¹⁄35

Ardennes 1944 - Ridin High!

Building the Schwimmwagen went fairly smooth. By the time I had the Schwimmwagen assembled I was also supplied with a conversiontable and I could start spraying the motorcycle. First I sprayed the motorcycle with Humbrol 83 and let it dry. After that I sprayed the other 2 colors. Seagreen and rustbrown with a tinge of black. And let it all dry.  During the sprayingprocess on the DKW, I also painted the Schwimmwagen, only instead of using Humbrol 83 used the original Humbrol 63 and the seagreen.

So far so good. Now the two figures that had to be added. Becuause I didn’t have a lot of experience painting camo’s, I studied this thoroughly and gathered the right colors via the color references on the back of the DKW box. In the end, I selected the “plain tree pattern (spring)” camouflage pattern for the tunics and for the motorcyclist’s pants the Italian pattern. For the tunics I used the Humbrol colors 91, 29 and 105. These colors went well together and give a nice contrast. For the motorcyclist’s pants I used Humbrol colors 93, 160 and 116. Now the uniforms are painted. The officer’s boots were painted plain black, while I painted the orderly’s shoes Humbrol 29 instead of the recommended color 98; a black wash over the shoes and done. I paint the facial parts in a manner, most realistic though simple. This you get very nice faces that don’t take too much time. Of course undercoated the flesh parts with flat white and let it dry for 24 hours. Then applied the basic flesh color from Revell, because it’s lighter than Humbrol’s. Let dry well and apply a wash of Humbrol 29 for the contrasts. Let dry again and then a careful drybrush of the same Revell flesh color and accented the high parts with some white and wiped it out. The eyes were applied with a pin, the color of the eyes varied from blue to black, just how it turns out. Did the same on the hands.