Introduction

I don’t want to beat a dead horse here so if you are looking for a full review with photos and the like please check out Darren Baker’s excellent work from last month:

In-box Review

Thanks again Darren for your excellent review!

the build

I built up two of the figures from the set, the fellow sitting on the upper hull and the standing figure with hands in pockets. I’m always drawn to the figures with hands in pockets, no hands to paint and I think that is where I would have my hands on a cold winter day as well! I liked the look of the sitting figure mostly because on the excellent box art he looked a bit like one of those 5’5” fellows that seemed to make up so much of the tank crews that fought in Europe.

There was more than an ordinary amount of flash on the sample that I had, even though the clean up was easy it seemed odd for a brand new molding. The fit of each of the figures was adequate; I used a bit of Tamiya surface primer mixed with shavings (my homebrew figure filler recipe) to fill the gaps. I was sufficiently happy with the two figures at this point; neither had the head sculpt or helmet work done as yet.

When I moved onto the heads I did encounter a few issues. The first time that I attempted to add the five part tankers helmet to a head I encountered a bit of a problem. The fit of the helmet was more than a bit off, I shaved and sanded trying to get everything to fit but it was to no avail; the straps for the goggles were molded so thickly that the helmet ear cover piece wouldn’t fit properly. I thought about ditching the whole process and going with an aftermarket head, but that seemed to defeat the whole purpose of constructing a figure for review, so I stuck it out.

The second one, on the sitting figure went together better knowing that I needed to shave off the goggle strap. The standing figure ended up with somebody else’s head, I gave him the slouching figures soft cloth cap which worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. The addition of the goggles for both of the figures finished them off.

The painting was accomplished with an undercoat of LifeColor paint, a top coat of Vallejo as called out in the instructions. I used deeper Vallejo shades for the shadows, folds, and creases. Each of the figures had a decent amount of folds and creases which went a long way toward making each of the figures appear as if they are wearing clothing made of nice, heavy cloth. I would have liked to have seen more definition around the leather strapping areas, the next figure I build from the set I will make sure to clean out a bit more around these areas.

conclusion

You can probably do a better job of painting these guys up than I did, I just wanted to show that they can be put together but that it does require a bit of work. If you want some really top notch figures you probably will want to replace the heads, I agree completely with Darren on this in that the heads are a bit soft in detail and they all look like identical twins!

Like Darren I wish they had included a small set of decals for the division insignia, I had only one left from an old Verlinden set. Now I have to try and source one or put some dots of paint to suggest one on the sitting figure.