Many thanks again to Stevie, Alan, Jase, Derek and Allen, I've said it before but to receive such praise makes all the brainwork and building so worthwhile, especially when so many seem to find these tutorials and 'do it on the cheap's helpful!
Stevie, just out of interest, does your 'proper' Weather-it say anything about sealing the wood afterwards and also, does it smell of vinegar?
Allen, many thanks and I'm glad you're managing to get through all the text! (there's a lot more to come yet!) If your father was involved in the Second World War, I'd be very surprised if you didn't have at least one relative in the First. If you know the names of your grand and even great grandparents you could try the National Archives on-line records or the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. Going deeper usually means paying out but these free sites will at least give you an idea if there is anybody out there!

Right then, two more instalments for the bunker to go (hopefully, and not including the actual fitting into the main diorama!)

Part Sixteen: The German Bunker Part Four.

Nearly there! After heading down the tunnel in last week’s instalment, this week we’re heading up into the rafters, (literally!)
The first job was to line in the doorway. I had originally thought that this would involve two separate and individual door frames, an inner and outer but on close inspection of the new clearer ‘official’ photos it became apparent that this was not the case. What I had taken as two door frames was simply the effect of the middle section having rotted away in parts over the last ninety seven years!
The whole of the doorway was in fact clad in a wooden skin for reasons which will become clearer next week so task number one was to make up the side panels, three on each side as you can see in Photo 1. The two longer planks are for the inner part which drops down to the lower step, hence the longer length, the wood for these pieces is courtesy of DelPrado! These are from some of the many spare decking planks left over from the Victory, some will be needed later to construct the fighting tops but I’ve got a good fourteen or more left yet, so plenty of spares to go around!
You can also see a series of grooves filed into the rear face of the planks, three in the short planks and four in the long pair. These were carefully measured and filed out with the diamond dust triangular and round rat tail files and correspond to the raised ridges on the ‘concrete’ walls to allow the planks to fit flush. In the real bunker, the wood itself would have indented to the shape of the walls as it was screwed/bolted in place but 'scale wood' doesn't have that luxury.
The same six pieces are also featured in Photo 2 but this time after the coat of weathering solution. In case you were wondering, the L and R simply identifies the left and right sides as the ridges are individual to each side!
Photo 3 shows the remaining parts of the frames, the three top planks from the same source and four thinner lengths, cut from the same decking planks for the raised inner ‘jambs’? (I don’t think that’s the right term but it sounds better than Bits!). The long thin section on the right will be cut to size to form the two top, er, 'bits' seen in Photo 5 later! At this point, I’d just like to mention in passing that the photos from here on really do bear an uncanny resemblance to the old film type photos I took over thirty years ago as I built my first Zebra Finch outdoor aviary! Weird!
The uprights were then PVA’d to the foam door way with just a thin bead of glue down the middle to prevent the adhesive ‘squishing’ out as seen in Photo 4. Going back to Photo 5, you can see the full frame in place, giving the doorway an enclosed appearance at last. Also visible in the background is the first part of the top wall and roof frame which was constructed from a length of 2mm square wood strip from CMB (Victory’s loss again!). Photo 6 was taken at the same time as the previous one and shows the same doorway and frame as before. The frame was continued around the top of the concrete wall section and although not obvious due to the camera angles in the following photos, there is a difference of about 2-3mm between the front and back frames giving the eventual roof a slight slope from front to rear. (If you’re fighting off a massed attack during heavy rain, you don’t want rainwater dripping onto your hot machine gun barrel and turning your bunker into a sauna!!) The completed main top frame with it’s two central roof supports can be seen in Photo 7. I haven’t yet glued the firestep in place, I might need some extra room in there when it comes to setting up the figures in place later on.
