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Trakz German Staff Car

Enter the Figures

The figures are from Lincoln County Line, the standing SS officer (LC 0039 Algemeine Party Official) was holding a beer mug in his hand. I cut this off, drill/hollowed out the sleeve, and replaced the hand with a spare resin hand from the parts bin, so he could be giving a good proud Nazi salute for the picture for his mama. The second figure (LC 0074 SS Cameraman WW2) comes with his web belt moulded on, and recesses for his gear. Figuring he would be the driver I removed the belts, and filled in the recesses with a little Magic Sculpt. Photos 69-70 show the figures, the cameraman after I first assembled him, but before I decided to revamp him.

Now I don’t pretend to be a great figure painter, and it’s highly unlikely I will ever become one, so the best I can do is try to achieve presentable figures. I normally use enamels, and oils on figures, but on these I wanted to try some acrylics. I first primed with my usual Floquil primer, then starting with the flesh areas, I applied Polly S Flesh in two thin coats, eyeballs and all. After this dried, I sharpened a toothpick, and put the irises in using some dark blue. I then applied some controlled washes to the flesh areas using burnt umber, and burnt sienna oil paints. I let it sit for a while then removed the excess from the high spots with a dampened q-tip. After this dried for a day or two, I touched in the highlights with some flesh enamel. I then added the eyebrows and lips, again with enamels.

The SS Officer was done in 90% acrylics. Now this in new to me as I normally would use oils, but I wanted to try this. The majority of the paints used were plain old Polly S, as this in what I had on hand. I first gave the black leather coat, boots, gloves and hat, a coating of Polly S “Night Black” as a base. I recently picked up a bottle of acrylic Extender/Retarder, and a bottle of acrylic Flow Enhancer. I followed the directions on the bottles, which told me to add one part to 20 parts of my water. Well I normally use windshield washer fluid with Polly S, so I added one drop of each product to my cup of thinner. I then mixed a little Night Black with a little Grimy Black and started adding some highlights to the black areas.

The retarder/enhancer additive was working well, as the paint was flowing off the brush nicely, and not drying as fast. After I had the highlights on, I used the same mixture and added a little more of the thinner mix, and applied this as a wash-glaze-filter, pick a name, as I sure as hell don’t know what to call it. But being thinner, it seemed to blend the highlights into the shadows, with out much effort on my part. I just needed to keep removing it with another brush and clean thinner from the areas I wanted to keep in shadow. After this dried over night, I went back with straight “Night Black” again and applied this into the deepest shadows.

The finer details were painted on using enamels. Any mess-ups were simply wiped off with Humbrol thinner, and started over. The tiny scripts on the arm band (no, don’t try reading it, as it’s really nothing more than some scribbles) are added with a silver-grey mix, with a sharpened toothpick. The same silver-grey was used for the insignias, along with the same toothpick. The final touch was applying a tiny drop of future to each eye, again with a sharpened toothpick and a tiny amount of pastels to the boots (Photos 70-73).

I basically used the same technique for the SS Cameraman/Driver. After deciding that I wanted him without the field gear, I popped it all off with a knife blade, and striped him, then used a little Magic Sculpt to fill in the recesses and voids. I cut off the Y belt and front straps and re-did this area with Magic Sculpt. Then re-primed him. I used the same techniques as the previous figure, except I used Polly S Field Grey as the base color, lightened with a little light grey, and darkened with a little dark green. For the pants, I used the same Field Grey, but the base color had a little light gray added, and a little dark gray was used for the shadow.

The helmet with liner is a Caliber 35 helmet, and I used Model Master enamels for the leather liner and camouflage, following a photo off the web as a guide. A lead foil strap added to the helmet and camera completes it. (Photos 74-86)