Introduction

Arkebuza Model Art is a model company from Ukraine. After producing a selection of printed accessories in 1/35 scale, Andrij Zhabadinskij, the owner of Arkebuza, decided to expand their portfolio and venture into 1/35 scale resin figure business. The company hired talented Pavel Sapotsky to sculpt their first figure releases: a pair of modern British soldiers serving in current conflicts.

This is a review of Modern British Soldier #2, Afghanistan 2010 (AR35026).

Review

The figure kit arrived safely packed in a hard plastic box, additionally secured within several layers of bubble-wrap. The kit box features an extremely professional box art image: it displays not only the assembled figure in three different views (front, left and right side) but shows all the kit pieces separately as well. The box art also lists the company, scale, item ID and figure sculptor... it is definitely one of the most informative box art images I have seen so far; a big plus in my book.

The resin pieces are packed inside zip-lock bags. This figure consists of 8 parts and a simple resin base:

- full body with head and legs,
- right arm,
- left arm,
- helmet,
- weapon and weapon accessories (4x).

Upon closer inspection, the figure parts look really good. Molded in grey resin, the parts are clean of casting imperfections. I did find a seam line along the right leg of the figure which needs to be cleaned carefully, in order not to ruin the detail on the folds of the uniform. Also, be patient when removing the weapon and weapon accessories from their carrier block as those are extremely delicate pieces of resin.

The fit of the parts is really good. Both arms feature protrusions which aid in their positioning on the torso. I would suggest aligning the right arm, fixing the right hand with the weapon and finally adding the left arm holding the tactical grip of the weapon. This way the weapon can be adjusted to fit perfectly to the figure depicting the soldier aiming through the optical sight. After aligning all the parts, I needed to do some putty work to fill the small gaps between arms and torso. Nothing major, though, just a quick fix to get a perfect result.

As with their first figure release, the figure represents a British soldier in Afghanistan. The figure is depicted in a shooting pose, providing fire support for his team members. The figure wears Combat Soldier 95 trousers and Under Body-Armor Combat Shirt (UBACS). Over the uniform, the figure wears Osprey Mk2 modular body armor system, incorporating a front and rear soft armor panel. Osprey Mk2 features PALS webbing which allows modular attachment of pouches and accessories. This figure sports a loadout consisting of two ammo pouches and a small GPS/radio pouch on the front, two utility pouches on each body armor vest side, and an assault pack flashing an Union Jack patch on his back. All these are cast directly on the Osprey armor. On his head, the figure wears a Mk6 helmet and on his feet the new British desert boots.
The figure is armed with L85A2, an upgraded variant of the SA80 bullpup assault rifle family. The L85A2 supplied with this figure features a forward picatinny rail system, ACOG scope, forward Grip pod and Laser Light Module 01 (LLM01).

The sculptor did a really good job on this figure. The anatomy of the figure is perfect and, as far as I can tell, all the details on the uniform and body armor are accurate and sculpted to the highest standard. However, in my opinion, the best thing about this figure is the pose… I have seen number of figures depicted “in action”, firing their weapons, but very few of those are shown with firm grip of the weapon and actually using optical elements for aiming. In contrast, the posture of this figure looks very realistic with the weapon very close to figure’s face and aligned with its eyes. Congrats to guys at Arkebuza, you have done an excellent job!

Conclusion

After reviewing their first figure, I knew what to expect from Arkebuza Model Art: a top-class product. And this figure definitely met my expectations. The figure is sculpted to perfection, well cast and fairly easy to build. The details on the uniform and equipment are great; the webbing on the Osprey armor, the assault pack with tiny but well defined Union Jack flash, new style desert boots... all these look very nice with many fine-points superbly executed in scale.

My thanks to Andrij from Arkebuza Model Art for this review sample.