British infantry WW2 - shots from a work in progress

Just to open a new speculative thread about the work in progress - easing myself back into modelling with an interesting little job, sorting and painting as many as I can manage from a miscellany of WW2 British Infantry figures.

As the story opens, the figures have been washed and degreased; undercoated (Humbrol enamel light grey), then the painting began by blocking in flesh areas. In an era where every man's hair was cut short, this of course extended to that oft-ignored bit at the back of the neck, just above the collar and just below the helmet. Acrylics, mainly GW but with some from Vallejo and other sources, were used for the main paint.

After faces, necks and hands, the uniforms were blocked in using a good match for British khaki - GW's "Graveyard Earth" is pretty much spot on. Boots were added in black.

then after doing a dirty dark-brown wash on a German armoured car I put together out of the box just to keep my hand in with kits, I wondered. Would the same wash technique work to give extra depth to figures. Just because the figures are small-scale does not mean I shouldn't at least try to enhance them with shadows and highlights.

So I tried it.

Revell's re-issue of the Matchbox British Infantry, originally from the mid 1970's. Shaded figures on the bottom row, unshaded above.

Sample figures from the latest (2012) Airfix release of WW2 British Infantry - unusually for Airfix, this is a whole new retooling, a third generation of WW2 figures supplanting their earlier releases. Hopefully they won't stop here! These figres have also been shaded with a brown wash - nest stage is to go on and paint weapons and webbing.

I thought about it and decided to give all the figures the same dark wash to get into the creases and crevices and add depth. here are some sample shots:-

Are you going to use them for war gaming?

Eventually, yes. The other reasons for doing this paint job are to ease myself back into modelling and painting after a long layoff; and to augment/supplant existing WW2 British Infantry I last painted up twenty to thirty years ago and which are showing their age!

And the third reason, of course, is remembering how to take proper photos and do a blog!

Current state of progress:

And some all-important close-up pictures to highlight a little detail:-

I like the officer in the sheepskin coat - in 8th Army North African/italian terms, he would be a "type". I suspect it may be an attempt to represent General Richard O'Connor in small scale (elsewhere, Matchbox have "done" Montgomery as a character figure; Airfix did Rommel in its Afrika Korps set; there is a German senior officer looking not unlike von Manstein in the Revell Panzergrenadiers set, and a very recognisiable Zhukov in the Russian Infantry... there is a long tradition of this sort of thing, Come to think of it, although he was never in the Marines, there is a very swaggering Patton in one of the Airfix US Marines sets! )

O'Connor, btw, was the general who masterminded the early shattering defeats of the Italians in North Africa. A victim of his own success, he destabilised italian North Africa to the extent that the Afrika Korps was sent in. O'Connor became a prisoner in his own turn, but was exchanged for no less than three captive Italian generals. Having involuntarily spent two years out of the war - or he might well have had higher rank - General O'Connor commanded a division in North-West Europe in 1944-45.

The close-ups show, i hope, how a simple wash with a diluted darker mix of the base coat can enhance figures even in very small scale.

And finally, being painted in parellel, a sprue from the HäT British Machine Gunners set.

For your £6, you get four of these sprues per box:-

The contents per sprue are a very good Vickers HMG with three crew; three Bren gunners; one PIAT anti-tank projector plus number two; one standard issue engineer flame thrower. Note some of the figures come as "kits" and the body requires assembly with a head and relevant arm.

Apologies, I misidentified one of the figures in the HäT set (above) - too late to edit original posting. I've since looked more closely at them and there are in fact only two Bren gunners. The thirs figure (prone firing, left on photo, needs head) is infact equipped with the Boyes Anti-Tank Rifle. I don't think this has been modelled before as part of a plastic figure set. (There is a version in the otherwse mediocre Fujimi British Infantry set, but the figures are so poor that can only really be used as a source of spare small arms - the Fujimi set is a styrene hard plastic kit offering seperate arms and equipment to build the figures as you please. Nice idea, like Multipose in miniature, but such a shame the figures are frankly rubbish).

The Boyes AT rifle would be lovely for early-war scenarios, though!

I started out telling myself there would be no special tricks or added frills and flounces. All I was going to do was to paint a hundred or so figures strictly out of the box, to an acceptable standard, just to get back into the saddle again, and clock up a modelling project.

But looking at the figures, guess what...

The Matchbox infantry sets were great little releases for the middle 1970's. At long last Airfix had competition, and the modeller/gamer could look at a different approach to figure sculpting and design to see what new takes a new player could come up with. What with the plethora of figure releases today from a couple of dozen different manufacturers - just check out Plastic Soldier Review to get an idea of the dizzying scope - we older modellers have to stop and remember a time when the only name was Airfix.

The Matchbox British Infantry - now given a deserved re-release by Revell - were a lovely little set. They include tank crewmen in the one-piece tanker overalls and RTR beret, for one thing - most usefful to replace the wooden mannequin given in tank kits at the time, if it included any crew figures at all. Some figures are in berets - ideal for adding to Royal Marine Commando units; there is the neat-looking senior officer figure in the non-issue sheepskin coat (O'Connor?) and riflemen in various worthwhile poses.

As befits a 1970's set looked back on with hindsight, there is room for considerable improvement in some figures. The Vickers HMG shows the limitations of the moulding process: it is a one-piece moulding of gunner and gun, too flat and two-dimensional, and if configured that way in real life would be dangerously unstable. (I have plans to redeem this piece). There are also two users of a bazooka - did the British Army use these in WW2? - that looks more like a post-war Carl Gustav.

There is also a two inch mortar - presumably - which is crude and badly formed and looks like the same generic item appearing in all Matchbox figure sets, including the German and the Japanese. Same tube, identical slip-over bipod.

But a classic component of 1970's figure sets looks something like this:-

What is wrong with this figure? Well, all he is apparently armed with is a single hand grenade. Once thrown, he is disarmed, therefore ineffectual. No rifle, no sidearm, no means of carrying on the fight. No soldier in a war zone, except perhaps a Soviet penal company inmate, would go into battle with nothing, and whatever the failings of the British military, we do not send men into battle completely unarmed. This lad needs a weapon issue. But where to find them?

This is the notorious Fujimi British Infantry set referred to earlier. The figures - representing British infantry in desert uniform - are frankly horrible, blobby, coarse and full of sink marks. Not worth assembling. There is a nice little diorama item in the box - for some reason the makers saw fit to throw in an Arab arched gateway - and mainly for this, I bought a few sets cheaply in a LMS sale. I think they were glad to have them off the shelves...

Fujimi box contents. Note the horrible figures. But...

At least the Fujimi set has an assortment of basic weapons. Not brilliant, but they will do. Vickers HMG, Bren gun, Boyes ATR, a couple of tommy guns, and several Lee-Enfield rifles.

My idea is to clean up a couple of those rifles and sling them accross the backs of the soldiers who are down to their last grenades: just get them looking right, or at least better!

Edited By Marshal Zhukov on 07/08/2012 21:24:33

A blast of nostalgia there Marshall! I always remembered the Matchbox figs having better poses and loadouts than the rather generic Airfix (kneeling with rifle, standing with rifle, SMG at the hip, officer with binos, rinse, repeat in different uniforms and plastic colour), but they never seemed properly-proportioned to me: the heads always seemed cartoonishly large.

i did like the two-tone 1/72 Matchbox armour kits with their mini-dioramas though- I think my favourite was the Wespe with the palm tree, a lovely little kit!

Nice work on the figs btw