I mentioned earlier about how the machine gun in the two sets of plastic soldier sets (Revell and HaT) were both set too high to be easily mounted in the bunker. I have since found out just how the MG carriage actually works (another little history lesson to follow, and I’m pretty much convinced that this is where Black and Decker got their Workmate idea from! ) and, knowing how it operates has given me an idea for the personnel inside the bunker. What I’m planning on is to adapt the carriage from one of the sets into it’s folded down position and probably have a go at scratch building a brand new MG from aluminium tube and plastic. There will be either three or four infantrymen in the bunker, one of them screaming for assistance down the field telephone and the rest in the act of trying to save the MG from the oncoming Anzac assault. (The lead tank may well end up with it’s 6pdr pointing at the bunker door by way of encouragement!) Anyhow, that’s still to come although the ‘telephone guy’ is currently under way!
The next stage was to clad the upper part of the structure in the wood plank finish. The wood for this is the same Costas Coffee stirrers as used for the floor boards earlier (thanks again to them!) The boards were measured up after each strip had been pre-weathered on both sides, the cut edges at top and bottom don’t matter in this case as they can’t be seen. The front and rear sections were pretty straightforward being simple rectangles which were all cut to size on my trusty Linic Products multi-angle guillotine (and many thanks to the recent thread concerning this handy tool, I hadn’t realised the pad which sits under the blade was removable (though I did wonder why there was sellotape stuck under it!) AND with a spare one sat below it too! Mine was also by now worn into a groove, which sometimes causes the cut to go off the straight with thin strips, it’s now as good as new again! I’ve got an idea for the future to make up a movable depth gauge for this tool, which will allow multiple cuts of the same length much easier. More on this when I figure something out.) Where was I? Oh yes! Front and back were easy to do but the side wall which includes the doorway was a little more involved as both the cut outs for the door frame and the slope of the roof beam had to be included in the shaping of the panels. Not too bad though and the process can be followed in numerical order from Photo 8, the rear wall from the inside, Photo 9, turning the corner onto the side wall and door, Photo 10, the front section from inside and finally Photo 11, the finished front from the exterior.
All that remains to complete the structure of the interior now is to line the inside of the front section, including the firing slit with multiple sandbags which will be scratch built in Milliput epoxy putty (I tried one, NOT as easy as I thought!) and also to make up the actual wooden roof. This will be very basic, just a flat panel slightly bigger than the supporting frame made out of the same wooden planks as the floorboards and cladding. This will itself be covered in a layer of sandbags, possibly some corrugated iron sheets and lots of earth. I’m still in two minds whether to fix the roof permanently and incorporate the later groundwork into and over it, or whether to have it so it can still be removed to display the interior – I’ll think on that one!
There is one other addition which I will be adding, (apart from crates and ammo boxes under the firing step that is) and that is a small wooden shelf with brackets fixed to the rear concrete wall. I mentioned the soldier screaming down the ‘phone, originally I was going to have the field telephone sat up on the top of the concrete rear wall, but now that I’m designing the figure to be holding the telephone handset and scratch building a tiny little telephone set, it looks so cute in it’s mahogany box I’m going to put it lower down the wall to show it off more! Hence the shelf (plus a few more odds and ends on it, don’t know what yet!)
I nearly forgot, there’s an addition to the exterior too! Another bracket by the door with a metal triangle and rod hanging from it with a sign in German (which I’ll have to get checked by our German members in case the Google translator is ‘off’) saying “Gas Alarm – Ring like Hell!” (this is a tribute to the bell outside the RAF building in the Battle of Britain movie).

That’s it for this week then, in Part 17, the sandbags and final roof panel plus a couple of items that explains the design of the door way. Until then thanks again for looking and Happy Building to All!

Robin

Amazing work yet again Robin, the detail is superb and congrats on the medal too
Steve

Many thanks to Alan and Stevie for your kind words and a special thankyou to Mr T for the highest praise of a Yellow Medal!! It is deeply appreciated from you all!

