SoTR US Armored Infantry

[diehard]

Well, second batch done, and I have the beginnings of a proper army. Took longer than I thought as injuries have made it harder to paint for anything more than a short time, but pushed me into trying some new stuff. Some worked, some didn't, but overall I'm still pleased with them, capturing some of that plastic army man/comic book aesthetic I was going for.

The Command Squad. The corporal/sniper was the last thing done, and sat for awhile with a green smock as I couldn't settle on a camo scheme. I eventually just threw some brown and black paint on it to be done with it as I was tired thinking about it. Of course after I did that I realized it should have been shades of green with a Jack Kirby inspired pattern so I'm going to redo it.





Lt. Cooper and Staff Sgt. Bailey. Still have to give the Lt. a grenade launcher after I pick up a weapons sprue.





Squad Leaders and Packed MG's (pictures revealed a need for touching up on the ammo belts.)




Bazooka Team and Flame Throwers




Sorry for the pic quality, I just don't take that many pics that I really haven't invested that much time into it. Maybe someday I'll read that book that came with the camera. So, seven more riflemen for my second squad, the mortar and HMG, the other two Comanches and Sarge to complete the models in Secrets.The other Sentinel and the OSS agent are in the pipeline. Thanks for looking.

[manic _miner]

 I think I had seen these on the Westwind forum.Very nice painting.Would be good to see the force together so far.
 My Soviets arrived this week with a few more on the way.

[white knight]

Currently more in a building/converting than a painting phase. But these do make me feel like I should get back into the Weird War some time soon.

[commissarmoody]

They look good to me, to bad school keeps geting in my way or I would be painting mine up right now. To many projects and no time.

[diehard]

I think I had seen these on the Westwind forum.Very nice painting.Would be good to see the force together so far.
 My Soviets arrived this week with a few more on the way.

I took some pics of my completed force so far, wasn't too thrilled with them but here they are anyway.





And my first playable force.



Looking forward to seeing those Soviets. Might start some of my Germans now, we'll see.

[zbyshko]

interesting choice of greens.  what colors did you use?

i see you are from NEPA - my old home!  what part?

[diehard]

Yep, it's an unusual color combination but I was trying to capture the feel of the plastic Marx army men that I used to fight my MPC monsters as a kid, that's what they reminded me of. I also wanted to try out the P3 paints so picked up about eight of the greens in their range but mostly ended up using Wurm Green for the uniforms highlighted up to an old Citadel color, Putrid Green (I think the only non P3 I used.) Gnarls Green for the base helmets and vests and Thrall Flesh as the base for the back packs and gear. There was also some of the old Citadel deep green Orc Flesh wash and their old black ink involved along the way.

And I live in an extremely small town by the base of the Poconos about an hour north of the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton area. Right up the road from Jim Thorpe, named after and resting place of the famed Olympic athlete, that you may have heard of.

[zbyshko]

i can definitely see the resemblance to the plastic army men.  you certainly hit the nail on the head there.

by your geography, should i guess White Haven?  i myself grew up in Wilkes-Barre and surrounding haunts.  spent my university years in Wilkes U as well.

the walker you painted i assume then follows the same idea as the infantry; the shade of green does strike me as the same shade of plastic the old hollow tanks and jeeps were caste in.  it is certainly a unique approach and extension of one's youth making the 'adult' toy soldiers look like the kids toy soldiers.

[diehard]

Good guess based on what I gave you, but I actually live in a town called Nesquehoning (Indian for Narrow Valley, or so I've been told.) Made many a trip to the Scranton/WB area, in fact my younger brother lives in Sugar Notch (I think that's the name, Sugar something for sure) right now. Do you like living in the UK? Always sounded like a pretty cool idea to me.

As to the color scheme choice, it's actually a quite different approach I tried than my normal style. I've been told before that my models had a realistic look to them (as opposed to toys), most likely due to my preference of using very earthy colors in my palette. Probably the only things I've done prior to this using brighter colors was my Epic Eldar army and maybe my Hordes Legion (lot of purple involved there.)

And yep, the Walker was supposed to represent that darker green of the tanks and such, I'm very pleased that you caught on to that. It was an unusual approach (and I'm sure not to every bodies taste) but these miniatures (and Weird WWII in general) really reminded me of the little plastic guys and games of my youth, so I really wanted to try to capture that plastic guy/comic book type aesthetic with them. I'm pretty sure turning 50 had something to do with it to.

Thanks for your comments and time.

[white knight]

Matakishi did something similar with his WW2 and Weird War 2 figures too.

http://www.matakishi.com/crossfire.htm
and
http://www.matakishi.com/weirdwar21939.htm

[white knight]

And as you know, I did a similar thing with my Americans. They are darker than yours, but the plastic armymen I had were a dark green.
http://whiteknight.skynetblogs.be/category/1466246/1/Weird+War+II+US
http://whiteknight.skynetblogs.be/category/1466777/1/World+War+II+US

Likewise, my Japanese are painted in the colours that I feel they should be rather than actual historical colours.

[diehard]

Hi WK, thanks for the links. I'd seen Matakishi's Weird stuff before, but never stumbled upon his basic troops, very nice (as is all his other stuff.) Really wild how his reasons for painting them as he did are pretty similar to mine and yours. And I'd seen your work before on the SoTR forums, truth be told they were a big influence on my decision to paint mine as I did, and your Cap was a big factor in my choice of colors for my Liberty (and also Commander A and Buddy, who I am painting right now.) Thanks again for all the inspiration.