I have just stared building the variuos components for my diorama. I have used a combination of Tamiya, Dragan and Academey kits. I made the german tank re-fuelling and ammo loading figure set first. later i have made a tamiya set and that when I noticed that the Acdemy 1/35th figures and much larger than the T amiya 1/35th figures. Scaled up there 6ft 7" tall. Has anyone else experienced this?

I can't say I've seen the scale difference that big. But it is quite common for different manufactures to be different general sizes.

It's usually ok to combine the figures. Not everyone is the same size in real life. It's important to keep the gear the same size though.

If you don't like the look you can try to position the figures farther apart or in different areas. That will reduce the visual affect.

I find most Tamiya figures too be undersized and scrawny looking. But as said above, people come in different sizes, figures should too. No problem mixing them.

Thanks for the reply and I agree with you but the difference here is like putting a 5ft girl next to a 7ft bodybuilder, whilst probably ok , but in a model context totally disproportionate.

Steve, I experienced the self same thing with those figures. Strangely, it only seems to be this one set, I've got some other Academy figure sets, & while they do seem to come out on the large side, they are usable, but not the tank refuelling set, they had to be condemned to the spares box. Shame as the poses & uniform are quite "alternative". IMHO they are 1/32nd scale or bigger!

The tank refueling set are definitely closer to 1/32 and fit quite well with Airfix multipose figures. Academy's other figures as Steve says are 1/35 but the quality is very hit and miss. The only set I have that comes close to DML or the newer Tamiya sets is the Battle of the Bulge set.
http://academy-europe.de/images/figures/1377bag.jpg

Yes there is a huge discrepancy in scale when you put both brands side by side. I find that Academy has a wider range of figures and would revert to getting most of my figures from Academy just to keep things consistent.

Mind you, some of the documentaries that i have seen, alot of the war veterans were pretty tall, one of which was 6ft 5inches so it wont be uncommon to have the occasional tall guy next to a 5ft 8inches soldier.

I also had these refueling figures and must say they are giants!!! I ended up using a set of DML assault gun figs and slightly changing the poses which seemed to work fine instead.

used mine to steal fuel from this Sherman. Stay away from the refuelers! cheers Kevin

Thats a nice Dio you have there Kevin. Quite accurate depiction of the war i thought.

Although i thought most allied soldiers blew their tanks up for the very reason that it wont be used by the germans.

Details aside, i really like it!

Maybe the Germans were attacking and the US tank crew choose to run to fight again instead of staying to blow up their tank after which they'd be killed or taken P.O.W.

Martin

I have most of Academys figures. The one that represenst a problem in size is the tank maintenance crew set. They are between 1/35 & 54 mm. Say like 1/33-34 something. But as some guys here say, every body size is different. I guess the maintenance crew just consumed more calories per day than their other comrades.

Seems to me that Tamiya and Academy are on opposite extremes... even though a while back there was a thread discussing that the size of Americans in WW2 were close to 5'6", which would put Tamiya closer to anamatomically correct. I think the different companies should figure out a average size for the figs as to avoid the "Mutt and Jeff" look........