I have an apology to make!
Instead of concentrating on the bits I was supposed to be working on, namely the roof and sandbags to finish off the main parts of the bunker, I got sidetracked into beginning the first of the (I hope) many figures which will one day populate this diorama. As the first figure began to take shape (it's a conversion from two standard figures) the item of equipment he would be using then took over completely and I spent much of last week concentrating on that instead!
Because of taking so long in building that little item I haven’t had the time to complete the sandbag part of the bunker interior. From the beginning of this build and diary I wanted to make the updates a weekly affair to give the build a continuity, so, rather than wait until the sandbags etc had been finished, I’ve decided to post up what I’ve done so far and return to the bunker again later to finalise it.
Another decision I’ve arrived at (again due to that item) is to definitely model the bunker with a removable roof. The 'thing' looks so cute in there it’s a shame to ‘lock it away’ in the shadows! So anyway, here’s the bunker so far!

Part Seventeen: The German Bunker Part Five.

The first addition as I mentioned last week was to construct a simple wooden shelf for a telephone to sit on. This was made from the same Costas stirring stick as the planks together with a short length of square wood strip from CMB. In Photo 1, you can see the basic plank, cut to size, sanded and ‘weathered’ lightly, (all the internal wood is weathered less than the exterior for obvious reasons!) The first two little square strips have been PVA’d in place here. Photo 2 shows the shelf held in a pair of spring tweezers (very useful little tools for small items like this) and also the two vertical backs to the brackets have been stuck in place (eventually that is, trying to get them to remain square in two planes at the same time was infuriating to say the least!) Finally, construction wise, the diagonal struts to complete the brackets can be seen in Photo 3.
In order to fix the shelf in place on the back wall it was necessary to remove the shaft entrance cover, this was surprisingly difficult considering how little PVA I’d used to secure it in place, it really didn’t want to come loose! Eventually however off it came, with no damage to the grey paint on the wall too! The new shelf was then stuck to the wall, just below one of the thread lines in the concrete. This at least was easy, I simply stood the bunker on its back which meant I was effectively sticking the shelf on the floor so no slipping down the wall before the glue dried! Once the shelf was dry I then re-glued the hatch cover in it’s new position resting against the bottom of one of the brackets as can be seen in Photo 4.
Now on to the roof! The roof panel was also constructed from the stirring sticks, my last couple of ‘acquisitions’ trips to Tescos have netted the longer type of stirrers (which is fine by me of course!) each stick produced three planks with a total of twelve required as can be seen in Photo 5. These were not cut to the exact millimetre as you will see in the next photos, the bunker builders were only concerned with getting the job done, both well and quickly, not necessarily neatly! The planks were then given their light weathering on the inside face only, most of the outside will be covered with other things so no point weathering that all over. One thing I did spend time on here was inspecting each plank section to determine the ‘best looking’ side, ie, woodgrain etc. As I said, one side will be covered up so we might as well have the best side downwards so to speak. Once selected, the planks were very carefully glued to each other along their lengths, trying to apply the PVA with a cocktail stick to the upper half of their thickness so that the glue didn’t splurge out on the side that would be viewed. Once all twelve planks were together I left them overnight with a heavy bottle resting on top to keep them straight and level.
The following evening I carefully placed the roof panel on the top of the bunker and marked the underside as close as I could get to the fixed roofing beams with a pencil. Using those marks I then glued two thin strips to the underside using super glue gel. Unlike the shelf brackets and the bunker framework, I cut these strips from the same planks as the roof rather than use the CMB material. Photo 6 illustrates the result. The strips are designed to rest against the roof beams to keep the roof in place whilst at the same time, not looking too out of place as you can see in Photo 8. I have to admit here, one of them could have been a little tighter to the beam but I put that down to not getting the tip of the pencil as close to the beam as I thought it was! Trying to get a pencil in there at all whilst holding the model above my head under the skylight was not the easiest of tasks!! I did wonder what that pink light through the doorway was when I transferred the photo from the SD card to the computer, then I realised it was my own palm blocking the door as I held the roof in place!
Going back to Photo 7, this is the top or outer side of the same roof and you can just make out the weathering solution applied to just the outer edge where it might be seen later.
I mentioned a while ago about the electrical wire passing down through the tunnel shaft to the electric lamps in the mines below. The cables were guided along their way by a series of ceramic insulators nailed into the wooden sides with metal spikes through the insulators. The next question was therefore, ‘how do I make them up?’ I had a think about using my smallest aluminium tubing and filing out the grooves on the mini lathe. Guess what, the tubes were just (and I mean just!) too small to be gripped in the lathe jaws! I did experiment with sliding the tube into the next size up which was capable of being gripped tight but as soon as I tried to spin and file, the inner tube just stopped spinning. Which was probably just as well, because I then found a beautifully easy way to make them up! As you can see in Photos 9 and 10, this method was far easier, I simply used a thin brass nail (from the DelPrado kit I think) together with a thin slice of the white insulation from the seven core wire I’m using to make the barbed wire. The thought of using insulation to make insulators is weirdly pleasing somehow! The slice of insulation was pushed onto the point of the nail and slid up until just short of the nail head, thus forming the ‘groove’ in the ceramic original. The nail head and the slice was then painted with Admiralty White (any white would do though) and once dry, the groove was highlighted with a thin wash of Citadel Black ink. Although not shown here, they were then finished off with a black dot in the centre of the head to simulate the iron spike. Simples! (Actually, you can see the black dots! my inkjet was playing up and I couldn't make them out on the printed sheet! )
Unfortunately, my forward planning had not extended to drilling holes in the back wall wooden frame to take these insulators! Somehow I had to try and get my smallest pin vice drill in there to make those holes. I had a brainwave then. Unscrew the chuck of the drill, hold it inside with the drill bit already in it and then pass the handle in through the firing slit and screw it all back up tight again before beginning to drill the holes. What an idiot! I did all that and was happily screwing the thing back together when I found myself staring at the open end of the bunker. All I had to do was feed the pin vice tail first in through the opening and back out through the slit! There was no need to take the ruddy thing apart at all! Doh!
Anyway! The last two Photos 11 and 12 shows the operation under way. There would need to be two sets of insulators on the back wall, arranged in pairs, this method allowed me to put in the lower holes but not the upper ones. To do those I was forced to drill in from the outside through the wooden cladding. That went well but we’ll return to that in a couple of week’s time.
So that’s almost up to date on the bunker for now. For those of you who love getting as small as you can, you’ll appreciate the next instalment! What takes five hours of cross eyed concentration over four evenings, is made up of eighteen separate parts and measures one quarter by one sixteenth of an inch in size?
A 1/72 German FF-17 Field Telephone of course!

