The other night I was ready to wax rhapsodic about 1/35 figure kits. Assembling the soldiers was a breeze, cleaning mold lines with a blade was a delight (so easy with this plastic), and you can leave off bits and bobs that your Airfix and Marx figures don’t have if desired.
Of course, there are slight gaps at the joins that the more detail oriented would take the time to deal with but I am not that person and am not bothered by them.
In my joy-filled haze, I moved on to the Maxims next. How anyone can call this hobby relaxing is beyond me! Minuscule pieces lost, found, lost again (this time with glue on them), tiny little bits to be stuck perfectly in place with no support/hole/anything. Clearly these were created by a sadistic mind and dutifully, I masochistically went through the process.
The end result, however, was worth it in that I now have two proper Soviet HMG teams and for a reasonable price (dollar-wise, the jury is out on the cost of sanity).
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| One team and both guns. The nose of the gun on the right came from a broken resin kit I have as I lost the one included. |
Despite my frustration with the fiddly gun bits, I expect I’ll be turning to more 1/35 figure kits for some of the specialists that no one makes in 1/32 plastic.
Nicely done. I have found that multi-part figures provide the potential for customization that excels in small skirmish games that are most of what I do.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Reese. I have long wanted to do some kind of Desert Rats small skirmish gaming and I'm thinking the 1/35 figures might be the way to go for a nice variety of figures/poses. There is something refreshing about the hard plastic and their realistic proportions.
DeleteWell done for breaking on through to the other side and coming up with a splendid model.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Hopefully I remember the lessons learned this time when I go down this path again. One thing I learned for sure is to cut pieces from the sprue inside a container of some sort. Losing little bits immediately after freeing them from the sprue is too disheartening.
DeleteI recently built the Tamiya version. Like you I found it ‘fiddly but worthwhile’.
ReplyDeleteI have my eye on the Tamiya version with their Soviet AT kit - as a third pose - plus I could use another ATR team.
DeleteI've found that some of the bits I think are not needed on the kit-figures, can sometimes add some flair to regular plastic-figures, as they are often pretty basic. I originally tried this with a cheapo 1/72 scale Abrams. I had just assembled two kits, and left off some bits I thought added nothing to the final models. My son then came up with two somewhat-rubbery Abrams models drawn from toy soldier sets. They actually weren't really too bad as is, and looked pretty nifty after I added some of the spare bits--from a distance it's difficult to distinguish them from the kit-models.
ReplyDeleteHi Chris, that's a wonderful idea! Some of the Airfix and Marx poses have virtually nothing on them - like they got a uniform, helmet, and a gun at the depot and went charging off into war! I will have to do this myself if only to add a little variety for the eye.
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