inaccuracies.

Would I do Tamiya figures again? Yeah... aside from the (admittedly minor) flaws I've found, I have found them to be overall pretty good.

Lewis, the figure sets you are working on, fall into the old figure category. Not the best, but with a little work, and new heads look fine for fillers, certainly not a center piece or stand alone figure. Those sets are 20 plus years old now, and believe it or not, were the latest and greatest at one time.

Oh, wow! 20 years old? I NEED to get to a major center with hobby shops.....

Dave, yes, I do believe it. Even as old as they are, I find they're better than the Italeri sets I've worked with, and either a tie or just slightly behind the Trumpeter sets I've done. Like I said above.... LOL

As Dave has mentioned, most of the figures mentioned in this thread are really old .... and were the standard quality of the time (1970s). Thing is, they are still being sold ... (so they´re still being bought ).
But Tamiya have some excellent figures. The British figures are good, while needing things like hornet heads to bring them up to modern standards, but some of the figures released in the last 10 years were excellent. The "cold" figures released with the Wespe, or the tank crew with the late Tiger (to name two) are as good as what is on the market .. heads included.

Nice avatar Frank.

Yeah, Groovy Frank man, far out.

How can you tell which kits are new and the ones that are 20 years old??? The set that I have are the U.S. Western Europe theater infantry. They look like a cheap bag of army men. El crapo!

Those are pretty old. I remember building them when I was 12 or so in 1988 and still have a few on the sprue. Even then, they were already long in the tooth. If you look at the top corner of the sprue, under the Tamiya logo you can see the date of the original mold. In the case of this specific set, it's 1974 (I just looked at my box a second ago).

The only way I know of to tell whether they are old or new before you buy is to ask around (I don't think you can tell from the box).

Gad if Sean thinks Tamiya figures are bad he should see those things. Much as I like Italeri the first thing to do, maybe the 2nd after tossing the tracks, is to toss the figures.




Those are among the older ones, about the same era as the Gun and Motor team Lewis mentioned. The later US Assault Infantry is really pretty decent. Not up to DML Gen 2 standards, but what Gen 1 kit is?

yeah Tamiya's older men are horrible but they have definitely improved...Now as far as Zvezda Zvezda...

I appreciate your feedback. I will think twice about the tamiya. If there is no way of telling before you open the box, then Im staying far away from it.

Whoa, Sean, DUDE! Hang on, here, pal... after reading Lucas' post I reached down into my stash (I know, I know... sounds really bad!) and started looking at some of my figure sets. Now, the Tamiya definitely does not have a date on the box that I can see, but the Trumpeter, the Italeri, and the Italeri/Zvezda ( ) boxes all have copyright dates on them. (Dave, you really weren't kidding... the Mortar & Gun Set is 1976!)

Sean, if you want quality, I'd go along with the bulk of what I've read and have seen recommended, and try to go with the DML Gen2 if you can. I know I'll try to... but then again, it depends on what you want, and what your LHS can get for you. Oops... and the 'net! LOL! With the Tamiya, if it's what I want, for my own self, I'll bite the bullet and live with some filing and maybe puttying.

But then... I'm a story-teller, not a rivet-counter... at least until I do my "masterpiece..." (No offense to persons dedicated to historical accuracy intended!)

Hi

I think Tamiya older figures are great for trying out colours and when starting to paint faces.

I use to get four of five Tamiya figures and just practice painting head/flesh colours with them, they are also not bad for spares or for converting.

I also think they are great for kids to start on as you get them with the kits so they cost no extra.

Also if some of the great sculptors these days, now tried to do there figures 30 years ago when they were ten or so they probably wouldn't look that good either

Ryally

Not something I would recomend! As Frank has said, Tamiya do some excellent figures, and by simply ignoring them you could miss out on some nice kits.
Personally i'd group Tamiya figures into 3 catergories:

1. The first original figures Tamiya brought out ie. German army infantry (#35002) and U.S. army infantry (#35013)
These are no better than some toy figures as some are even 1-peice and are not 'multi-pose' in the slightest, these are the ones to avoid.

