Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Some figures from small manufacturers

I was debating whether or not to write up one final post for 2019, and decided not to be lazy and just do a quick write up on some resin figures that I recently got in the mail.

The first pair of figures comes from Modern Armies in Miniatures. MAiM is a German company that produces it's own line of WWWII figures under the Front46 brand name. The figures are 3D printed and come in a number of different scales. Four sets are made in 1/72 scale (two of which for some reason are scarecrows). The other two are female support crew.


The figure in the plastic blister comes with the scaffolding still attached.



The second figure comes in a box filled with paper to protect the figure. I'm guessing the box is one-size-fits-all for all their products. They have a "No Recasting" warning on the box, which I've never seen a miniatures manufacturer use before.


Their website also warns that if the figure did not come in the original box, that it may be possible that the figure is a bootleg.


The figure that came in the box did not come with the scaffold, but if you look closely, you can see small divots at the attachment points which look similar to bubbles in cast resin, and may require adding filler to smooth out.

For the figure still on the scaffolding, I used a sprue cutter to detach the figure. Unfortunately, the clipboard and wrists on the figure are super thin, and ended up breaking away. As you can imagine, one of the hands promptly disappeared into the carpet never to be seen again.


So is the figure a low quality bootleg because it didn't come in a MAiM box? My guess is that it's probably one of their original releases. I'm sure that so many people were complaining about issues with breakage that they decided to just do the scaffold removal part on their end in their later releases.

The gray figure with the missing hand is the Mechanic with Clipboard (MAIM72003), while the black figure which is hard to see details on is the Mechanic with Wrench (MAIM72004).


I find the figures proportioned very much like Preiser model train figures. They're scale accurate, but seem off because their heads look too small. It might be hypocritical since I complain about the appearance of chunky figures with heads and hands that are too big, but directly scaling down digital models to 1/72 doesn't sit quite right with me either.

Next up are some figures from Paracel Miniatures, a family run business out of Vietnam. I actually had never heard of them before, but they have apparently been around since 2015.

They produce various resin figures in different scales, and have four sets in their 1/72 Mini Series.



The set that I bought was the NVA Tank Crew (MINI7201).


The set comes with one half figure, one three quarters figure, and one full figure, along with various bits of stowage for a T-54B. The resin is firm, but not brittle.


The figures are well sculpted, although I think they are probably on the tall side for T-54 tank crew. I'll probably pick up their other sets at some point in the future.

The final set is the High School Girl Part 2 Set (Troops & Peoples 1-72-006) from Kami de Korokoro that I picked up at WonFes (as mentioned in my last post).


The set comes with two figures, each with a choice of two different arm poses.


I used the arms that I thought made the figures look closest to the packaging illustration, but they are not an exact match.


The resin is decent, but the feet of the figures are not fully cast, and will require some sculpting to fix. I'm going to have to buy another one of these sets to build the figures using the alternate arms.

Anyway, that's it for 2019, and Happy New Year!


5 comments:

Uwe said...

A very interesting posts who shows what manufactors are around. Often very exotic subjects:-)

Thanks for showing all these figures over the years, it is always interesting to see your finds.

I wish you all the best for 2020, continue your good work!!

EY said...

Thank you Uwe!

NextLevelBelly said...

thanks for those informations!! I didn't lnow those manufacturers

By the way: Do you already know, that Elhiem has a crowdfunding for 1/72 fantasy miniatures online?
https://www.elhiem.co.uk/ourshop/prod_6988667-VOTE053-Fantasy-RPG-PHASE-1.html

Just £18 left to get it funded

As we play D&D in 1/72 scale, I think it's awesome to get some more classic fantasy party miniatures in 1/72 (20mm)!

EY said...

Thanks for the info NextLevelBelly. I haven't been over at the Elhiem site in quite some time, and didn't know they were doing this. I'm definitely willing to throw in £1 or £2 for this to happen. I wonder if Matt would be interested in producing sculpts sent in by other people...

NextLevelBelly said...

Oh, would be nice when Matt of Elhiem would also produce other people's sculps!

I really like the "Condottieri" of Elhiem (Renaissance category). lot's of the Pulp/Horror stuff and already use them for RPG. More fantasy stuff for role-playing games would be awesome :D