Hello - new to this sub forum as I'm starting to work on my figure painting for my armor.

I absolutely love the quality and minimal parts assembly of Model Victoria Italian North Africa figs and wondered, from the experts, who is making the best quality & most realistically proportioned/expressions in 1/35 these days?

I've dabbled with a few Verlinden in the past but thought the look of the DAK soldier was odd, just strange looking.

Thanks for any ideas ---- and I typically do WW2 but would like to hear about Modern & WW1 even as well.

Thanks

Alpine makes some pretty nice resin figures in 1:35 Some of the plastic producers (Miniart, Masterbox) make some pretty nice and very close to resin detail. Of course Hornet still (IMHO) makes the best heads to be used on either plastic or resin figures.
There are actually quite a few Russian manufacturers making really nice resin figures also...Stalingrad figures comes to mind.
Cheers,
C.

The best 1/35 figures these days are 3D scanned and printed.

* Legend Productions of South Korea
* Assault Models of Russia
* Modern Armies in Miniatures of Germany
* Industria Mechanika for Sci-Fi

Traditional sculpting still exists and the best ones that modelers believe in are:

* Evolution Models of Russia
* Stalingrad Models of Russia
* Bravo-6 of Russia
* SOL Models of South Korea
* Airborne Miniatures of Poland
* Northstar Models for Sci-Fi
* Alpine Miniatures already mentioned

All are reputable companies.

And always consider using Hornet heads for their varied range of available expressions...

Great info guys - awesome

I've always been wary of the eyes and even grabbed a few sets of Archer 1/35 pupils. I read somewhere they can tend to look like doll eyes

My armor modeling is improving but want to balance it by advancing my "people skills"

Do you guys know what I'm saying about some of the Verlinden stuff? The proportions are strange

I've read multiple times somewhere (probably here) that Verlinden scaled closer to 1/32nd than 1/35th. Keeping in mind that in the 80's he was pretty much the only game in town. I'm thinking that the Verlinden figures that are available now come from those 1980's molds. The plastic figs at the time were pretty bad. So his were a step up IMHO.
Here's a couple of more top notch figure companies....
Jeff Shiu has started a 1/35th line. His bread & butter are 1/16th German figs, really nice. I'm betting that his 1/35th are good.
Andrea has also started a WWII figure line. They've taken a subject and created it in all the popular scales. I have no personal knowledge of the figures but painted up they sure look nice.
Glad to read that you are working hard to improve your modeling and figure skills. Keep up the good work !

A couple of pointers regarding "eyes" as far as the "smaller scales", such as 1/72-54mm (54mm is roughly 1/32-1/30 scale)...

You can avoid that "pop-eyed" look by DE-EMPHASIZING the representation of your basic Mk.I Human Eyeball.

First and foremost, I NEVER, EVER paint my figures' eyeballs WHITE- I started painting my figures "properly" way back in 1972, and I learned by emulating the "pros" such as the late, great Shep Paine, Bill Horan and some other very fine modelers and figure painters.

The thing to keep in mind is that people, when they are outside in the daytime, will tend to squint a bit. Also, if you will take the time to look in a mirror, take note that the human eyeball isn't really WHITE. Besides the iris, (the "colored" part of the eye) and the pupil, (the black "dot" in the center pf the iris), take note that the sclera, which is the "white" part of the eye, will display tiny red veins, and at each corner of the eye, there is a "pinkish" area, which is muscle-tissue. Reduce those details down to your 1/35 scale figure, and the "white" of the eyeball takes on A LIGHT FLESH-TONED aspect. This is where many modelers make the mistake of painting the sclera of the eye WHITE, and the biggest "secret" in painting smaller-scale eyeballs is NOT TO.

Save your money and don't bother with "eyeball" decals- You won't be satisfied with the results...

