Monogram used to be a US firm that specialized in scale models, primarily cars, military vehicles, ships, and airplanes. The kind that come in many litle pieces requiring assembly. While vehicles were its main focus it also released several kits of infantry figures. Monogram was founded in 1945 and for a while it was the main rival of Revell, another firm of great tradition in the modeling world. In 1970 Monogram was purchased by Mattel, and ironically, through the years Monogram traded hands again until it ended up at Odyssey Partners who had also purchased Revell and thus the brand Revell-Monogram was formed. In terms of figures, the Monogram guys are supposed to be in 1/35 scale, but I find them to be smaller than traditional 1/35. The poses are nice and diverse, and even though the focus of my collection is figures don't require assembly, a fellow collector had recommended them to me so when I ran across some of these guys already assembled, I decided to get a batch. Let's take a look at them.
Monogram 1/35 US Infantry - Part I
I recently found these guys on eBay. Some of the poses looked really good. As I mentioned, they are supposed to be 1/35 in scale, but they turned out to be quite smaller. So much that I thought they were 40mm figures until I confirmed that they were indeed sold as part of a 1/35 kit . There are supposed to be 18 figures in the set. I suspect that I have most of them, but maybe I also got a few extra figures from other sets. Like the guy in the middle holding the artillery shell.
Monogram 1/35 US Infantry - Part II
This picture has some of my favorite figures in the set. The mortar team and the bazooka team are very well done. In fact, they are the poses that made me get these figures. I really like how one of the mortar men is lying on the ground while dropping the shell into the tube.
Monogram 1/35 US Infantry - Part III
Here are the rest of the guys. The previous owner painted them with white helmets, but they seem to be part of the same set, although I do wonder about the mortar team. I doubt one set would have had two mortar teams.
Monogram 1/35 US Infantry - Comparison to a 1/32 figure
Here is a shot with a 1/32 figure next to a monogram guy. The 1/32 guy from Italeri is on the smaller side of the 1/32 scale compared with let's say the Conte or TSSD guys, but the Monogram guy still looks quite smaller. I don't think I will be able to use these guys next to my other troops :-( Maybe they would come handy in a diorama where you need to create the impression of depth, making things appear farther than they really are.
Aurora? 1/35 Soviet Infantry
I bought these guys advertised as Monogram, but an alert reader has pointed out that these guys might be from a set released by a company called Aurora. Just a small sample of what they look like. The sculpting is fairly decent, with nice level of detail and good poses, but they are even smaller than the other guys!
Click here to see other US GIs
Click here to see more US GIs
Click here to see the US Infantry in action