See you next week!


Robin

Hi Robin some brilliant work once more and thoroughly pleasurable to read..... .. As well as a fab build I have to say I think this is probably the best build diary on the forum...... .. Definitely looking forward to next weeks publication and of course the first of those figures.....

Regards

Alan

Well Robin, I don't know what to say about the field telephone..yes I do, it's amazing - I really don't know where you get your patience from.

Talking of figures, have you looked at the new sets of airfix 1/72 ww1 figures released earlier this year I think?

There are german and Brit figures plus some sets called, the first Assault, Artillery Barrage, Western Front etc..
Steve

Remarkable show of patience and skill Robin.... I'm simply speechless on this one..... exceptionally well done... . Am getting really impatient now to see the whole thing completed as I'm sure it is going to be amazing....... Look forward to the next instalment.....

Regards

Alan

Many thanks to the Alans, Stevie and Mr T! Gratefully received although I probably spent far too long on that telephone!

And so, without further delay, here comes the chap on the other end of said 'phone!


If the sergeant drinks your rum, never mind
And your face may lose its smile, never mind
He's entitled to a tot but not the bleeding lot
If the sergeant drinks your rum, never mind

Another verse from “Never Mind!”

Part Nineteen:

The Field Telephone Operator.

Well, here we go! The last time I played around with polythene figures was over two years ago with the Battle of the Brandywine diorama. For that (still) on-going model I was casting my own white metal figures from the polythene originals and converting the resultant metal troops. I will also be doing that here later on (once I’ve got some more epoxy mould rubber compound from Hobbys) but for the first of the German troops I’ll be doing a conversion in plastic instead.
As mentioned last week, this figure is going to be the operator for the field telephone in the bunker. The basis for this figure will be two of the German troops from the HaT WW1 German Heavy Weapons Set (#8110), namely, the actual Field Telephone Operator and the Sniper. The figure of the telephone man himself, as you can see in Photo 1, is modelled kneeling on the ground with a very basic ‘box’ beside him for the telephone itself. This pose was not useable for what I needed as the FF-17 set is now sitting higher up on a wooden shelf so the operator needs to be standing. The legs therefore would have to come from a poor unsuspecting donor: the Sniper as seen in Photo 2. The HaT set is composed of four identical sprues of figures so obviously there are four of each pose so ‘Telephone Fritz’ might be making a second appearance later, possibly as a wounded man!
The next two Photos, 3 and 4, are enlargements of the previous two with the addition of a dotted red line showing where each figure is required to be cut to provide the two new halves. The first and most important rule with converting these polythene figures is that you need a really sharp blade to cut through them with. Either a new scalpel blade, or, as in my case; a brand new safety razor blade. Anything less than deadly sharp and the plastic will tend to tear or at the least cut with a furred edge to it and this stuff cannot be filed or sanded smooth. The result of my Frankenstein moment can be seen in Photo 5.
The hardest part of this operation was cutting the straight arm intact on the telephone operator due to the base getting in the way. “Why didn’t you cut the base off?” I can hear you cry, that’s a very good question and the answer is..I dunno! Probably a senior moment rearing its ugly head! Fortunately this polythene plastic is so soft and pliable you can usually simply bend the figure over to get at the parts you want to apply surgery to. Actually, as I’m typing these words and looking at the printed page which you will shortly be seeing below, I’ve had an idea! I’ve just placed the two unused halves of the figures together and they make a pretty good soldier kneeling by an ammunition box! That might be a thought for the future!
