The Modelling News: Build review: 51 Studio’s new 1/10th Otto Carius bust.

Today Jono takes a look to see if new figure maker 51 Studio’s 1/10^th scale bust of Otto Carius is a good representation of this peculiar looking man or not…

Build review: Otto Carius

1/10th scale bust
2 parts in grey resin
Ref.# 10001
Sculpted by: Jeremy Wong.
Boxart by: Juanma Vergara
Limited edition of 600.
This figure is available through 51 Studio’s Distributors Worldwide.

51 Studio is a new(ish) figure company that has four new figures already on the market. We have looked at a few of them here on TMN ( search here) but recently they have gone into making busts, and today Jono got to put together , prime and mount(not like that) the 51-Studio’s new bust of Otto Carius in 1/10th scale.

Otto Carius was often thought of as “the Good German tank ace” in stories of the war. A very high scoring ace, he seems not to be tarnished with the SS panzerman pin up idol like some other famous tankers of the German forces of the time. He is however a funny looking fellow in most people’s opinions, with an unusual face. That makes him and interesting and challenging sculpt.

Here he is in front of his Tiger on the eastern front.

Carius actually passed away 24th January this year (2015). He served in the Wehrmacht Heer Tank Regiment during WWII fighting in a Tiger and later, a Jagdtiger tank and is credited with knocking out 150 enemy tanks.

The kit:

The bust comes well packed in two parts; the head and upper torso each in separate bags and both parts are covered in foam in the box.

The box has a colour picture on the front and a small picture on the side with a brief blurb about the subject. There is also a resin stem that the bust can be mounted on but personally, I prefer to mount my busts on a piece of brass as they set the figure off just that little bit better I think once polished and sealed.

The sculpt gives the one head choice in this figure – the black version of the side cap (Feldmütze) with German eagle on top and cockade in the centre. Notice the hair, ears and eyes picked out in the resin so you can easily paint it.

You can see the features of this little man represented quite well here in this resin bust, look at his face and his hair, the finer details on the cap and the eyes...

The torso with many details, firstly the black Panzerjacke flaps loosely around his torso and the collars sit widely on his chest and shoulders. The death’s head of the tank korps is clearly visible as is the Knight’s cross and iron cross pinned to his tunic, the shoulder boards and German eagle symbol on his right breast. The waffenfarbe rosa pink piping on his jacket collar signifies the panzer korps.

The casting of the figure is great and the undercutting of his jacket collar and shirt and epaulets need no further improving. There are no seams or air bubbles to remove or fix.

The stem made of resin fits neatly the plug in the underside of the bust.

The simple construction involved a little clean up, simply to remove the two resin plugs and a quick wash with warm soapy water and an old toothbrush. The head fits and glues in place no problem and then I gave it a coat of Tamiya grey primer.

This is where I had the only problem in that the Tamiya grey primer did not take to the figure very well and I had to lightly sand the figure. Give it two light coats of the primer and during each coat put the figure under my desk lamp, to keep it warm and let the paint settle. This fixed the primer problem.

Here he is properly mounted, undercoated and ready for paint

With all the large scale resin and bust figures that are coming onto the market from Asian Sculptors. it is good to see some different choices and this sculpt by Jeremy Wong is certainly something simple but effective.Also at 1/10^th scale it will be a handy size to paint allowing for lots of detail.