FEMbruary 2019 Work in Progress

After black acrylic primer, blocking in colour begins with light olive and flesh – very animated 28mm Annie Norman’s Bad Squiddo figures Women of WW2 Russian Command.

Over the weekend as FEMbruary 2019 begins, I have undercoated my two sets of believable female miniatures by Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/fembruary-2019-and-new-bad-squiddo-figures-arrive/

I started to block out basic colours onto each set. Finding the right green / khaki shade for Soviet troops should be interesting. They will most likely be gloss finished.

I noticed when comparing the Land Girls set this year with those painted last year that I used mostly  Revell Aquacolor Gloss Acrylics.  I usually now paint in toy soldier style, rather than the more realistic “grungy” khaki and brown wash of modern Wargames figures and “Military Modelling”. A matter of personal taste.

Gloss or not Gloss? Even the wider range of  Matt colours can be glossed at the end with Varnish.

Last year’s FEMbruary Land Girls at Rest on the left, this year’s work in progress are  Land Girls at Work with bag of spuds on the right. The hay stook on the left is the cut off broom head from a Steve Weston Mexican peasant woman, converted into a Suffragette last year.

Gloss or not gloss?

2018 FEMbruary Land Girl figures painted in gloss – not quite finished yet.

One new #FEMbruary / #MARCH challenge that has come up – Will I be able to get both sets of Land Girls finished and box framed ready for the craft section of my local Spring Flower Show in mid March?

It fits the local agricultural / flower show theme. Many Land Girls worked or trained on local farms in  my semi-rural Southwest area of Britain during WW1 and WW2.

It strikes a blow for “boy-craft” in an otherwise mostly female craft section.

Hopefully I can finish  this project on time to a suitable standard (my own!)

Last year I didn’t think my Suffragette conversions were quite ready or suitable for the same event, even though it was the Right to Vote centenary and we had had active suffragette campaign in my home area.

Already Marvin at Suburban Militarism has finished his FEMbruary project, a fine set of 54mm WREN Royal Navy female figures, who turned out to be made in his very own home town!
https://suburbanmilitarism.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/fembruary-a-la-mode/

Meanwhile reading my FEMbruary challenge read – The Unwomanly Face of War, an oral history of Russian women in WW2 – is proving surprisingly interesting and challenging subject matter. Grim in many places, not for the faint hearted but certainly a history that needed to be recorded (written 1985, updated 2017) before this generation of women  passed away.

Bad Squiddo figures: https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/Bad-Squiddo-Miniatures/c/20887901/offset=0&sort=addedTimeDesc

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 4 February 2019