Anyway, back to the bits I am using! Once the two figures are cut in half, each one was drilled out with a 0.5mm drill in the exact centre of the torso and a brass pin/nail was pushed up into the upper torso, the pin head snipped off at an angle to produce a second ‘pointy’ end and that point pushed down into the bottom half of the figure to produce a brand new standing pose as in Photo 6. Due to the differing angles of the cuts on the two figures, there was a very small gap at the join as you can see in that photo but this was easily rectified with the smallest of smears of Milliput putty, so small in fact it’s difficult to mix up a small enough batch without wasting the excess. The joint repair is clearly visible in Photo 7, it looks horribly messy here but don’t forget the figure is only one inch tall and it disappears completely under the grey primer coat (thankfully!) Also seen in this photo is the telephone flex or cord, which will eventually be glued into the telephone set. This is the same 0.2mm wire strand as the barbed wire comes from, just two strands wound together just as the barbed wire core is made. Photo 8 shows the rear view, note also the bayonet scabbard which has also been trimmed with the razor blade, removing the excess section joining it to the soldier’s tunic and leg. Most polythene ‘toy’ soldiers have this problem, its just far easier to cast them without ‘undercuts’ but in most cases, it’s fairly easy to improve the appearance with some very careful slicing.
Photo 9 illustrates the new figure from the front after he has had a bath in soapy water and a rinse off under the tap before his first coat of Citadel Base Celestra Grey which I’m using as the primer for all the figures. I forgot to mention the cutting off of the flat base between Photos 5 and 6! This is the time to do this, before applying any paint to the plastic! If you wait until its beautifully painted and then try to remove the base, the legs will always flex and all that painstaking work just flakes off the polythene!
After the base was removed, his left leg (or rather his left foot) was drilled up with the same 0.5mm bit and another brass pin was pushed up to provide the means of support (you can just make it out in Photo 7). With the base coat dry, now the fun starts!
The full process of painting this figure is contained in the following set of photos from number 10 to number 17. I have kept the camera angle the same throughout the sequence so you can see how the layers of paint build up to create the final effect. As well as the comprehensive colour diagram on the back of the Revell WW1 German Infantry box, I have also used various web based sources for the colour scheme. Note, all the Vallejo paints are from the Model Colour range.
Photo 10: This is just a repeat of the previous photo in the grey primer but at the new angle for continuity.
Photo 11: The first splash of colour is applied with the trousers having a coat of Vallejo 70.943 Grey-Blue. This is an equivalent to the Revell 79 Blaugrau (or Blue-grey!) on their box chart.
Photo 12: The tunic follows next with Vallejo 70.886 Green Grey (Revell 67 Grungrau).
Photo 13: The first fiddly bit requiring a good thin brush (Brush Number 1 on the group photo later). This is where the red piping is applied to the uniform using Vallejo 70.908 Carmine Red (Revell 36 Karminrot). I found for very fine detail work the Vallejo responds better with a very slight dilution with water, just dip a slightly larger brush in the water, flick off the excess and mix up the blob of paint from the dropper bottle on the palette to thin it out a little, then use the dampened thin brush to apply. The red ‘edging’ is applied down the front of the tunic, around the edges of the collar, around the edges of the epaulettes (shoulder patches) and a single stripe down the outer sides of the trousers (similar to British regiments full dress). If all went well, (and I think it was pretty much ok here apart from the rear of the collar which was a little too thick in places) then on to the next stage. If you do need to ‘repair’ then wait until the paint is dry and re-paint the base coat of the tunic or trousers up to the thin line to make it thinner still. That’s what I did with the collar! Also added at this time were the Puttees from the ankle to just below the knees which were added in the same Green-grey as the tunic.
