1/76 or 1/72 (sometimes referred to as 20mm scale, in wargame circles at least) is my favourite scale for WW2 miniatures. There's a good range of items available in plastic (my preferred medium), and the infantry especially are very cheap.
These are Airifx German Paratroopers - and reside somewhere near the bottom of the height range in this scale. Next to some of the later products from Revell or Plastic Soldier Company etc. they look tiny, but the detail is great. I painted them with a basic camouflage pattern for the smocks, and panzer grey for the trousers and helmets. The bases were just given a quick dab of field grey, so they could go straight into action. I'll get round to finishing them one day...
These are Matchbox (now Revell) 1/76 German Infantry. When these first came out, I pretty much stopped buying Airfix WW2 figures. They were chunkier, and looked much more in keeping with the metal figures I yearned for but couldn't afford. I must have bought and painted 5 or 6 boxes in the 70s / early 80s. These are more recent Revell re-releases, and apart from the large amount of flash (often a sign of old moulds) they are as good as I remember them. Simple colour scheme of field grey, with black and brown for the equipment, and panzer grey for the helmets. Some got panzer grey trousers too, and a few (such as the chap on the right) got field-grey helmets.
The excellent, but flash-riddled, Revell Afrika Korps. Beautiful miniatures, slightly taller than the matchbox ones, and more realistically proportioned. The set offers good variety of equipment, so I varied the equipment colours as I went - with sand, field grey, panzer grey, and dark yellow all featuring.
More Revell Afrika Korps. All my smaller WW2 miniatures are based on card circles, topped with ground covering (in this case just painted milliput, though they'll get textured eventually too). The card circles are then stuck to pennies to stop them falling over, and to make them easier to pick up and move. As a bonus, they can also be stored vertically on magnetic strip (the sticky-back kind you can buy in craft shops, which can be used to line box files).
Having done specific units for Yorkist and Lancastrian, I decided to do a more generic unit of archers which could appear on both sides of the table (possibly in the same battle... this is the Wars of the Roses after all);
My default setting is to paint things red, so since I wasn't following a particular faction, I went with red.
Red and white makes a striking colour combination (hence its popularity with sporting teams of various denominations); but too much white can look a little stark. To alleviate this, I used a light stone-grey here and there instead, which 'suggests' white, without actually being white.
The eagle-eyed will spot that, although they are supposed to be a generic unit, I found a badge used by (I think) a Lancastrian side which was a basic wheat or barley ear. I liked it and wanted to use it, so I painted it small and unobtrusive :)
One thing I've avoided is the use of more than one red. This (to me, and to fashion gurus the world over) looks awful - so if you're painting red, stick with one tone as much as possible.
Once red has been established as the unit colour, you can get away with quite small amounts of it, as it is such a powerful colour. In the case of these two chaps, a bare minimum has been used - the open coat on one, and just the sleeves on the other!
The badge shows up quite well on these two.
In an earlier post, I showed-off some Lancastrian (Percy) archers, so I thought I'd address the balance and show you some Yorkist opposition;
Even a casual student of the Wars of the Roses can recognise the red-and-blue livery, with 'sun in splendour' badge, as Yorkist - so I went with this. It has the added bonus of looking great.
Two approaches to the livery colours. The chap on the left has an unbleached padded armour, so I've given him red and blue sleeves and hose to tie him in with the rest of the unit. The other fellow has a more usual livery jacket, which I've balanced by giving him plain hose.
Medieval man loved his bright colours, so I gave some of the archers bright blue hose. Though these two fellows have the same colour scheme (livery jacket, plus blue hose), the wide choice of heads and arm styles saves them looking too similar.
Another shot showing how you can introduce variety whilst keeping the unit cohesion - bright blue goes onto one chap's hose, and the other chap's hat; whilst a stone-grey colour is used on one fellow's sleeves, and the other chap's hose. Further differentiation comes with the use of more metal armour (mail and helmet) on one model, and no metal armour on the other.
Usually I edge the bases in black, so apologies to the customer who bought these chaps - as it appears I forgot to!
Interesting (and purely personal) issue with these last two. The light blue sleeves look great against the red of the livery jacket, but (to me) a little odd against the blue side of the jacket. I probably won't use this combination again.
