New
World Miniatures
35008
I purchased
this pair of beat-up tankers from Chris Mrosko at the 2008 AMPS
show, and if his new company keeps turning out figures like this
I'll be able to stop mourning the comatose Warriors and Platoon
product lines. Granted, there's nothing overly imaginative about
these boystheir wounds and "lean on me, pal" poses
have been seen on German figures and are reminiscent of the old
U.S. Walking Wounded
set from General Issue. They are more like modeler's comfort food:
sometimes there's nothing better than a juicy burger, sizzling fries,
and a thick, rich chocolate malt. I got the same feeling opening
the plastic box and slim baggie.
I've always
been a fan of Brian Stewart's sculpting and this set is true to
form. The standard tanker uniforms are faithfully reproduced and
the figures inhabit them well. A nice touch is having the empty
jacket sleeve cast as a separate piece, so it hangs more convincingly
from the coat. This one-armed tanker carries his helmet, and the
hand is molded well enough that it grasps the separate helmet convincingly
anywhere on the rim. He wears the later boots with integrated gaiters,
which pretty much limits him to late 1944 onward. I think this pair
would look good walking out of the Kasserine Pass, which could be
accomplished by replacing those boots with a pair of combat shoes
and leggings.
The casting
is sharp, with a miniscule amount of flash and seams to clean up.
One will need to be careful with the carrier residue at the bottom
of the neck of the GI with his arm in the sling: because the neck
fits into the upper chest cavity, too much clean-up might leave
a difficult gap to fill.
My only quibble
is that the dark resin used for these figures makes it hard to see
the details. A coating of primer will help, but I don't like to
add extra layers of paint if I can avoid it. The resin has some
flex to it that makes it seem more like plastic.
It's great to
have Mr. Mrosko back in the saddle with a new company whose figures
we can look forward to, and if he keeps Brian Stewart on hand to
make those figures we should have some good modeling ahead of us.
- tss -
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