Photo 14: Here we add the first layer of shadow in the form of a thinned down Citadel Shadow Black Ink. There will be further additions of this ‘wash’ later on, but personally, I feel that picking out the main areas of shadow now helps in the process of adding further colours and smaller items later on. In this instance, the folds in the tunic and trousers are picked out along with the inner edges of the leather ammo pouches, the edges of the collar and the join line down the front of the tunic, the bottom edge of the tunic where it overhangs the trousers, the folds of the puttees, the epaulettes and especially the sunken area where the telephone receiver is pressed against the mouth were all given repeated applications of the thinned ink with the thinnest of the brushes until it ‘looked right’. There is no really hard and fast rule about how much or how little to use in shadows, if it doesn’t look deep enough add some more, too black, wipe it off quick and try again!
Photo 15: After the first shadows comes the opposite – the first highlights! Again, more will be added later but for now we just add the main ones to the tunic, trousers and puttees. In this case there was no fancy product for the highlighting, just a drop of the tunic and trouser paint with a little drop of Admiralty White added to lighten them up. For this task I used the brush No.6 in the photo below. This was once one of my prized detail brushes, now sadly too worn out for that, but, now probably the best ‘detail highlighter’ that I’ve got! Highlighting is a little more difficult than shadowing for the simple reason that it’s harder to put right if it’s overdone. Whereas the shadow wash can be wiped off, the drybrushed paint often can’t and the only way to rectify it is to let it dry and repaint the base colour again. The important rule here is to apply it little and as often as needed. In this scale, if the brush leaves any paint on the tissue it’s probably still too wet. The highlighting emphasizes the previous shadow work and at the same time tones down the Carmine Red stripes. If you take a look at re-enactors wearing the WW1 German uniforms, you can only just make out the stripes!
Photo 16: This is where the figure really begins to come to life with the painting of the flesh and the first coloured items of equipment. For the skin tones I used the Citadel ‘Elf Flesh’ I did consider using the Admiralty Flesh but decided that that one was too ‘sun tanned’ for here. Although Messines took place in a hot summer, troops on the front line tended to spend most of their time as far underground as possible, not sun bathing! At the same time, the leather ammo pouches were done in Vallejo 70.818 Red Leather. This equipment possibly came in various forms as the Revell box art states either 09 Anthrazit (black) or 89 Beige. The ankle boots were painted with Admiralty Walnut Wood.
Photo 17: Almost there now! The last items to be painted were as follows: The steel helmet was painted with a mixture of the Vallejo tunic and trouser paints. The photos here are misleading, in actual life the helmet is a little greyer than it seems here which is strange as all the other colours are pretty accurate for reproduction. Anyway, whilst it’s not actually a bright forest green, it does have a slight satin sheen which is perfect as it shows the difference between the metal and cloth 'greens' really well. Before the telephone handset and cable was finally painted with Citadel Chaos Black, the flesh areas were given a light wash of thinned down Citadel Flesh Wash Ink. My pot of Flesh wash had gone completely dry with just a solid residue down in the bottom, but a few drops of water in the pot left overnight and I had a useable ink back again!
On the rear of the figure, (Photo 18) the gas mask canister was painted with Citadel Bolt Gun Metal (again, going way too thick so a few drops of water added) and the bayonet frog and the haversack were painted in Admiralty Yellow Ochre. The bayonet scabbard was Chaos Black, the handle Admiralty Walnut and the pommel Citadel Shining Gold. (Yes I know, it should be brass, but I ain’t got any!)
Finally, the equipment was given some shadowing with the diluted ink again, including under the helmet rim and around the edges of the bayonet frog and gas mask tin and, once dry, a very light drybrushing of white over the ammo pouches and frog with just a tiniest amount to pick out the two protruding lugs on the helmet. Oh! And the boots had a light drybrush of Admiralty Yellow Ochre too.
And that was it! The very first figure was complete and the final result is shown in the two enlargements Photos 20 and 21.
In Photo 19, you can see the set of brushes used in this exercise, which are as follows:

