WW2 Australian Infantry 15mm – Part 1

Ok, this is a big step for me:  WW2 in 15mm!

After our last Blitzkrieg Commander game Richard gave me two packs of Battlefront Miniatures Australian Infantry.  Prior to this, while I have admired the figures, I have stayed strictly away, wanting to concentrate on my 1/76^th scale WW2 forces.  But inspiration struck as well as a desire to get more Vallejo paints. 

I really got stuck into these guys (it helped that we had finished watching Lost), aiming for a force to protect Crete from the onslaught of Richard’s Fallschirmjagers. 

Method

Cleaned up, not significant flash except on bases which was easily dealt with.  Some of the venting streamers were a bit trickier, but so far I have only found one that I missed.  Detail looks good although some of the poses are perhaps a bit to ‘knees bent crouching behaviour’, but then I don’t blame them!

Washed the 37 figures in warm water and dishwashing liquid and rinsed well.

Then I used PVA glue to fix them to cardboard strips by base groups for ease of painting.

The undercoated I used was Tamiya XF10 Flat Brown.  I was a bit apprehensive, but it has really gone on well, dried well (it seems to shrink on to the detail rather than cover it up even though it went on thick – it was a brand new pot and I didn’t feel it needed thinning).  It has really made the figures look good and this bought on a round of obsessing about what colours to use and how many layers etc.  Lots of research and no definitive solution...

Somewhere I had read advice to paint the faces first and so I did this with Vallejo VJ 70955 Flat Flesh.  I’m so glad I did this and stopped after the first two figures.  It was too pale.  I wanted bronzed Aussies.

Luckily I found that Vallejo VJ 70860 Medium Fleshtone over the brown undercoat provided exactly what I was looking for.

Boots, bayonet scabbard and rifle trim I did in VJ 70950 Black.  Then came hats, socks and water bottle in VJ 70921 English Uniform.  The actual uniform I did in VJ 70819 Iraqi Sand which I also used to dry brush over the slouch hats.  I was doing this over the socks as well, but changed to painting the gaiters as part of the webbing which I did in VJ 70976 Buff all though I did do the packs first in Stone Grey.
The helmets I did in VJ 70977 Desert yellow over brushed with VJ 70847 Dark Sand.

For the rifles I mixed Cavalry Brown with some Black.  The trim I finished in Metallic Gunmetal Grey (not a VJ colour) and bayonets then got a brush of Pure Silver (not a VJ colour).

The bases I painted in Tamiya XF52 Flat Earth and that then leaves with the basing dilemma: the pictures had five per base and I think four is the maximum I want to do, also just two on the small bases.  That will leave me some figures for singles which can then be commanders for use with Crossfire.

He looks a bit scary all blown up in the photo like that ...