Instead, just paint your figure's face in a BASE COAT of your "flesh" color, and then just use a Dark Brown color to more or less "draw" a very fine vertical line of this Dark Brown to represent your figure's irises and pupils. Keeping in mind about humans "squinting" in sunlight, I will then paint my figure's "eyelids" a bit narrower than what is commonly done when I'm at this point in my personal figure-painting process. I then go on to paint the "shadow-effects" in my figure's eye sockets- Do that, and your figure's face will automatically start to look like a miniature human being's and not just like a lump of plastic or resin. Not to worry, these shadows will be "blended-in" to the rest of the variegated "flesh-tones" of your figure's face. It takes some time, practice and experience, but in the end you'll find that figure-painting may possibly become the real key in successfully completing any modeling project that you may choose to undertake...

There is an article posted on this site that deals with "Painting A Face In 20 Minutes", which in my opinion, is vastly abbreviated in comparison to the ACTUAL process. I will generally spend A COUPLE OF HOURS OR MORE on properly painting a face, depending on the scale of the figure- It stands to reason that a 120mm scale figure's face will take longer to paint than one in 1/48 scale.

If you're looking for really great advice on figure-painting, my own personal recommendation for face-painting would be for you to obtain a copy of master figure-painter "Bill Horan's MILITARY MODELLING MASTERCLASS" book from Windrow & Greene Publishing. Ebay or Amazon are easy sources for this book. In this book, you will not only learn how to properly paint your figures, but also how to scratch-build, convert, re-sculpt and super-detail them.

Personally speaking, figure-painting is one of my very favorite and rewarding aspects in my scale-modeling activities. Though my first love is 1/48 scale aircraft, adding a figure, or a whole crew of figures to the display of any aircraft in that scale, opens up the dimension of scale, AND adds a bit of "human interest" to a vignette or diorama... THAT, works in ANY scale...

Good Luck...

Absolutely and that makes sense coming from the older molds. Totally acceptable, but boy are the Model Victoria figures nice.

Does anyone know if those are "private labeled " for them by someone? I'd love to find out.

Thanks for the encouragement - I'm going more off the deep end every model The more you see improvement, the more you want to improve.

Thanks Dennis - I;m going to look up that book on Amazon now.

I agree on the no white, even I wouldn't do that I have a few of these model victoria figures buily, primed and was going to just work on using light washes to darken around the eyes, mouth. Since it's a Semovente in NA, I supposed the squinting will be more so
than a cloudy day in Leningrad.

I've also read others using lines on the eyes or even just black dots. One of my summer 2018 issues of MMI had an article with putting two white dots on either side the pupil on a transplanted hornet head. Looks a little strange.

I'm going to redo plenty and really put the time in because I'm not ruining the progress on my weathering, resin, PE with average figs --- It's got to be even I've got some catching up

Agree with not painting the whites of the eyes. Next time you are out and about take note of how close to someone you actually have to be to see the whites. You now also understand the reason for the famous order given on Bunker(Breeds)Hill.

Would like to add a couple of companies to the list:

Scale 75 - the bodies are a little large but they look very realistic
Hobby Fan - harder to find but assembly is very easy and on par with alpine. The realism is hit and miss, but for example the 88 crew firing on the move is superb
Verlinden - yeah 1/32 scale
Tank (TAHK) - on par with Stalingrad and Evolution

Hope that helps

I second TAHK for quality and the more natural poses. Also Live Resin has some modern figures that are really nice. I think 3D scanned and printed figures from Reedoak are world class available in any scale as they are printed from a digital file. Note here
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/235626&ord=&page=6 Enjoy!

Scale 75, Alpine and Hornet headsets are my go to. A lot of injection figures have fine molding on the uniforms, etc. I mostly just replace the heads. I agree that Verlinden figures are too large. They would have been fine with the Monogram 1/32 Armor that came out in the '70s and'80s. Lately I've been buying resin figures for my WWI 1/35 scale Armor.

