Small Russian manufacturers

In the last couple of years, we have had a boom in 3D modeling in Russia. Every year, dozens of individuals and companies appear that produce and sell something. Most of them live quite a short time, but a few of them continue their activities for years.
I myself am often amazed by their products. This is what I’ve been wanting to inform you about for a long time. Not about all of them, but only about those that are interesting to me. I’m primarily interested in the 1/35 scale. There is also interest in aviation in 1/32, 1/48, 1/72 and 1/144 scales, cars in 1/16 and 1/32 and even steam locomotives in 1/24 and 1/26. The only thing I’m not good at is ships.
This information is not a reason to buy, after all, we do not necessarily buy everything that catches our eye, but simply for information.

  1. NVN MODELS 3D ( British steam armored train on wheels from 1900: tractor, trailer, howitzer. Nikashidze’s armored car in 1/35).
  2. Lev Resin models(Russian agricultural equipment, trailers for cars and tractors in 1/43, 1/35; French 270mm de Bange mortar, Porter steam tractor in 1/35)
  3. MiniWarPaint (A lot of stuff, but mostly for figurines and dioramas).
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And the impetus was the products of the company NVN MODELS 3D from the steppe city of Buguruslan with a population of no more than 50,000 people. I myself did not know where this city was.

Just the other day, the company released a series of sets for sale:

NVN-35001 British steam armored tractor B5 1900

NVN-31002 Armoured Trailer for British Armoured Tractor 1900

NVN-31003 Howitzer for armored tractor B5 1900

There is also a complete set: British steam armored train on wheels from 1900 based on the B5 tractor

Purchase the entire set for $100. You can buy not the entire set, but separately: tractor – $60, trailer – $40, howitzer – $10. The entire set is cheaper.

From a marketing point of view, this is not the best presentation of the product.

The manufacturer provides a brief historical background:

The steam tractor for the armored road train was ordered from the leading manufacturer of steam engines in England, John Fowler and Co. Ltd. The Super Lion model was taken as the base tractor. Each Super-Lion weighed 17.8 tons, the dimensions of the rear wheels were 7 feet (2.13 m) high and 24 inches (610 mm) wide. The armored hull weighed 4,500 kg and was assembled with rivets from armor 5/16 ″ (7.94 mm) thick for vertical surfaces and 6.3 ”(6.35 mm) for horizontal ones. The armor was supplied by Cammell Laird and Co. The armor provided protection from bullets fired from British Lee-Metford rifles and German Mausers when fired from a distance of 18 meters. After armoring, the weight of the tractor increased to 22 300 kg. The power of the steam engine allowed it to move an 80-ton road train at a speed of 10 km/h and consume 356 kg of coal for every 42 km of the distance traveled.”

The photo is taken from an article in English «A steam transporter travels across Africa, while an ultra-long modern tank can travel across the tundra»

Where is England in 1900 and where is Buguruslan in 2025?

The same company is developing a prefabricated model of an Armored car based on the design of Mikhail Nakashidze in 1904

The model has already reached the test assembly stage.

Here at least the interest is understandable: “The armored car “Charron-Nakashidze” is the first armored car tested by the Russian Imperial Army. It was not accepted into service due to its low technical characteristics. ” It was built in France at the “Charron, Giarardot, Voigt” plant, where Georgian Prince Mikhail Nakashidze either bought one of them, or simply acted as a distributor. It seems that he himself is behind the wheel.

His involvement in the development and production of this armored car is unclear and incomprehensible. It was ordered during the Russian-Japanese War, but it did not have time for it. The prince himself died at a reception during an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire Pyotr Stolypin in 1906.

In total, the Charron company manufactured 12 similar armored cars. According to French sources, six armored cars were sent to Russia in late 1906 or early 1907, but they were not allowed to cross the Russian border. Two cars ended up in Germany: either they were requisitioned or purchased at a large discount (almost 40%). Both of these armored cars were used by the Germans in battles in East Prussia in August 1914. Another armored car was bought from the Charron company by the French military department. In the same year of 1914, he fought in the cavalry corps of General Sorde. It is believed that the French used the armored car as an “airship hunter”, that is, it also became the grandfather of modern mobile anti-aircraft systems.

