1/35 WW2 Russian Tank Crew Figures

[Rumblestripe]

Santa has been a bit over generous (I can't remember being particularly good either!) I have received two Zvezda 1/35 tanks. To whit a T34/76 and an SU-122 assault gun. To accompany and augment them I would like to get some appropriate and preferably characterful tank crew figures. I'm not a fan of Tamiya figures, they often appear a bit small, weedy and bland. A quick search has shown several possibles; Hobby Boss, MiniArt, Meng and ICM. I'd probably like a couple of "Tank Riders" too. 

[Ade H]

All of those companies would almost certainly only produce injection-molded figures. Meh. I can recommend Evolution and Stalingrad, to name just two.

[Rumblestripe]

1/35 is not a scale I am familiar with. Santa was out of stock of Russian armour in 1/72 so he went big!

 

1/35 is an odd scale why did it deviate from 1/32? That is the scale for 54mm figures though I guess that you could use them as "big fellows" as humans come in different sizes except tankers tend not to be "big chaps" because simply, they won't fit. And I believe this is particularly true of Russian armour? I know from standing alongside a T34 and a Sherman at IWM I was struck by how small the T34 was. At 6'2" there was no way I was fitting in it!

 

Those two outfits look to produce some interesting and characterful models, their websites are pretty poorly organised though!

 

Any more suggestions?

[Ade H]

More?! Those two alone probably account for more Soviet releases than most other figure producers combined. OK... Try this lot. I've filtered the options down to reflect my recommendations, but you can play with them to find even more.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Ade H

[Kingsman]

Tank (Tahk in Cyrillic) do a lot of resin Russian figures in 1/35 including tank crew and tank riders.

 

You could do worse than look at Miniart's plastic figure sets.  They have at least 3 sets of WW2-era Russian tank crew in various uniforms and poses plus a couple of sets of tank riders.

 

WARNING - if you are looking for resin figures on eBay from Stalingrad etc then beware that there are any number of illegal Chinese-origin copies on there, often even using the manufacturer's original artwork with the name removed.  And they're not always cheap enough that they stand out.  These products are made from moulds made from the original item and apart from being breach of copyright are often of poor quality, and good luck getting your money back.  Basically they buy an original, make their own mould from it and sell the copies.  eBay seem powerless to stop it and the original manufacturers find it hard to take any legal action against the perpetrators, especially in China where no-one cares about Western IPR infingements.  There are several "UK-based" sellers who seem to think it acceptable to sell such products, although I believe that Trading Standards have closed a couple down.  Judging by the poor English I think that most are just fronts for Chinese sellers.  A whole distribution industry has grown up in the UK holding in-country stock for Chinese sellers.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Das Abteilung
addition

[Ade H]

I excluded Tank from the search filters because its sculpts are nowhere near to the quality of my suggestions. Nor is MiniArt (see my first comment). The better the sculpt, the easier it is to paint. The criticism of copy-casters is justified, but there are plenty of reputable specialists to be found, including SK Miniatures, FOG Models, El Greco, and Historex.

[scotmid]

As always I think it depends on how much you want/are able to spend. I appreciate I am in practical terms a novice modeller having been away from the hobby for more than 40 years but the Mini Art British tank crew although plastic seem respectable enough based on my abilities. Resin figures made and painted by an expert modeller can certainly be tremendous.

[Ade H]

@scotmid As I mentioned, as a general principle I find that it's a case of the better the sculpt, the easier it is to paint. It becomes almost like painting by numbers because all of the highs, mids, and lows are clearly defined for you. That's why I will always recommend new painters to choose the sharpest figures that they can find and the cost is more than justified.