The inspiration for this figure came from a book titled "Nuts" The Battle of the Bulge by Dillon & Wenger. A picture of a surrendering medic illustrated the conglomoration of gear this individual was wearing and carrying. He sports an issue red cross smock and armband and a field improvised red cross on his helmet made up from strips of cloth. Of special note are his captured US binocular cases used in lieu of the german issue leather medical pouches and a machine gun ammo can painted white to lug around extra supplies. Also notice he wears his breadbag slung on the breadbag strap versus being worn on the belt.
I used the 21st Century German uniform set since it gave a better tattered appearance. Some holes were made in the long coat while the buttons were repainted and textured. The smock is just simple cotton cloth sewn to shape. The belt buckle received a wash of acrylics to bring out the detail and the belt was replaced with one made from leather. The bino cases are 21st Century Toys items with the molded carry strap detail removed, these were then repainted. A bit of tissue was tucked under the lid on one of the cases to simulate the haphazard look of this figure as in the real picture. I weathered the uniform with acrylics and a touch of pastels. I used a mixture of micro balloons and paint to make the mud on the boots. I drybrushed some light grayish tan to simulate the lighter dried mud first, applied the mud mixture and then drybrused the mud very lightly.
Rear view of the figure shows the breadbag to good advantage. The breadbag was made from scratch, I've never really cared for the Dragon breadbags because they do not accurately portray this important piece of german field gear, the molded plastic types are....well they look like molded plastic. I used real leather where applicable, the D rings were bent from paper clips and the strap was made to match the prototype construction as well including the simple snap that secures it. The smock was splashed and splattered with various tones of acrylics which had been thinned to not much more than dirty water.
The headsculpt is our old friend Dragon Herman. I made the whiskers by adding a staright pin to the tip of soldering iron, this was secured with wraps of fine galvenized wire. Once the iron was hot, the whiskers were "etched" in. The sculpt was repainted with my long abandoned airbrushing method. The whiskers were then drybrushed a suitable shade and that was it. I detailed the helmet by removing the molded blobs which were supposed to be rivets. These were replaced with appropriately sized straight pin heads. The helmet was repainted gray, and then over sprayed with white acrylic which was super thinned with alcohol. This allows the paint to be chipped and worn off with tools and steel wool. I then splashed some water dirited with earth tone acrylics and applies some pastels arouned the rivet heads. The chin strap was replace with leather and a new buckle was fashioned from a straight pin. Rio Rondo makes some very nice buckles but in a pinch the straight pin buckles work great and only take a few minutes to make.
The unique red cross on the helmet was made from strips of red cloth,
which were first saturated with hairspray and allowed to dry. The strips were then cut with a Fiskars rotary cutter. I did this to prevent fraying however the edges could have been sewn but I felt that they would look too bulky that way. The helmet band was fashioned from pig skin leather which is somewhat stretchy, I used this instead of a rubber band because rubber bands have a tendancy to rot away in a year or so.
Hands are one of the most overlooked details on these figures. I paint them as if they were a headsculpt and it really adds to the overall look of the figure. I sometimes add a hint of body hair to the backs of the hands which is easily done with a sharp colored pencil, just make very light passes, the picture on the right illustrates this is you enlarge it and look closely you'll see what I mean.
The ammo can like the helmet was sprayed with white acrylic (Tamiya) which had been super thinned with alcohol. The white paint was then "worn" with steel wool. A few washes, pastels etc and it was nice and used looking. Well that's about it for this guy, I wanted a medic for my collection and he fills the bill nicely.
