introduction

Alpine Miniatures owned by Taesung Harmms hails from New Jersey in the USA, and is dedicated to producing high quality figures. This figure, number 35040 is of a Russian Tank crewman and is approximately the 40th 1/35th scale figure set to be released.

the figure

The figure arrived in the trademark Alpine Miniatures transparent box. I usually don't go on about the packaging, but in this case I think it's justified since it's so atypical of figure manufacturers packaging. It's strong.......... you won't see any damage to figures shipped from Alpine Miniatures, and it's transparent, so you can see exactly what it is you're getting.

A really nice touch with these figures is the choice of heads, which is something Alpine do with all their figures. If a choice of headgear isn't possible because of the figure being modelled, then a choice of expressions is given. Nice. The figure is in a pale grey resin that's exceptionally nice to work with, neither too soft or, as if often the case, too hard. The figure is supplied as one main casting, two separate heads as mentioned, and a separate pistol holster. The main figure had the pouring block thoughtfully removed, leaving only two small pieces of residue on the sole of each foot which were easily removed with a scalpel blade.

The pouring blocks on each arm were also easily removed, and the residue that remained was easily removed, and moreso it was easy to see exactly how much had to be removed, which is not always the case with resin figures. There was a small block attached to the holster which was just as easily removed.

The two heads that were included in this set bore an obvious resemblance, but were wearing different headgear, one wearing the padded tank helmet, the other wearing a field cap. the one wearing the padded headgear had the poring block attached to the top of the headgear, now although this was easily removed, I would have liked to have seen it arranged as per the one with the field cap, i.e. below the neck. Perhaps though, this would have meant difficulty in casting the detail?

The figure is wearing typical tankers gear of double-breasted jacket with two breast pockets and two waist pockets, and a Sam Browne type belt, although I must admit to not knowing what the Russian equivalent of this is? The trousers have one leg pocket and inverted V knee seams. The figure is also wearing gloves. Although there was a tiny amount of flash on part of the inside right leg of the figure, it was minimal and easy to remove. Seam lines were almost non-existent. Once all the pouring blocks had been removed, the parts fir easily into place, and almost no filler will be required, especially if super glue is used to assemble the parts. The fit of the holster for example is perfect, with a small rectangular block on the rear slipping exactly into place, locating the part perfectly.

in conclusion

I must admit to having a drawer full of resin figures, none of which were Alpine miniatures.......... until now that is. I plan on getting more! The sculpting and quality of moulding is far above anything I've seen so far. A very high quality figure indeed. Highly recommended.