War Daddy

Introduction

This is a life miniatures 120mm figure that I spotted whilst browsing through the internet and immediately knew I had to buy. Its entitled "war daddy" and if the name doesn't give it away for you I will explain further: Brad Pitt starred in a very recent war film entitled "fury" which is based upon a fictitious Sherman Tank crew on their drive towards Berlin in the latter stages of the war. Brad Pitt's character is nick named "war daddy" by his crew.

The figure

What can I say; its amazing! the detail and likeness is superb. I usually buy figures from a sculptor called Maurice Corey purely because of the quality and if I am honest I was a little worried that this particular figure would not be of comparable quality in casting and sculpt. I was literally blown away with the detail. If you have the opportunity to buy one of these figures then don't hesitate; you wont be disappointed.

Building the figure 

Assembly was simple; mainly due to the quality of the casting. There were some slight gaps around the shoulder joints which required minimal model filler, however that's the only trouble I experienced. This is just about the shortest build section that I have ever written however: nothing more to write about here!

Initial Painting 

The entire figure was undercoated in Halfords white primer. I cannot recommend the grey and white primer enough for model making. It provides a fantastic first coat and so far I have used almost every conceivable model paint with it and experienced zero adverse reactions. For the base colours I elected to use Humbrol enamels for everything save for the deep blue on the chevrons for which I used Vallejo because it provided the perfect colour match. I have also decided to hand paint the entire figure just to see what kind of finish I can get from brush alone.

The base 

The base is a simple marble block that was originally used for a small trophy. It was picked up from a car boot sale sans the trophy which had been broken off at some point. The cost? 10 pence!

A quick clean and removal of the old felt base revealed a really nice piece of marble that is ideal to mount a 120mm figure. For the ground I decided to keep it as simple as possible. In all honesty there was only one choice; mud! Every time I think about the film, I think of churned earth so to me its a no brainer. The mud is made from the dry earth that I get from work, mixed with water and PVA which is then coated with a gloss medium to give the impression of mud rather than dry churned earth .

Oil painting the figure

When choosing oils I normally opt for a darker and lighter version of the enamel base colour however for the tankers jacket I decided to try an initial coat of olive green to try to replicate a closer match to the original jacket. I was really happy with the results and opted for darker and lighter shades of the olive green to give the final colours on the jacket. Using the same trick I chose some dark brown over the trousers and varying the colour palate with titanium white and deep brown for the creases. Raw umber was used to achieve the leather base colour over the enamel with some yellow dry brushed in areas to show wear.

The face was a base coat of flesh tone followed by burnt umber, cadmium red and titanium white. This is the basic combination that I use for almost all of my figures and it usually produces the results that I am after. There was a temptation to add some additional dirt and oil followed by stubble however; the figure in its finished state looked great from my point of view and I didn't feel that "extra effects" were needed. 

Finishing the figure

Following the attachment of the head I then set about the usual scrutiny and touch ups all over the figure and then it was a few hours in my "model oven" to dry the oils off a little ( basically a small thick wooden box that has an old pigmy light bulb that gives enough head to raise the temperature and cook off the paint). The photos below are basically the finished figure with a few more touch ups needed to call it 100%.