WWII Plastic Toy Soldiers

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Progress - Toy Soldiers

I recently ran into this Soviet set at a Toy Soldier Show. Initially, the manufacturer was a mystery to me. I bought them from the Marx Man and even he did not know who made them. Luckily, one of our readers was able to point out their origin and even a site that still sells them today (check out the comments section). Apparently, these figures were made by a company in Moscow called Progress or 'Прогресс' to be more precise. It seems like they started making them close to 20 years ago. Some of the sets were made with painted faces and boots, and have been released in different types of packaging -boxed or bagged-. The set is called "The Brest Fortress" or "Soldiers of the Great Patriotic War". In addition to these figures, it looks like Progress also produced set of knights and medieval figures as well as cowboys and indians.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part I

These figures are closer to 60mm in size. The detail is actually rather shallow, as if they were clones of clones. I don't think that's the case though because the proportions are still fine, which is something that gets lost when figures are cloned as much as it would be required to lose as much detail. So I think they were simply sculpted this way. As far as the rest of the sculpting goes, the figures are well posed and in decent action stances, like the firing guy who is leaning forward as if firing on the move.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part II

The flag bearer is a rather unique figure. He could be getting ready to climb the Reichstag building in Berlin. We'll just need to add the Soviet scythe and hammer to it. That might be an interesting painting challenge. I am assuming the man on the right is wounded, otherwise his pose would be a bit lame. The other two are average poses.

Progress Soviet Infantry - Part III

This is the last pose in the set. I shot him separately because I wanted to compare him to a guy from this set which I bought a couple of years back without knowing the set that it belonged to. Take a look below.