Introduction

MiniArt’s new German Sitting Civilians (38006) from the '30s-'40s is another one of the kits that is made with the diorama modeller in mind. This set is due for release this month let’s see if it is as good as it looks.

Contents

In the typical MiniArt style box of thin cardboard with openings either end and a nice art work on the front of the box. The back of the box doubles up by providing us with the instructions and colour profiles.
5 Light grey sprues of the same size with '3 of them on a sprig of plastic and '2 loose.
1 Small piece of paper which has some old newspapers and magazines for the use with the figures.

Review

MiniArt is producing some very nice kits that can be used for dioramas or for just adding realism to a build. A first look and I was a bit surprised at the amount of flash on some of the parts that said none of it is going to be difficult to deal with.

Starting off with the faces they all have different looks and also age defining sculpturing giving plenty of scope. The younger woman has a solemn look, and gives you the impression that either she had a bad start to the day, or you could be lead down the path of perhaps some agent worrying about her cover being blown. The face has a small tiny lobes that are just visible protruding from her hair , there is a slight mould seam around the head. The eyes look good slightly enlarged cheek on the right hand side of her face. Her hands are very petite and certainly lady like, she is wearing gloves in the profile picture for one of her hands and this does look like she wearing a glove, the second one does not. The coat that she is wearing has some fur on the collar and around the bottom of the arms which has been faithfully recreated. Another mould seam line down the sides of her torso will need some work not a lot though.

The middle aged lady wearing the head scarf has her left ear lobe slightly protruding but devoid on the right hand. The face of the lady is certainly different and has a very large cheek more so then on the first figure. There is some mould seams on the jacket that she is wearing but this is not going to be too hard to work on. The hands are not as well defined on these as I have found on other MiniArt kits certainly on the second female figure they look very small and no true definition of the fingers.

The first of the two male figures that I looked at is of an older guy, his face has some flash on it and a mould seam coming around the left ear, this is going to be quite tricky to deal with, without losing the shape of the ear. His moustache is big as it is in the picture of him the rest of the face is ok. The hands are better defined than those of the second lady figure, yet still not as good as other MiniArt figures that I have reviewed before. The torso has a well defined seam line around one side almost bordering on flash it is that large. The legs are very good and have all the creases in the correct looking areas. The peak cap is suffering with some minor flash, but otherwise is not too bad. The walking stick is of good overall shape and appearance.

The last lady is older than the rest, her face under magnification looks like a figure from the bad old days where you were overwhelmed with flash and flaws in the mould. Her right hand is misshapen and the thumb is out of scale and very large. Her torso is fairly good with very little work to do other than paint. The same can be said of the bottom half of her body with good legs and shoes.

The last figure is a younger guy who is holding a newspaper in his hands, his face looks so stressed and you have to wonder if again he is an agent! The face is suffering from mould seams and again it is in a difficult part of the head to rectifying it. The hat has some flash on it around the brim, though not too much to be a problem. The torso is excellent having good detail and minimal seam lines. The trousers are good, with the creases all in the right place for the pose of the figure. The arms are also good in detail, a bit of a niggle on the hand detail again, but overall not too bad.

Conclusion

I love most if not all of the MiniArt’s products and for detail I have found them to be very good, if anything I find them producing some of the better kits that come out now. However I cannot say this about these figures they are not the best I have seen from this company which actually makes me quite sad as usually I am looking forward to new releases from MiniArt. I really hope this is a blip and not the future of their kits.