Anyone know the quality of Mini Art figure
sets ?
My son wants to order from them and I was hoping
someone could tell me how they rate.
They seem to be the only people who make Russian
WW II figure sets. Unless anyone knows where or who
else makes Russian WW II figures for dio's.
Thanx
AM,
They're pretty good and worth a try. Here's a review I posted some
time ago about one of their sets.
Cookie Sewell * * *Kit Review: Miniart 1/35 Scale Kit No. 35017; Soviet Tank
Crew at Work; 37 parts in grey styrene; price about US$9
Advantages: nice, modern set of figures in casual poses =93doing
something=94 around a tank
Disadvantages: =93Not German=94
Rating: Highly Recommended
Recommendation: for all Soviet armor dioramists
For too many years the wealth of figures and figure sets produced
have been too closely focused on only WWII German subjects, which has
been very frustrating to the rest of the armor and figure community.
When the stray American, Russian or (heaven forbid!) Commonwealth set
came out, modelers would fall on it like a pack of hungry piranhas no
matter how good =96 or bad =96 it was.
Happily many of the newer manufacturers have seen this and now the
Chinese and Eastern European ones are filling the void, and with
good, high quality figures too. Miniart has begun with a pretty good
track record on figures, and now Soviet WWII modelers have been able
to get some decent figures to compliment the growing number of WWII
Soviet armored vehicles offered.
This set provides five Soviet tankers performing maintenance. Three
of the figures are posed as it operating a bore brush for the main
armament (which was usually carried in sections inside the longest of
the stowage bins =96 =93ZIP=94 in Russian for spares, tools and accessories
=96 on the fenders of nearly all combat vehicles. One bareheaded figure
is posing with a rag in hand and the commander is standing in a
relaxed position with his hands set to drape over an open hatch.
The one thing that I have noticed about the new Miniart figures is
that their facial sculpting yields to no one. The five heads in this
set are the equal of many of the after-market resin ones offered and
can be shown to have individual expressions and even ethnicity =96 one
tanker hear looks to be a Tadzhik (central Asian) with a shaven head
and it shows. The same goes for the other four.
Anyone with a good set of tank blueprints may want to have the man
with the rag working on cleaning out the tank=92s air cleaners, which
needed constant maintenance with a good cleaning by the crew every 3-4
hours (until 1951 when UVZ finally created a working design that
solved that problem.)
Finishing is provided similar to DML boxing with an assembly diagram
and color directions on the back of the box. Interior directions
provide a handy sketch of where the parts for each figure are located
on the sprue.
Overall, this is a great set and one that any diorama modeler would
be able to find good use for with a T-34 or IS tank or other 1943 and
later armored vehicle.
If I recall some of their building kits come with vacuform parts which
is something I did not expect, nor want. So check on that if you
don't want to work in that medium.
Craig
not even glass? i am not a vac fan either, but the glass can be awesome. vac
canpies and carefull filling can make the monogram do 335 look really good.
same with the airfix sunderland. carefull sanding, rescribing and new glass
can make it look much better. i would love a good 1/48 scale sunderland but i
think i dream alone on this one.
there are some great youtube vids of flying models. just google them or
youtube search. one that i saw would fool a movie audience easily.,
Shalom.
There are a lot of manufacturers of styrene Russian figures besides
Mini-Art.
Master Box makes some really nice Russian figures. Some of them come
in pairs with a pair of German figures opposing them. The on-line
Master Box catalogue is here:
formatting link
Check out these sets, Russian tankmen, 1943-1944 /3535/ scale
1:35 =3D
formatting link
"Bail Out!" Russian Tank Crew,
Kursk, July 1943 /3532/ scale 1:35 =3D
They also have another set
of Russian figures in progress that should be ready soon Who's
that ? /3571/ scale 1:35 =3D
formatting link
I have a few of these Master Box figure set as well as a few others
and I like them very much. They are crisply and finely moulded and
have excellent detail especially the faces.
Besides Mini-Art and Master Box other makers or Russian figures such
as Dragon, ICM, Italeri, Tamiya, Tristar, Trumpeter and Zvezda also
all have at least one set of Russian figures or Russian equipment that
comes with figures too.
Examples:
DML6019 - DML/Dragon Soviet Motor Rifle Troops (Berlin 1945)
DML6068 - DML/Dragon Red Army Scouts & Snipers Figure Set
DML6197 - DML/Dragon Soviet Infantry Tank Riders
DML6376 - Dragon 1/35 Gen2 Soviet Guards Infantry 1944-45
ICM35131 - ICM Russian Artillery 'Battle of Kursk, 1943'
Italeri 347 Soviet Assault Troops WW2
TM35021 - Tamiya Russian GAZ-67B Field Car
35022 TAMIYA RUSSIAN ARMY INFANTRY 1/35
35149 TAMIYA RUSSIAN T34/76 "CHTZ" VERSION 1/35 this comes with a
wheeled Russian machine gun and 2 infantry figures too.
35207 Russian Assault Infantry
35214 TAMIYA RUSSIAN ARMY TANK CREW AT REST 1/35
TRI35012 Soviet Tank Crew
TR00411 - Trumpeter 1/35 Soviet Tank Ammo Supply Crew
TR00412 - Trumpeter 1/35 WWII Soviet Red Army on Maneuver
TR00413 - Trumpeter 1/35 WWII Soviet Red Army at Rest
TR00414 - Trumpeter 1/35 Soviet Assault Red Army w/ Winter Gear
ZV3504 - Zvezda Soviet WWII Tank Crew and Officer
ZV3505 - Zvezda Russian ZiS-3 Anti-Tank Gun
ZV3579 Cossacks With Horses
ZV3544 - Zvezda Soviet WWII Tank Infantry
Those are just the ones I can come up with at the moment.
Cheers from Peter
Frontier Fighting, =A0Summer 1941, hand
info/3524.htm,
the Bail Out Russian tank crew set is one I built last night. Great
fit for everything. Remember the days when a hand was sort of close
to the rifle, but the soldier was supposedly firing it? Masterbox
figures are great. All the hands rest where they are supposed to.
Cranked out the 5 figure set in less than an hour.
Buy them with no regrets.
Craig
Thanx everyone for the input.
My kid now has 13 kit's/sets of figures on the way
from Scale Hobbiest (great online ship BTW !!)
All Mini Art sets.
I'm going to start in on the SU 76M next week.
Theres going to be a diorama full of dead Russians
in the works for the next year or so here..........
(kid has this idea for an ambushed Russian convoy)
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