Information borrowed from a large and detailed article in Russian “The First Russian Armored Car of Podesaul Nakashidze

PS. News on January 25, 2025
The company has put the Nikashidze armored car on sale

and is currently working on a steam bicycle and the Mgebrov - Renault armored car, in several versions: single-turret and, it seems, double-turret.

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Thanks for the information.

I’ve bought a number of 3D printed items from Russian manufacturers - My Model is doing fantastic work with their truck cranes and the update sets GE Models and others do for Russian produced kits like Zvezda and AVD are great. Just wish that some were more readily available - IModelist seems to to be the only source for Russian products these days. Gun Tower has great stuff but really hard to get.

And would love to buy a bunch of things from Denisssmodels but I have not yet figured out how to order through VK, i.e payment. Any possibility of you assisting with that?

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I asked them. By the way, I found exactly the same question for them from 2022. Here is the translation of the response:“So how to pay. They can’t look at the Mir, and there are no other options.
Postal delivery seems to have appeared abroad, but also not to all countries.
The main problem is the transfer of money.
I don’t know about your country, but Russia is full of intermediary firms: I can buy anything, anywhere. Within the limits of customs and criminal law, of course. I think you should have such intermediaries: demand creates supply.

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Check out the Unomag online store. This is one of the two that Denisssmodels collaborates with.

They have an English-language website and they declare the possibility of accepting money and sending goods abroad. But it’s better to contact them and clarify.
This is a good store both in terms of prices and service. I have repeatedly bought from them, everything was normal.

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A lot of tractor for a small gun. :joy:

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If you tow it, then yes, it’s small. But if you transport it like this, then it’s fine.

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Thanks very much for the link and recommendation. They do accept Paypal for payments outside of Russia, much like IModelist. Great!

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Thanks Igor!
I see a lot of manufacturers present here- some stalled projects will get going again.
Ещё раз- большое спасибо!

Cheers,
Angel

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Lev Resin models

I’ll tell you about another company Lev Resin models, not to be confused with Live Resin.

In 2021, a father and son, most likely a father for his son, bought a 3D printer. They tried to make it for themselves – they liked it, they tried it for others – they liked it even more. Since then, they have already survived two moves – each time they expand and improve.

They have about fifty models in their assortment, two-thirds of which are in 1/43 scale, the rest are 1/35.

They most likely started with simple agricultural devices.

Then they started making tractor trailers. First to the freight ones,

then all sorts of different tanks

then car trailers. Or maybe in a different sequence.

And then they produced generally strange conversions on models from Balaton modell.

The experience gained allowed them to aim for a complete set, for which the Stalinets 65 tractor was chosen as a prototype.

Which did not remain alone for long and soon another version of the legendary Soviet (and not only) tractor will go on sale – Stalinets 60.

Here’s how they advertise it: “2 types of engines with covers removed and put on (covers included), two types of tanks, whichever you prefer, tracks of your choice, prefabricated or composite, radiator that shines through in the light)”

Of course, I don’t really understand why, given the availability of plastic kits, they would create similar ones in 3D.

And not only me. But, on the other hand, we judge from the other side – from the buyer’s side, and they are the manufacturers. What is important to us is the price, the number of parts, the ease of assembly, while for them – the accuracy of the model, the openwork of the parts, etc. And this is the market – if you don’t want it, don’t take it. I briefly and culturally retold a number of conversations on their VK page.

Figures were also made for tractors.

In 1/43 scale the assortment is almost the same, incl. and matching, with minor extremes: from military equipment to horse-drawn carriages.

At the beginning of the year, the company launched the French 270mm de Bange mortar.

The prototype is certainly interesting,

but the transition from the domestic agricultural theme to the French artillery of the WWI period?

And there are figures there too!

They didn’t stop there, but are going to move further in this direction. Their next step: the Aveling and Porter steam tractor, the kind that served in the Russian army.

Well, it seems similar.

