RESINation
RE35-17

These three crew figures are reminiscent of Dynasty's "Fire! U.S. Artillerymen in firing position" (#35008). Both sets are pictured standing at the rear of an M12 gun motor carriage. Each set has a man pulling the firing lanyard, and another stands hunched over with his hands to his ears. While the third figure in the Dynasty set has his arm raised to give the firing order, the third soldier in the RESINation set has his left hand raised to his ear, and his right hand more positioned in front of his face. He may be about to plug his right ear, or his arm could be posed so he's holding a field telephone handset to his ear, receiving firing direction. A phone is not included, but you can find one from Custom Dioramics or even the old Tamiya "Combat Group" set.

All three soldiers wear the winter (tanker) combat jackets. Their trouser cuffs extend down to the tops of their service boots, so no leggings or gaiters are featured. No other weapons or equipment are provided for them.

The figures are molded in three or four components: arms are added to the torso/leg/head pieces. One figure's helmet is molded to his head, while the other two have separate helmets. The figures are similar to Verlinden in quality and size. They scale out on the tall side, the most erect of the three standing just under 6'3". But the helmets are smallish, like those found with Tamiya, Ultracast or Hornet figures and heads. Consequently, the helmets seem under-proportioned for the size of the figures. A DML helmet, however, looks much better on these heads, so depending on your tastes you might need to do a bit of swapping.

Earlier RESINation figure releases were listed a 54mm, or 1/32 scale. The box for this kit calls it "35mm," an obvious mistake, while later figures are labelled 1/35. Clearly there's some confusion about scale these initial figures are supposed to represent.

I was rather surprised when I saw the figure sculptor is Krisztián Bódy. The "U.S. Mechanic" figure from Corpus, released around the same time, is sculpted by Bódi Krisztián. Obviously something got mixed up in translating the credits for the box covers. What is more interesting, however, is that the Corpus figure scales out to under 5'10" while these figures are considerably taller.

Otherwise, the sculpting is quite good. There are some prominent seams to be removed and a bit of flash. I noticed that the right hand index finger, resting on the knee of the man pulling the lanyard, seemed a bit strange, as if it had been broken off and expediently replaced with a piece of plastic rod. On examining the box photo, the color of this finger is different than the others. This seems to suggest the finger is wrapped in a bandage. If this was intended by the sculptor (perhaps based on a period photograph?) it's a clever and realistic touch. If it's a patch-up job under tight production deadlines, YOU can be the clever one and paint it as a tan bandage.

Along with placing these figures behind an M12, you could use them with Italeri's 105mm or 155mm howitzers. Combined with Dynasty's set, or Verlinden's two gun crews, you could begin to build yourself a battery of guns defending Bastogne.

-tss-