introduction

Alpine Miniatures from New Jersey, USA is fast acquiring a reputation for producing high quality figures, not just for diorama's, but sufficiently good enough to stand on their own as sculptures. This figure of a WWII Russian Tank Commander can only enhance this reputation.

the figure

The figure arrive in Alpine Miniature's usual sturdy transparent packing, which allows you to see exactly what it is you're getting and also protects the contents really well.

The figure of a commander is standing with left arm slightly bent, looking at something to his left. He's wearing a double-breasted tunic, buttoned to the top, with diagonal belts across, gloves, and has a pistol holster on the right side. trousers are of the jodphur type, with full boots almost to the knee. As is usual with these excellent figures, a choice of head is supplied, one wearing a peaked officer's cap with goggles around the brim, the other the more usual tank padded helmet.

The figure arrived as a one-piece casting of the torso, with separate heads, arms and holster. The Pouring blocks present on the torso had already been cleanly removed, leaving minimal residue, and all the other pouring blocks were easily removed, the only one that might cause difficulties being the one at the top of the head wearing the padded headgear.

The resin is soft and pleasant to work with, and after all pouring block joints were cleaned up easily, all the parts fitted perfectly. The holster has a small rectangular locating block on it's reverse face which allowed it to drop perfectly into place, and if you use superglue to join the arms then filler should be totally unnecessary.

The sculpting of these figures really is exceptional, as you can tell from the close-up photographs. The faces are sharp and smooth, which will allow washes to be easily applied, and the rest of the detail on the figure is pin-sharp! Look at the belt for example, and you'll see that the belts are sharply defined, even the star on the belt buckle is sharp. You can clearly make out the detail on each buckle and button......... not only excellent sculpting, but excellent moulding as well!

in conclusion

Another great figure from Taesung and Alpine Miniatures! I can't find fault with these figures..........perfect.