I’ll have to buy it, because I have a clear weakness for such things, and I have one representative at my disposal, although I have one in 1/16 scale.

They promise to release this one for sale this month and continue this series in the future.

The company’s products are available in the Unomag online store

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MiniWarPaint

Frankly speaking, I wasn’t going to write about this company. And not because there’s nothing to say about it, but quite the opposite. The company has a large assortment and well-deserved authority, and is known to most Russian modelers.

Nevertheless, having received a question about the published news, I consider it necessary to answer.

I invite the author of the question @Maki

The company has an English-language website and a store where not only its products are sold.

Apparently, the company owes its birth to COVID, in full accordance with the Russian proverb: “There would be no happiness, but misfortune would help.

As it is written on their website: “The MiniWarPaint brand was created in 2016 as a studio accepting orders for painting military-historical and gaming miniatures. The creation of our own brand of products for large-scale modeling and art products was prompted by the development of a line of brushes for painting miniatures together with Roubloff specialists.

And in this topic, they did a surprisingly simple and understandable thing, as it seems years later: they made brushes for modelists. It is very difficult, without graduating from art schools and academies, to understand what kind of brush you need: squirrel, beaver, sable, etc. I know most of these animals only from a TV-show about animals or from my wife’s wardrobe.

But here everything is simple. Are you planning to paint figurines? Here, the set is called: “For painting miniatures”.

And there the animals and sizes have already been selected. It is written what is for what – take and paint. And you don’t need to learn the secrets of painting or tassel knitting from the beginning.

Do you do scale modeling? Here is a set with the appropriate composition and name: “For scale modeling.

Decided to dirty up freshly built and monotonously painted armored vehicles? The “Drips and Splashes” and

and “For oil and pigments” sets to help you.

Have all the models become dusty, standing on the shelves? There’s a “Dust and Sawdust” set for that.

However, if you know everything yourself, you can buy individual brushes and assemble them as you wish.

I have several pieces and yesterday two more arrived with the parcel.

The brushes were released for a reason, but were checked and tested. The company’s website lists the names, I will not repeat them, I will only show some of the works of some of them.

I think the level is clear.

Since they entered modeling from the humanitarian, not technical, direction, they were clearly not aware that there are quite specific and fixed scales: take the size of the original and divide it by this number under the fraction.

In short, they came up with their own sizes. Well, how did they come up with them, they copied them from the nearest shopping center.

Therefore they have:

Well, it’s logical: human clothing and human figures. And it must be said that they are not far from the figures.

And they produce everything in these sizes, usually one product in each size. Here the soldiers of different countries stomped their boots,

and here they walked naked.

Things are fine with the world of the living, but they also adhere to their own gradation of sizes for everything else.

They also have what others have in their assortment. Food, fences, tools, street poles and sewer manholes, etc.

They are obviously great experts in the field of weapons. There are very few companies that make rifles and boxes for them, cartridges and boxes for them. Actually, the question that was highlighted at the beginning is about the cartridges poured into the boxes.

They have quite a lot of goods in this category – you have to see for yourself.

What no one compares to them in is plants! Yes, some have palm, oak and other tree leaves. There are sunflowers and even dandelions. But tulips, orchids, lilacs, poppies and a bunch of other flowers – that’s a rarity.

And no one else will let you pick strawberries and raspberries.

You can feel that there is some botanist in their composition. So you knew that Rúbus idáeus is raspberries. No. And I don’t. But they know it!

Last fall they released their first build kit.

According to the feelings (products and posts on their website and elsewhere on the Internet), the comrades are not alien to humor, incl. and a little dark. Otherwise, they would not be able to present their next sets like that .

I was lucky to visit their stand at Moscow Hobby Expo 2022.

So we have the opportunity to see some of the products in the author’s execution.

I can’t show them all in detail – because there are so many of them!

PS I don’t know exactly whether you can buy the products on the company’s website, but they are sold in the already well-known Unomag store.

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Some exquisite products here. I’m going to have to buy quite a few.

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Thank you Yuri for an elaborate answer. Some of the products definitely caught my eye…

Mario

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