Looking for WW2 German Navy

[Nunae]

So, miniatures are the one hobby my dad and me have in common. I collect and paint stuff for my DnD game like Reaper or DSM, he collects and builds submarines and ships. Mostly submarines. He has the walls full with submarines.

Now I want to paint a crew for him, which he has expressed he wants, but he doesn't want to paint. The scale is 1/72. It's German submarines.

 

My trouble is that I have no idea about this section of the miniature industry, and I'm not enough into WW2 to make something historically accurate. I do know that Revell has a German navy crew, but somehow they don't have that many pictures of them up on their site (mostly of concept art). Does anyone have experience with them? Are there other well made WW2 German navy dudes out there? 

 

Also, color suggestions would be great. I usually paint with Vallejo Game colors, I have looked through their Model colors catalog, and I'm a bit lost. Revell recommends certain colors for the uniforms, but I have no experience with their paint. My father sadly still paints with enamel colors, so I can't borrow his.

 

Any help to get this gift together would really be appreciated. 

[Lars Porsenna]

Bit of a thread here about them:

 

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/64887.aspx

 

Bad news is that they are soft plastic. I see Miniatures Andrea (metal), CMK & Warriors do figure sets too (Warriors is OOB with some of the molds with Squadron, so may still be around; both are resin IIRC).

 

Sadly this is out of scale for me (I do 1/35 armor), so not much more than that.

 

Damon.

[SisterMaryNapalm]

Hallo,

 

As for Revells German Navy crew - I can tell you a bit about it. In general, Revell uses a rather soft kind of plastic to make their miniatures. Therefore their sets from time to time have problems keeping the paint. I had that problem with Revell paratroopers. While one set was completetly fine, the color couldn't stick to the second one and always fell off once it was dry. (Yes, even washed in soap water and extensive priming didn't help.) Same with the German Infantry, which was in two different sets I bought.

 

So it can be that your have got luck with them, it can be that you have got problems.

 

From having a look at pictures on the internet, casting of this set seems to be good, which is great - the paras for example were poorly casted.

 

As for historical accuracy, Revell can be considered quite good. they normally take much effort to make their sets quite accurate. The figures of said set are for daily life on two types of Kriegsmarine vessels - U-Boat and S-Boat. Their poses match the daily life and from what I know my personal experience (NOT in the Kriegsmarine of course), the portayal of daily life on a warship looks good. Though, the figures are a bit stiff and you have to look where to put them. Also, for good portrayal, you have to cut away their bases.

 

For further reading, please check THIS link to ->plastic soldier review<-, where the set was completely reviewed.

 

Another company I know is CMK. They also produce WWII 1/72 figures, which are cast in resin. Their casting is said to be outstanding, therefore the figures are way more expensive, but from having a short look, they also seem to be quite usable!

 

So far from here.

 

Best regards.

[Nunae]

Thanks to the both of you!

 

I looked a bit through the Andrea Miniature shop, and gosh, they are gorgeous. Might be because they show their miniatures professionally painted. There will be some sort of board game and (historical) miniature fair in my city this month, I hadn't payed much attetion to until now, but  maybe that will allow me to see CMK, Andrea and Revell miniatures in person. Revell will be there for sure, hopefully someone of the hobbyist has some examples of the others with them.

 

Decision right now is if I want to paint tons of miniatures and fill all the submarines he has in one go with Revell or if I just paint one scene for one boat for now with Andrea. 

 

What paints are you guys using? Are you mixing your own "correct" greys and greens or do you buy them? Are there any good charts on correct uniform colors from different brands? Revell has painting instructions which ofc use their own colors. 

 

Edit: Hecker and Goros also has nice miniatures. And they have stuff directly corresponding to certain Revell boats, so that could be great. Have to get my lil Brother to take some pictures of the submarines or identify them for me.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Nunae

[Lars Porsenna]

I don't do naval stuff so don't have any specific color recommendations. That being said, from painting 1/35 scale soldiers, I'd suggest going with a "Navy Blue" and leaving it at that. If I were painting Wehrmacht soldiers, I'd use Andrea, Vallejo and Tamiya feldgraus depending on what I have at hand and what my whim takes me, even on the same model or diorama. Uniform shades could & did vary considerably more than vehicle or equipment colors, so being absolutely "strict" with the shade even when we know quite a bit about what that shade looks like, is not absolutely necessary or even recommended. 

