hello to all. i am working on a WWII diorama with a few amount of figures involved. i was planning to add some extra touches by applying uniform decals to the figures. here is the problem: looking at real photo's of tank crewmen, I rarely would find them having any patches on there uniforms. I do not want to spend the money if patches were hardly found on soldiers. what do you think? any suggestions?? thanks....

Hi Sean,

What nationality tankers are we talking?

Rudi

Make your own. Find the patches you want online or scan originals or color pictures. Import them to Word as you would any clip art and resize to scale. Apply to the figure with thinned Elmer's glue.

Im sorry. They are american.

Remember that it was very common for military censors to obscure or remove division patches in photographs.

John

Why not just paint them it in? They don't need to be spot on, you could just imply them. Trust me, at 1/35 nobody's going to notice that you put 45 stars on a US flag instead of 50 (IIRC that's the number?).

The other question is how historically accurate do you want your dio? Also, will anyone really notice if you're missing divisional markings on the figures? Just playing devils advocate

Rudi

Hi Sean,

Well, it ain't the cheapest way to go, but I'm a huge fan of Archer Transfers for stuff like this. Woody at Archer makes a sheet of U.S. Armored Division patches - just remember to cut off the postwar "slogans" on the bottom. These are "rub on" transfers, but Woody provides a sheet of decal film, so you just rub the transfer onto the sheet and apply like a waterslide, which it in fact becomes. I bought a sheet 4 years ago and still have plenty left.

You know, in this pesky digital era everyone expects the "molecular closeup", so things like patches become more obvious.

If you don't think you'll be photographing your figs, then hand painting etc. will be just fine.

BTW, Woody also has rank chevrons, and Hudson and Allen makes decals for all the "US" web gear imprints. H&A even make a sheet of 1/35th tattoos. Is that cool or what?

Regards,
Barry

Thanks guys for all your help. I really appreciate the feedback. All were helpful. Thanks again.