NEW PRODUCT: UJINDOU 1/6 WWII British Infantry France 1940-Singapore 1942 # UD9039

Oh Dear.
The intent, which is presumably to provide a wide selection of early war British items, is admirable. It's the execution that's the problem. Ujindou have produced some really interesting figures, well supplied with kit, in recent year, but they never seem able to get the colour or texture right.

The helmet is the wrong colour, it should be a slightly greenish khaki, KG3, also used for painting vehicles, and the chinstrap is very crude: that was one thing that Dragon did much better.
The Battledress is the wrong colour, and would look vastly better is it had been made out of the same fabric as the greatcoat.
The tropical shirt and shorts would be the same colour.
The socks are far too yellow, as is the groundsheet.
The webbing is weirdly coloured, and the texture of the straps too crude.
He carries a Lewis gun , something that was a very rare beast even under emergency shortages in 1940. Brens were the section LMG, and although they were in short supply, I've never heard of Lewis Guns being issued to infantry instead.Most of them went to the Navy for air defence.
And why have they given him a set of 1908 ammo pouches, incorrect in detail, and a very strange colour ? They've actually got them the wrong way round as well, left transposed to right.

I could go on, but I think I'll go and lie down....

Always glad to see your insights, Tony.

I thought it was a rather nice set, but Tony has spotted so many mistakes. Now I know how others feel when I nit-pick ancient warriors or Egyptian deities.

Well , it is a nice set, and you get a lot of items, but to make them all really acceptable they would need repainting, something that I have often done in the pas with the old DML WW2 figures. If you mix up small pots of acrylic to represent the various correct colours, and use them fairly dilute on dampened fabric, you can get some really good-looking equipment. I also normally replace the coarse nylon straps with cotton tape, which has a much finer weave. So it is possible to make nice figures out of these Ujindou offerings, but if you want them to look authentic you have to do some work.

I just think it's sad they couldn't have thought rather more about the colours of the fabrics they used : it's not very complex, and there's still masses of the real items still being used by re-enactors , which could be used for reference.

Tony Barton wrote:Well , it is a nice set, and you get a lot of items, but to make them all really acceptable they would need repainting, something that I have often done in the pas with the old DML WW2 figures. If you mix up small pots of acrylic to represent the various correct colours, and use them fairly dilute on dampened fabric, you can get some really good-looking equipment. I also normally replace the coarse nylon straps with cotton tape, which has a much finer weave. So it is possible to make nice figures out of these Ujindou offerings, but if you want them to look authentic you have to do some work.

I just think it's sad they couldn't have thought rather more about the colours of the fabrics they used : it's not very complex, and there's still masses of the real items still being used by re-enactors , which could be used for reference.

All good points, and I agree that they should have been able to think of this. I appreciate you pointing out the mistakes and I'm sure anyone hoping for a realistic rendition can benefit from reading your post. I don't collect modern military, but so many of our members and guests do. Your basic modification suggestions are also very helpful. I've done very diluted acrylic paint application, with or without special fabric medium, and it works reasonably well.