2. The middle of the road figures, such as #35048 U.S. Infantry (West European Theater) and #35061 German Panzer Grenadiers.
These are old figures that will require a bit of work and some careful painting but with a bit of love will still turn out well.

3. The more recent Tamiya figures, #35223 British Infantry On Patrol has been mentioned along with kits like #35192 U.S. Army Assault Infantry Set and #35196 German Front-Line Infantrymen. These may not be up to the high 'Gen 2' standard, but will easily match or beat most other figures in quality.

The hard part is knowing which catergory a figure set falls into. The easiest way is to post a thread here asking for opinions on a kit (although these are likely to differ!), or the best way is to simply 'get your eye in' and train yourself up with an age of a kit and how well moulded it is.
A browse over Tamiya's online catalouge shows that kits are listed in the order in which they are released, therefore kits on the later pages will be the best moulded, and the earlier kits best avoided/be prepared for a little more work.
There is however a lot of figure kits not listed on the site, as these are now OOP. A surefire way is to ask the hobby store clerk/owner as they should know their stuff and be able to point you in the right direction.

Hope this is of some use,

James

You can tell the age of Tamiya figure without opening the box - just look at the code number! Tamiya kits are all consecutively numbered, so the lower the number the older the kit. I recently purchased the German Observation set (again). Yep, they were pretty crude compared to the latest DML figures, but with a bit of care are perfectly adequate for "space-fillers" or crowd scenes. Since they tend to be cheap, they are also great for experimenting with figure conversions. They are in a completely different league to DML Generation 2 figures of course (I know, I've made several). But if you think they're bad, you should note that there are still people on ebay trying to sell the original Tamiya German Infantry set, they were junk when they were new - 4 shapeless blobs that could, if you were very drunk, be confused with German soldiers! The worst aspect of the older Tamiya sets is that in my opinion the dies are pretty worn, as there is more flash & softer detail than I remember. Some of the more recent Tamiya offerings are better. The FAMO crew don't need replacing by anything else in my opinion, & the more recent issue of the Gulash Kanone includes 4 very good figures with faces full of character. I'm quite partial to the German mechanics in the maintenance or "bombing up" sets, the German "Frontline Infantry (obviously SS), the Winter set in greatcoats, the "Field Briefing" & the Tank Crew too. The British Infantry likewise can be made into quite good figures if you ditch the horrible helmets & cut off the silly Mk 1 long bayonets. The point I'm trying to make is that there are superb resin & plastic figures out there, but if you are on a budget, & you pick your subjects carefully, Tamiya figures still have something to offer.

In addition to soft detail, older Tamiya figures (and even some recent ones) are scaled to average Japanese stature, so most of their 1970's figures are only 5'6" or 5'7" when you set them on a scale ruler. If you don't have a scale rule, bear in mind that in 1/35th scale, a 5'10" man is exactly two inches tall.
If you want to modify the height, use .020" sheet plastic shims at the waist and knees to make them taller.

Just as Steve said, the best way of telling how old a tamiya kit is the item number, either they start with 35 or have No. on them, an example being 35064 or No.064.
HTH

That said Gerald, it is probably not far off the average height of the '40s fighting man...


Good idea here mate. Will try it where needed!

This thread got me looking through my spares and I found a really old soft plastic Airfix figure of a Red Devil paratrooper I got about 20 years ago.

Well, some would argue that they haven't put a lot of effort into their armor kits for more than 10 years so it's a moot point.

What I will take issue with, is why the constant complaints about Tamiya figures anyway? I don't think there's a week goes by without one of the REALLY innovative (and therefore worth paying attention to ) figure manufacturers such as Masterbox or MiniArt announcing new releases...

Tamiya? Who them?

ROTFLMAO!!


Jim, I think it has to do with what's readily available... for me what's available is Tamiya, Italeri, and sometimes Trumpeter. Anything else I have to special order. So, I make the best of it... for now!

If anybody is interested, I have a small army of figures that I am going to be selling off here shortly. A mixture of Tamiya and Dragon, mostly Dragon. Once I get the details sorted out, I'll post the info. There are approximately 50+ boxes of them. Some are started, most are still as they were when they came of the stores shelves when I bought them. More info to follow------- and yes, some of the older Tamiya figures are pretty lacking "Q"