“The Tinpot Dictator & the Costumed Clown”

You may remember that last week I finished the conversion of the “grandpa” figure I had from “Hasslefree” changing him from your average octogenarian into “The Zimmer” (you don’t well scroll down the page to last weeks posting to read the full account, and pay more attention from now on, there may be a test!). Well before I get into how I painted him and his companion piece, the “Hitlerbot” figure from “Copplestone Castings”, I thought I’d share a little background and insight into my thinking behind the two figures.

As the super arch nemesis of “Adolf” during the second world war “The Zimmer’s” exploits against the dreaded “Nazi’s” thrilled patriotic movie audiences in the “pathe” news reports of the forties, but as time rolled on age forced him to hang up his cape and retire to a Florida retirement home. But now news reports have started coming in of the resurrection of an old threat to the free world, it appears that some crazed scientist (probably Professor Maniacus see https://rantingsfromunderthewargamestable.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/movember-vile-villains-the-lot-of-them-week-2/ ) has grafted the “Fuhrers” head (kept alive by his fanatical supporters since the end of the war) onto an unstoppable robot body. So “Bernie Baxter” has unpacked his cape and “The Zimmer” lives again (though only just!).

Now I wasn’t quite sure what colours I was going to use on the “Zimmer” at first so once he was undercoated I began by painting his cape and shorts coffee as I was pretty sure these would end up white, possibly with a red body suit a bit like “Captain Marvel”, but after a bit of a think I decided to go for a more patriotic colour scheme (He was America’s hero after all) so a bit of a cross between “Captain America” and “Superman” was my final choice. So after highlighting the coffee with cream and finally white I added red stripes to his shorts (very Harlem Globetrotter in style), his chest insignia, a  red star and three red stripes to his cape in dark red highlighted with bright red, I also did his short boots this colour too. Next I added the “long johns” or under suit, this was undercoated with a mixture of royal blue with a touch of porcelain blue, and highlighted with the same mix of colours but with the ratios reversed. I also added the blue line around the star and the stripes down his cape in the same colours (I’m not sure if the finished cape looks a little too “Evel Knievel” now it’s finished). His flesh next was undercoated in European flesh tone and this was then mixed with a little pale flesh tone and was used to highlight his hands and face (after his eyes were added of course), then his hair (what there is of it) was applied in dark grey highlighted with light grey and then again with a touch of white. This left his belt to be added in black highlighted with a little dark grey, his belt buckle in copper and gold and his cane in chocolate brown dry-bushed with butternut, and he was ready for the final coat of Quickshade before his base was painted and flocked in my usual manner.

When it came to “Hitlerbot” I wanted him to contrast to “the Zimmer’s” bright costume so after he’d had a good dry-brushing with chain-mail I painted the torso and “Track box” of his robotic body with a mix of chocolate brown and leather brown as a base for the camouflage pattern I was going to apply there. This was based upon a pattern used on some German tanks toward the end of the war (I copied it off of a die-cast “King tiger” I have if I’m honest), to get the almost translucent effect I was after in the stripes I concocted a very thin mixture (almost a wash) of dark red and leather brown and painted it on like a water colour. Then I did the same with a thinned down coat of rifleman green before adding the “dots” in coffee, I’m quite pleased with the finished result. His face was added next in the same colours and order as the “Zimmer” above with the addition of a couple of dark red circles under his eyes for that maniacal look. I added a black and white “Tank cross” to the plate behind his head, and as I noticed I painted it slightly off to the left of centre I added a small “A” next to it as a model number (so it looked like I done it deliberately). That just left his hair and moustache to add in black highlighted with a little dark grey, some copper “dots” on some visible bolt heads and a dot of day-glow green on whatever it is that is protruding from his chest and he to was ready for his date with a Quickshade covered brush. After this he was based as above, before both were given a final spray coat of matt varnish. I’m rather pleased with the pair of them; they should make nice additions to my ranks of heroes and villains.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d give some more of my “world war two” collection the Quickshade treatment while I had the tin out. So now all of my Romanians (including the two Renault R40’s they have for heavy(ish) support) have been coated, flocked and re-matt varnished. I’ll start on the Germans next.

Well that’s about all for this week so till next time. Cheers Roger