Dad's Army 2

I've just finished the first group of Dad's Army figures, so I thought I should post some pictures. They're not based yet, and won't be until the civilians have been painted (just starting on them).

The figures went together fairly easily - WW2 British Army colours are relatively simple. I was following the SHQ guide, which for the most part was okay. I should, however, have used khaki for the webbing, rather than Vallejo Iraqui Sand, which was too light.

When I was looking at reference pictures of the cast, I noticed that all the belts and puttees, apart from Mainwaring's, were black. Every other picture of British troops from that period that I've seen have the belts and puttees khaki. There were also some strange pouches being worn in the TV series, rather than the standard 37 pattern pouches that the Foundry figures had been sculpted with.

There was nothing I could do about the pouches, so I just painted up the ones on the figures. I decided to follow the cast photographs regarding the belts and puttees, however, so painted them black. I don't know if the BBC messed up their research, but it's probably more likely that units at that time (especially Home Guard units just after Dunkirk), would have got whatever equipment was lying around.

I did actually make an attempt at the shoulder flashes, but they're not very noticeable - one of the drawbacks of painting using an Optivisor is that things that look good at 2.5x magnification tend to disappear in normal use. They're just about visible on Godfrey's left shoulder below. The formation patch below the shoulder flash had "CP1" on it in the cast photos. I decided against trying this, however, as it was more likely to spoil things than add anything to the figure (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!).

I tried to match the colour for Pike's scarf. I think it's mostly there, although there should have been more purple in it.

And finally, the group shot, still on their painting bases.

I had trouble deciding on hair colour for Captain Mainwaring. I've seen some pictures of him with grey hair, and others with red-brown hair. I decided to go with the red-brown, as everyone else (apart from Pike) had grey hair.

Civilians

Next up are the civilians - the Vicar, Verger, Mr Hodges, Mrs Fox, Mrs Pike and Mr Blewitt. The figures below have been undercoated, with eyes done and the skin basecolour applied.

The Vicar, Verger and Mr Hodges are in black clothes, so I'm hoping that will speed things up.

I subscribe to the online version of Skirmish Magazine, available through Exact Editions. They quite often cover WW2 re-enactment events, so I shouldn't have too much trouble finding clothing ideas for Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox below.

Diorama layout

I had planned to set the diorama in the church hall, with Fraser and Pike on the stage. However, when I had a look at pictures of the hall, there are railings all along the front of the stage, which means that I'm going to have to change my plan.

The problem is that Fraser is kneeling and pointing, so looks out of place with the others. What I'm thinking at the moment is to have him and Pike off to the side - Fraser pointing something out and Pike pretending to shoot it. The alternative is to have Fraser talking to Mr Blewitt - as he's got a slight stoop, it might not look too bad.