introduction

Knee/elbow pads are protective gear worn on knees/elbows to protect them against impact injury during, e.g., a fall or a strike, or to provide padding for extended kneeling.

Combat approved knee pads have dual fastening strap closures for comfort and to prevent slipping. High impact, shatter-resistant caps are soft foam and are covered by durable Cordura nylon. Elbow pads have dual fastening Velcro closures for comfort and to prevent slipping as well. These protective pads are manufactured by McGuire-Nicholas and are issued to US troops actively serving worldwide.

The review

This is a review of Live Resin’s latest offering in 1/35 scale: US Army Military Surplus Tactical Knee & Elbow Pads set [LRE-35120].

Live Resin products come in a standard zip-lock plastic bag clamped in a cardboard 3D box-art. The front image is showing the parts layout, while the back image illustrates how to integrate the parts on a figure, with the annotation that this set is compatible with any/all 1/35 scale figures from any manufacturer.

The set includes a single molding block numbered LRE35120A with 6 molded knee-pads and LRE35120B with 6 molded elbow pads.
The casting is as what’s accustom to Live Resin: there are no imperfections, bubbles or any other types of defects in this sample. The molding stubs are thin and you will not have to worry about removing the parts from the plugs, or sanding anything off. Just a quick snip with your blade or sprue cutters and you’re good to go.

The pads are beautifully molded with the appropriate anti-slip ribbing. This is a simple set as there aren’t many details in the real thing either. The knee pads are molded with a inner curvature to fit properly to the knees, but the elbow pads come with a flat background which could possibly lead to fit issues. Although nicely sculpted and molded, I don’t think this set will be very useful to the common modeler. Why? The entire knee pad set consists of a foam background with the attachment straps that go around the leg or arm. This set offers just the plastic insert pads. The LR figures already come with this type of protective pads so you can’t really use them for these figures. Any other figure would require sculpting the foam backing and the straps. If you as a modeler, feel ready for some figure modifications, than this set is for you by all means.

Conclusion

This set has limited usage. The molding is superb, just like we are all now accustomed from Live Resin but as I already noted I don’t see the need for this set in LR figures (already come molded with knee/elbow pads) if the future releases do not provide options for placing various types of protective pads. Other figures will need some (re)sculpting to fit these, but technically this is a great set. As usefulness goes - less so.