I purchased the Warlord Games British Infantry and Commandos at the same time, with the intention of using the commandos for mid- to late-war games, and the 'normal' infantry for early war (France 1940). The plastic infantry kits are not really designed for BEF, so I made some modifications;
Basically, this involved modelling gas capes, chest pack, and using only smooth (uncamouflaged) helmets.
For the helmets, I sculpted one and then made a small plug-mould from it so as to cast more. Because it was a plug-mould, the castings came out flat-bottomed, so I had to saw the tops off the heads and stick the helmets down flat. The rolled-up gas capes (on top of the packs) were similarly plug-moulded from one master. This gave them nice flat bottoms making them easy to attach to the top of the backpack.
This gives a better view of the chest-pack and gas cape arrangement. Apart from the equipment amendments, the models were painted in my usual scheme, with the exception of using dark green wash on the helmets to give them that slightly darker, slightly shinier look which early-war helmets appear to have.
I used the kneeling legs for the sergeant, which I think gives him a really purposeful look (like a regular army sergeant would have!). I also built a Tamiya 1/48 Universal carrier, modified to mk1 appearance (the Tamiya kit is a mk2) to go with these chaps, so I'll post that later.
My two favourite theatres for WW2 gaming are the Western Desert and France (1940 campaign). The Blitzkreig German Infantry kit was my first Bolt Action purchase, and very impressed I was too;
I painted all the Wehrmacht in the same way, reflecting the greater uniformity of the earlier campaigns. Field-grey tunics, with panzer grey for the helmets and trousers. Black for most of the equipment, part from the water bottles which I paint brown. These all have dark green collars (which disappeared from later uniforms to make them cheaper to produce).
Hard to tell in this picture, which is a little blurry, but the national colours (black / white / red) feature on the helmets, and the double-bar collar tabs are also present.
As with almost all my bolt action figures, the 25mm round bases are 'boosted' with 3mm foamboard. This makes them easier to pick up, and means their eyeline is better when placed next to 1/48 vehicles. I was tempted by the 1/56 vehicles Warlord (and others) produce, if only for the huge choice, but they just looked too small to me. No doubt perfectly to scale, but the figure proportions (to me) work better with the larger scale vehicles.
There are rank markings too, honest! But for some reason I've chosen to photograph the corporal from the wrong side...
I picked up the Warlord Games Late War Germans to give my commandos and U.S. Infantry someone to fight. I fancied some panzer grenadiers, in that chaotic mix of camo gear and ponchos so often seen in photos from 1944/1945, but instead of buying the metal ones which warlord produce, I thought I'd have a bash using plastic figures and green stuff;
I used a mix of weaponry and camo, plus helmet style, to get the look I was after.
The officer is only slightly modified, to turn his standard uniform jacket into the SS camo version (greenstuff for the cuffs, for example). I then painted his two main uniform elements in different versions of 'pea dot' camo. His grenade-lobbing colleague is more heavily converted, with a greenstuff 'zeltbahn' waterproof. equipment was worn both over and under this waterproof coat, so I modelled my chap with his equipment over, to help break-up the expanse of pea-dot. For the same reason, I left his helmet panzer grey.
The other two both got camouflaged helmets, which were just plain helmets with greenstuff foliage on them. The fellow on the left combines classic MP40 with late-war pea-dot zeltbahn; while his colleague has a more up-to-date stg44, but retains the field grey / panzer grey uniform colours I use on my other WW2 Germans.
I painted these a while ago, for the family Warhammer 40k collection. Fed up of Orks being outclassed, I decided they needed some heavy support;
The colour scheme leans towards the Bad Moons clan, though in truth our Orks are painted in both red and yellow, with black and white checks to boot. For these meganobs, I used arms and heads from the Ork Nobs kit, for a bit of variety (the metal meganob kits I had were all very similar in appearance / weaponry).
This chap has regular Nob arms and head, with some extra spikes added here and there. The kombi rokkit / big shoota was cobbled together from a spare Ork biker gun, and the rokkit itself is just plastic card and sharpened sprue.
Again, this chap uses standard nob arms and head, wielding a huge heavy choppa in one paw. The bases are home-made resin ones, which still need the edges trimmed in black, after more than two years!
