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World War 1
The pictures below are 15mm miniatures by Minifigs that I
painted in the mid to late 1980's. I had become interested in WW1 and the Western Front (the early war period in particular),
so I thought I'd try painting a few. The figures are based according to a set of rules I was designing at the time; each stand
was a platoon, as I recall (or was it a company?...I lost my notes on all this a long time ago!). Anyway, the early-war period
interested me most because it was still a war of maneuver and not a war of attrition fought from trenches. In recent times,
however, I've become interested in the possibilty of trench raid skirmish games (and skirmish games in general, I might
add). At the same time I was painting these figures, I started to collect WW1 helmets and headgear and eventually ended up
with a nice, if rather small, collection.
These figures were painted with enamels for the most part,
but I do recall using some acrylics on the horses for highlights and shading, so I guess that makes these figures "transitional"
for me.
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| German cavalry (Kurassiers). (Note: pennants made from paper; attached with white glue.) |
Below: 1/285th scale Sopwith Camel (left) and a Fokker Dr.1 triplane
(right). The top wingspan on the Camel is a mere 30mm.
These aircraft came with the miniatures game called "Hostile Aircraft"
by Goblintooth. The miniatures are fairly crude and consist of two pieces, but they're meant to be playing pieces and not
ultra-detailed scale models. Once painted and on the table, they don't look too bad from a distance. The insignia were handpainted.
One of the neat things about the game is the clever stands used to show the aircraft's altitude and position. The aircraft
can be pivoted on both the horizontal a vertical axis.
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| 1/285th scale aircraft by Goblintooth |
World War 2
It seems that I've been interested in WW2 all of my life;
I suppose having a father that was a veteran of that war had a lot to do with it along with all of the TV programs and movies
that were on when I was a kid. Oddly, not much of my painted miniatures collection is from that era. The bulk of any
WW2 wargaming I've done has been with boardgames. Now that my interests have shifted over to skirmish games with miniatures,
perhaps this will change, although I must say that most of my WW2 miniatures gaming that I've done could be classified
as "skirmish". The point here is maybe I'll get around to adding different nationalities and equipment since you need
fewer figures and equipment for your average skirmish game. (Terrain for a skirmish game is another matter, though!)
The figures below are 1/72nd scale plastic figures by ESCI.
These were painted in the mid 1980's using enamels. I have about a squad each of the Germans and Soviets. I have quite a few
other nationalites, too, but they remain in their boxes. I've been thinking about rebasing these figures using 3/4-inch
(20mm) fender washers to give them a little more heft and stability. The ones in the pictures are mounted on 1/2-inch cardboard
counters that I cannibalized from one of my boardgames (strength point counters from "Terrible Swift Sword", as I recall).
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| German infantry. (Note: these appear rather more gray in the picture than they do in real life.) |
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