Introduction

Private Military Contractors (“PMCs”) have played a vital defensive service role in the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by protecting diplomats, VIPs, important assets, and allied personnel. In fact, the two wars employed more “bodyguard” PMCs than previous wars, freeing up soldiers, Special Forces, and Military Police for more offensive and important dynamic missions on the Front Lines than mundane daily guard duties behind enemy lines. PMCs often volunteer from former police or military ranks, and many have Special Forces training or served in the Armed Forces, and thus are quite skilled in VIP protection and defensive tactics and operations already. Often defensive in nature due to their “bodyguard” roles, PMCs do not go out and hunt for targets on missions as conventional soldiers and Special Forces do. As such, PMCs do not quite carry the weapons, gear, and uniforms worn by soldiers, but instead use a mismatch of customized weapons and military and civilian clothing for their guarding roles.

Contents

Sealed in two clear plastic baggies, the Corsar Rex kit comes in the following light gray resin parts:

• One-piece standing body complete with beret, head, legs, torso, vest pouches, left arm, and shoes molded on.
• One-piece M-4 Close Quarters Battle carbine with short barrel and 30-round magazine, barrel hand guards, Reflex Sight, and Crane butt stock.
• M9 pistol in plastic holster
• Bent right arm with fist holding—something.

Review

I am a huge proponent and fan of the one-piece casting technique done these days. While some figure modelers may be disappointed that there are not many pieces to fit and build, I believe that having the vest pouches, shoes, head, hat, and torso cast as one piece helps alleviate fit and alignment issues. While this hinders kit bashing possibilities of swapping gear and using spare limbs to customize poses, I find that one-piece casts where the figure is practically constructed already from head to toe prevents any construction problems and allows the figure modeler to jump right into what I consider the best and fun part of figure modeling—painting.

Corsar Rex has made a wonderfully crisp cast figure of a modern topic. The shades, facial hair, fine lines on the windbreaker coat, and soft wrinkles on the jeans all look nice and clean. The sculptor is actually Travlanskly Sergey (Menelay)—a very well respected and admired sculptor—and his fine work shows. The figure appears “beefy” and the facial features and beard and heart-shaped head give this PMC an older “seasoned” appearance, an operator who has experience and accomplished many missions before. The large ears also help portray this figure as not the age of a teenager. Due to its generic appearance, this figure could also represent a domestic Special Forces, Foreign Intelligence Services or Foreign Special Forces operator, or even a rebel, foreign military thug, or a hired henchman. This figure could also represent a bodyguard, Game Warden, Police Tactical, or other paramilitary units with a new (sold separately) head. The carbine and pistol are separate and have no hands molded onto them so they could be swapped out with other 1/35 weapons to customize this figure, be it an AK-47, AKM, AK-74, Uzi, FN-FAL, G3, MP5, G36, etc. since the carbine hangs across the figure via a strap (not included).

This “defensive” PMC figure is dressed in a zipped-up windbreaker with collar flaps folded down, jeans with two back pockets, the left one filled with a box of some sort, a turtleneck, a vest harness with four double 30-round magazine pouches (240 stowed rounds) that has straps crisscrossed in the back, two smaller vertical side pouches flanking the vest pouches (probably pistol magazine pouches), a soft elastic beret, shades, a pistol thigh harness, and sneakers with mesh on the sides. Mobile and lightly-equipped, the PMC only carries ammunition and weapons for close encounters and lacks the First Aid, water, grenades, gas mask, web belt, and equipment pouches often found on soldiers and Special Forces figures. The vest pouches are held on with nice SNAP-FAST buckles, rendered in nice detail.

The left arm is slightly bent and the left hand rests partially inside the left front jeans pocket with only the fingers hidden. A neat feature is the left thumb sticking out of the pocket, a classic pose that many men often emulate. The right arm bends upward and the right hand forms a fist clutching something that looks like a pen or cigar…I can’t really tell.

Cast in gray resin, the quality of the piece appears superb with no runs, warping, sink holes, or errors. Details are finely cast with subtle wrinkles on the windbreaker and deeper creases on the jeans. The figure scales well compared to other 1/35th scale figures in my collection. The same applies to the M4 CQB carbine and pistol. The jeans has fine stitching and seam lines whereas the windbreaker has reinforced areas at the elbows and front with the bottom tucked into the jeans.

Conclusion

Corsar Rex 1/35th scale PMC ranks as one of the top modern PMC resin figures on the market today. The admirable sculpting talents of Travlanskly Sergey (Menelay) show well with this figure and the figure’s attire of jeans, mesh shoes, soft beret hat, shades, and windbreaker makes this kit unique. With additional separate resin accessories, the figure modeler could kit bash to modify this figure to represent a wide range of Special Forces, Intelligence, or civilian units.