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Step by Step: Painting WWII German Sturmpionier

This article shows how I have painted my WWII German Sturmpionier. These are a mixture of 1:72 scale Revell German Pioneers and German Infantry figures.

The German Pioneers come with many figures that are not very useful for wargaming. They are using pick-axes, shovels and carrying plank. But the remaining figures are great for Assault Engineers. They carry StG44 assault rifles, and a variety of explosives.

I used some figures from the German Infantry set for more variety, namely the Flame-thrower and explosives wielding figures. This set is great for depicting German troops on the Eastern front in the winter of 1943 or in the Ardennes.

I have indicated the time spent on each phase. This is absolute time spent painting, not including resting or photography time.

00hr 00min - Black basecoat

I started by cleaning the figures with a scalpel. They have been glued onto Balsa wood bases with two part epoxy glue. I have also glued sand and gravel to the bases with PVA glue. Once everything is dry, I sprayed the bases Matt Black.

00hr 55mins - Painting the larger areas

I usually start by painting all the larger areas of colours first. In this case, these include the German Fieldgrey uniforms and the Khaki base colour for the camouflage smocks, Zeltbahn and reversible coats.

At this stage, I have already painting the highlights of each colour by mixing them with White. The only parts not highlighted is the Khaki. I will highlight it after painting the camouflage pattern.

01hr 18mins - Painting the Brown areas

I paint the skin areas with a base coat of Brown as the darkest shadows of the skintone. The wooden stocks and butts of the weapons and the camouflage pattern are also painted in the same Brown. Although in reality, these are likely to be different shades of Brown, I have found that painting them the same shade makes the figure look less messy. Where appropriate, a highlight of Brown mixed with White is painted.

Usually, I paint Brown before any other colour, but because the Brown of the camouflage pattern needs to go over the Khaki, I have painted it after. At 1:72 scale, I have found that the most effective way to paint camouflage patterns is to paint them out of scale and exaggerated like I have done. Realistly scaled patterns will end up looking like a greyish brown mess. Remember to leave spaces for the Green part of the pattern.

01hr 55mins - Painting the details

The remaining colours are now painted. For the skintone, I have painted one layer of darker Flesh tone and highlighted the raised areas with a lighter Flesh tone. At 1:72 scale, this just involves dotting the nose, cheeks and knuckles with the lighter tone.

For the weapons, I painted them in a 50% - 50% mixture of Gunmetal and Black. The helmets are painted with a 50% - 50% mixture of Medium Grey and Black, and a highlight of Medium Grey. The ammo belt is painted with a base coat of Gunmetal.

The Green areas of the camouflage are also painted now. The Black areas get a Medium Grey highlight.

02hrs 03mins - Figures Done

The last stage of painting the camouflage involves dotting the patterns. I paint Khaki dots over the Green and Brown areas, and Brown dots over the Khaki areas. I later highlighted the camouflage fabrics with a Khaki and White mixture. After final corrections and cleaning up, the figure is done.

02hrs 15mins - Varnish Figures and Paint Bases

I paint a Matt Varnish over the figure and painted the bases. The sandy areas are painted Dark Brown and the flat areas Green.

02hrs 29mins - Bases completed

I drybrush the sandy areas with a Buff colour. The larger gravels are painted in Medium Grey and a final drybrush of White is applied. I finally glue Green Flock over the flat green areas. The figures and bases are now done.

Conclusion

This is a style of painting that I have brought to 1:72 scale from when I used to paint 28mm figures. It might seem to be quite tedious and time consuming but I am quite pleased with the results. Like I mentioned earlier, the time taken is absolute painting time. Once you include the time spent waiting for the paint to dry, and resting time, the process takes over four hours. I did all the painting in one session and the base in another, allowing the varnish to dry.

I hope parts of this article have been helpful to you. These are the paints I have used. Either because I like the quality of the paints or the tone of the colour.

Vallejo

Citadel

Folk Art

© 2004-2006 Michael Sng Woei Shyong. All Rights Reserved.