For the last few years, I've slowly been picking up figs to build some WWII German mid to late war infantry companies. For Christmas, my wife got me five bags of Old Glory figs that have been on my "to buy" list for some time, so for the last few days, I've been cleaning, basing, and painting WWII Germans.
It has been a nice change from the Cold War, and I've really been enjoying the process, feeling a bit of the spark felt when working on my first Germans, decades ago. I will be adding a motorized infantry company, and a non-motorized infantry company, for which I still need to get most of the carts and horses. I intend to pick up a few packs of Peter Pig odds and ends in the new year, and add a few supporting platoons as well.
In order to figure out how to paint the little buggers, I cruised the net for some guides, found much conflicting information (big surprise), and then pulled a couple of books off of the shelf, an old standby, Andrew Mollo's WWII uniform guide, couple of ospreys, and another, a compilation of equipment photos. I also referred to a couple bits of hardware that I acquired decades ago.
After reviewing the Mollo book and equipment guide, I tossed out much of what I found online, and selected 23 bottles of paint for my Germans. Mostly Vallejo, with a some old Model Master, Polly Scale, and one bottle of Pactra Military Colors. I can't ever remember needing 23 bottles of paint to paint a 15mm fig before.
I managed to finish 51 of the figs yesterday, and have to say, that all my effort resulted in some truly unremarkable looking figs. I then perused the net again, and after looking at maybe 150 pics of other peoples 15mm WWII Germans, decided that there are simply a lot of more patient gamers out there, than I.
Most photos depicted figures that are far superior than my own effort, many significantly so, and though I could probably do a little better, I want to get them done in the next week, rather than near the end of June. Aside from noting the superior quality of the figs pictured on the net, I also noticed that in those 150 or so photos, must have been 146 and a half different selections of paint used to paint those same troops.
After viewing the 130 correct shade s of Feldgrau, I had to smile at all the effort we go through to get things "right", only to find that there are sometimes a nearly endless range of right answers.
I feel your pain ! I to this day have no real idea of what Feldgrau is much less the shade lol. Don't even go the movie rout, there is another source of migraines ! From all my research the colors where not consistent in real life due to different suppliers and ware and tare fading and so on. I take it from my own 20 years in the US army, you can have 40 guys in BDUs and no two are exactly alike...so I don't sweat it too much.
ReplyDeleteI think the apposite comment is we need a book called the Fifty Shades of Feldgrau.
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, cloth dyes back in WW2 were not colour fast, and paint is not colour dye.
And yes, the real question then becomes how much time does one want to spend on painting. No wrong answers, except for perhaps not painting them at all. :-)
Wow, puts my very slow and relatively minor efforts to shame! I just saved myself the heartache and used some FOW painting information as the basis for mine (and then made it more complicated anyway, because WWII German uniforms are nuts)
ReplyDelete50 shades of OD or Fieldgrau would be great for a certain set of wargamers... not so much for the general public!