1: ‘Finest Nylon’ Germany I think it’s a Number 0 but might be a 00 (it’s rubbed off!)
This was used to paint the red piping and to apply the shadowing wash

2: ‘Finest Nylon’ Germany Premier P41 Size Number 1
Used to paint the smaller items of equipment and the flesh areas.

3,4,5: These are all Revell Natural Hair brushes, Size 00 but not as fine as the Nylons.
Used to paint the main areas, tunic, trousers, puttees, boots and helmet.

6: ‘Made in England’ but everything else has worn off or chipped away! Was once a fine tipped detail brush, possibly nylon but I can’t be sure. From the size of it I’d say a 2 or 3?
Used here to drybrush the highlights (bless him).

The final Photo 22 is a family portrait with the little chap surrounded by all the various paints that made him what he is today!
I hope that those of you intending to add crew figures to your various ships will find this particular topic of some use. The procedure for painting period crew figures is exactly the same as that shown here, (apart from being able to slice them up with a razor blade unless you've got the HaT British Marines and Sailors of course!) but as long as you employ good quality paints like the Vallejo and Citadel ranges (or any of the other specially formulated ranges from other manufacturers) and also use good quality brushes, anybody can get good results. Its just the same as the wooden bits, take your time and just do it again if necessary!

I’m still proceeding slowly with more of the bunker interior, including the fitting of this figure into his place inside (and what a job that was!), but for next week’s instalment, it’s a short return to the full hull Mk IV tank as I try to ‘Stevie-fie’ the Emhar basic bits into a far better looking tin box!

Until then, Happy Building to you all!

Robin

Wow simply stunning well done M8 Rgd Martyn

Brilliant Robin, simply brilliant..... An excellent description on how to modify and paint figures......

Regards

Alan

just keeps getting better. looking forward to the finished build