I haven't used many VERLINDEN figures because they do tend to be a little bit large for 1/35 scale. Unless you want to convey an image that the figure is supposed to be a HUGE burly guy, of which many AMERICANS are, then I think that one can get away with it. Tankers & Artillerymen qualify, IMO. Engineers, qualify to some extent, too. Then, you have US MARINES, US NAVY SEALS, US ARMY RANGERS and GREEN BERETS, NONE of whom you would want to get into a "tussle" with!

I replace nearly ALL of my 1/35 plastic figures' heads, (and quite a few resin ones, too!), with HORNET or ALPINE HEADS. I prefer HORNET Head sets because of the very wide range of facial features and EXPRESSIONS that many of HORNET'S Head sets feature on their faces. You get 5 different heads in each set, and HORNET's Head sets are really the way to fly, as far as I'm concerned. The other figure manufacturers, ALPINE included, (unfortunately), tend to sculpt their figures' facial features as if EVERY SINGLE SUBJECT came right out of Hollywood's "He-man Hero" casting department. I'd like to see a bit more "emotion" in ALPINE's heads. The over-abundance of "perfect Hollywood-type faces" that are cast/molded by most manufacturers is just not realistic, to put it mildly. The same goes for ANY female figurines- NONE of them possess, for instance, a "less-than-beautifully perfect" figure or face, unless the subject is supposed to be a poor Russian "Babushka" on the Eastern Front, somewhere.

How many of you modelers out there know very many guys, or women that look like they could be Hollywood Movie Stars? Uh-huh, that's what I thought...

I for one, am sick of seeing plastic and resin figures who look like they are in perfect physical shape underneath their Uniforms, or if they are civilians, underneath their clothes. (No, I am not a "weirdo")

Yes, there are exceptions to the rules, of course. The same goes for these figures' faces. People come in all different shapes and sizes; underweight, overweight, medium, short, tall, you name it. And faces? I am sick to death of seeing 1/35 WWII German Army or SS ALL looking like they were hand-picked for the very latest "SIGNAL" NAZI Propaganda magazine. The same goes for figures that are meant to represent other Nations- The vast majority of men and women in the various Military organizations of the world DO NOT look like they ALL came out of Hollywood's Central Casting. The only time that you see "perfect" people in the Military is people that were hand-picked for carefully-orchestrated "publicity photo or film shoots"...

What I REALLY miss is the series of WARRIORS and CUSTOM DIORAMICS Head sets, ESPECIALLY their WWII US Head sets, which were marketed through VLS, now defunct for a number of years. Once in a great while you may find a set of WARRIORS WWII US Heads on Ebay, but they are very rare indeed. Fortunately for me, I bought a lot of 1/35 WARRIORS WWII US Heads for my own personal stock- I only wish that I had bought more of them... WARRIOR Heads also came with different facial expressions, which is another reason why I like them.

Another thing- All too many figures' "masters" are still sculpted and subsequently molded/casted in altogether awkward poses; many of them look just too plain "STIFF". The book by Bill Horan that I mentioned in my previous post explains just how to alleviate this "stiff" look in your figure-modeling. This is just another reason WHY I can't promote this particular book enough. It's a real "go-to" reference for figure-modelers!

Today, if I need a head with a special facial expression, HORNET is my "go-to" source. Fear, anger, pain, happiness, surprise, laughing, crying, exhaustion, eating, drinking, sleeping and/or conveying the impression of death, the various ethnic characteristics in human faces, whatever your needs, HORNET seems to run the gamut in any kind of a face that you may want for virtually any figure-modeling project. The only things that they, (HORNET), haven't done is faces and heads which have suffered catastrophic trauma, which is something that I really don't wish to see them do- I just think that that would be in bad taste, but that's just me. I like to model my figurines in more "benign" settings, rather than doing really bizarre and gory "action" poses. IMO, let's leave the blood, guts and gore in the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan"...

Questions, opinions? All are WELCOME..!