Tank Commander

[Kroenen1944]

This is my first 1/16th scale figure he spends most of his days in a Tiger Tank

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I can see that your Commandant is 3D printed, and the quality of the figure is good, making paint produce better results than is generally available on plastic figures. I especially approve of the cables for his intercom, which cables are convincingly connected to his headphones and all the way down the front of his jacket. His insignia are quite cleanly painted. Well done!

Eyes are especially difficult to paint, and there are even decals for 1/16 eyes. I have practiced painting eyes with widely varying results. I have found that the whites of the eyes of figures hardly need be represented at all, for out in the daylight--even the dim light of, say, the Eastern Front--the pupils are small and the eyes seem almost closed, making the whites almost invisible. I have even left the whites of figures' eyes quite narrow and painted the in the lightest, base color of the skin.

[Kroenen1944]

Thank you kindly. yes 3d printed seems to be the way forward with figures now. So many options available.
Eyes.....I wish there were more figures with sunglasses available! hahahaha
But you are right, mostly eyes look completely dark and there is very little need for the whites of the eyes really.
It is tricky, at some scales a dark wash is fine for eyes! This figure i went with the full eye ball, maybe because the eyball area he has is fairly large on this sculpt, even down to the a little dot of white in centre of pupil, so he didn't have that startled look !! Its not easy to achieve the steadiness of hand these days, and I need some new glasses!

Skin tones were a challenge, this was about the third attempt. I nearly went for a 4 o'clock shadow, but in the end he ended up clean shaven. its made up of about 4 or 5 ever lightening shades of flesh colour, all raised areas being the lightest.

Collar patches/shoulder boards are decals, (i cheated!) and cuff title I made on my ink jet printer! The medals/awards are etched brass frets from Rado of Poland, https://radominiaturesworld.com/ they are simply amazing detail.
and enhance any figure.
His tunic has some subtle highlights on the raised areas in a slightly lightened black paint to pick out the detail. There wasn't much else to do.
The cables do add some realism here don't they? I especially like the throat mic. I stumbled across a colour photo of a panzer commander uniform (posed by model) with headphones and throat mic and noticed the colour of the cables! I would have assumed them to be black, but they aren't! It looks ike the wires/cables were insulated with some sort of fabric sheath/mesh (cotton?) back in those days.

The plastic figures lack a lot of definition and detail which makes them more difficult to paint, unless you use a wet pallet technique of mixing colours (like you would in oil painting) their sculpts are pretty basic. I attempted to paint my Henglong figure, even added some extra awards in etched brass, but it wasn't really doing it for me! So went with resin.

[Herr Dr. Professor]

Thank you for the link to Rado Miniatures; I have bookmarked it. Uh, the decals are not cheating: it's just common sense to use them. The brown-reddish cloth covering over the intercom wires seems to be identical to cloth insulation over electrical cords on pre-war appliances (e.g. toasters, vacuum cleaners) here in the U.S.

Here's a book you may find useful for German figures: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/sea ... E2%80%9345. For more on U.S. and other equipment, search Osprey publishing ( https://www.ospreypublishing.com/UK/ ) using the term "equipments" (yes, with an "s" on the end; odd to me).

[Kroenen1944]

Thank you for the link to Rado Miniatures; I have bookmarked it. Uh, the decals are not cheating: it's just common sense to use them. The brown-reddish cloth covering over the intercom wires seems to be identical to cloth insulation over electrical cords on pre-war appliances (e.g. toasters, vacuum cleaners) here in the U.S.

Here's a book you may find useful for German figures: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/sea ... E2%80%9345. For more on U.S. and other equipment, search Osprey publishing ( https://www.ospreypublishing.com/UK/ ) using the term "equipments" (yes, with an "s" on the end; odd to me).

Thank you kindly. that's one Osprey I don't have!!! Yes, there is a lot of this kind of thing creeping in to publishing and journalism...and its incorrect, and its unforgivable for a professional publishing house to make grammatical errors like these. in my humble opinion "Equipment" is a plural, as is "aircraft"...but i see "Aircrafts" a lot he in UK...they don't need "S" on the end hahahahaha its woeful isn't it?

The binding on electrical wres in those days may well be universal....pretty sure I've seen an old bakalite telephone with that cable cover.

[ColemanCollector]

That is a weird word--equipments. Apparently it's (it is) a form used in older literature, so I guess Squadron was in an old-timey mood for those books!

Mike.

[Kroenen1944]

That is a weird word--equipments. Apparently it's (it is) a form used in older literature, so I guess Squadron was in an old-timey mood for those books!

Mike.

Thanks for pulling me up on my lack of apostrophe, it was lazy of me, I thought this section was in fact about figures...but no its grammar.
I shall endeavour to do better.

[ColemanCollector]

Sorry, couldn't resist when you take a publisher to task over slaughtering the English language!

[Son of a gun-ner]

The binding on electrical wres in those days may well be universal....pretty sure I've seen an old bakalite telephone with that cable cover.

Do you mean like this?
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20240730_233846.jpg (1.77 MiB) Viewed 2704 times

[Ecam]

I rewired a neighbors mom's home. The original 1940's build had a bunch of this cloth covered wire. The 70s and eighties remodels and expansions had the more current aluminum and later copper wires.


When I dove into the revamp I shut the power down on the whole shebang. That cloth covered wire was scary to this baby boomer kid. Ultimately no fire or death to the mods I performed. Red Neck country has their own set of rules...