Eduard

1/350 Air Carrier Figures USN Present

Stock Number: 17515

Reviewed By  Charles Landrum, IPMS# 26328

MSRP: $15.00 Website: www.eduard.cz Many ship modelers like to populate the decks of their scale ships; this is especially true for aircraft carriers where the flight deck is typically a beehive of activity. Well executed the scenes can be exquisite. For the modeler there are several choices for figures. What has been on the ship-modeling scene the longest have been photo-etched figures. While these can be tedious to paint, Eduard has made the job easier by using their astounding pre-painted technique for PE, saving the modeler a lot of work. Even painted, PE figures are a bit two-dimensional. With this latest release, Eduard has engineered one solution to the 2D PE figure, pre-painted 3D figures. A small set, it is never the less packed with value. The set includes 92 figures, all pre-painted in various poses and colors of flight deck jerseys; including stenciling! It is a detail in pre-painting finer than the WWII pre-painted flight deck figures offered in 2D. Below is a close up of the detail and a similar close-up of their 2D offering so that you can see the difference in detail. One thing you undoubtedly notice is that all of the figures are wearing khaki trousers, which typically means that the figure is either an officer or Chief petty Officer. I am not sure why Eduard did this; perhaps it was too difficult or costly to add another color. Another thought is that enlisted aviators working on the flight deck seldom wear dungarees as they did up through the 1970s. Today these sailors wear surplus fatigue pants in a wide range of patterns – woodland and the older types of desert patterns. Eduard may have been thrown off by this practice, or tried to replicate it as best a possible in scale. As you can see in their WWII set, all of the figures are in dungarees.

To make the figures 3D there are two halves that fold together to make a whole. Primarily it is the torsos and legs that are doubled for the 3D effect. The PE has a slight adhesive backing so that the two halves will stick when folded. My adhesive would not stick and so I used a small application of CA. For this review I assembled two of the 3D figures and posed them opposite their 2D comrades. To be honest the 3D effect, while noticeable, is not overwhelmingly so. It is less convincing with the standing figures but give the crouching figures a more realistic appearance. In scale Eduards figures stand a reasonable 66 inches (168cm) tall. The new DML figures are a hulking one scale foot taller at 78 inches (198cm) and in my mind, are too tall. While I am not a fan of PE figures, I am also not interested in painting the new injection-molded 1/350 figures just coming out. If you want to do a crowded deck scene, in my mind the pre-painted Eduard PE figures have the edge, in both appearance and ease of use. It would be easy to repaint the trousers if you wanted a variety of color or to backdate the figures. My thanks to Eduard for the review sample.

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