 

Damon.

[Doug Sundseth]

6 minutes ago, Lars Porsenna said:

Uniform shades could & did vary considerably more than vehicle or equipment colors, so being absolutely "strict" with the shade even when we know quite a bit about what that shade looks like, is not absolutely necessary or even recommended. 

 

There are standards for the dyeing of uniform cloth in any modern military. These standards have some leeway for variation. Much more importantly, though, once a uniform is issued, the color will start to change. In particular, WWII U-Boats had the reputation of being very oily and some of the sailors' jobs were especially dirty, so once the uniform is in service, the only thing you can count on is that it won't be the specified color any more.

 

Get reasonably close and vary the color from figure to figure (in a U-Boat, I'd vary mostly browner, for a surface ship, I'd go both darker and lighter) and you should be fine.

[SisterMaryNapalm]

If you haven't, I can recommend the movie "Das Boot" - The Boat, if I remember correctly. There you can see some colors and as far as my knowledge is concerned, those are pretty usable as references

 

[Egg of Coot]

11 hours ago, Nunae said:

What paints are you guys using? Are you mixing your own "correct" greys and greens or do you buy them? Are there any good charts on correct uniform colors from different brands? Revell has painting instructions which ofc use their own colors.

 

A simple Amazon search for "Kreigsmarine Uniforms" will bring up a plethora of source books that you can mine for info.  Keep in mind that military buffs will argue for months at a time as to which shade of a particular color is "correct" for a particular article of clothing - so finding simple answers can be daunting as sources will sometimes disagree.  The thing to keep in mind is that depending on manufacturer, supplier, and the period of the German war effort, items of uniform clothing varied considerably.  That being said, at 1/72 scale you won't be able to focus too closely on details - so there is no point in getting too hung up on them.  If I were you, I'd probably just use the Revell color call outs as the basis of my color schemes and call it quits.

 

In terms of paints, there are no uniform colors that apply across the board between model companies.  You will even find disparities between "standard" colors from one manufacturer to another - again, see my comments about manufacturers, time frames, etc. above to get idea of why RLM 75 Grauviolett is not necessarily the same to all model paint suppliers.  However, there are color equivalency charts put together by hobbyists available on-line which will allow you to find a Tamiya paint which is "close enough" to a particular Gunze Sangyo color, etc.  You can drop me a PM if you can't find anything with a Google search, and I'll point you in the right direction.  

 

As far as which brands of paint to use, it's largely personal choice.  I prefer acrylics over enamels so most of my model painting is done with Testor Acryls, Tamiya, and Gunze Sangyo paints, but I'm a Luftwaffe modeler and do a lot of airbrushing.  YMMV.  If I were you, I'd ask your Dad what brand of paint he uses for his stuff and then see if they have an acrylic line like Testors does.

 

The Egg 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Egg of Coot

[Nunae]

Good morning and thank you for your answers. 

I'm on my phone right now, so I'm having a bit of trouble with quoting and writing a lot. 

I appreciate the comments about colors being used up and not looking as precise as the ship itself, it eases my mind a bit. It's kind of daring hour many greys, greens and blues there are in the historic color lines.

I have decided to go with a smaller set from Andrea, that features a few guys working in a more in port situation. I can link a picture when I'm home again.

Fewer but nicer minis seem to be a better gift imho. A lot of the more interesting sets seem to not be compatible with every boat or would need me to work directly with the boat which I can't (my father lives 5 hours away).

Thank you all again, this has been a huge help. It's going to be an interesting project for sure.

[buglips*the*goblin]

On 9/7/2017 at 1:06 PM, Knochensack said:

Hallo,

 

As for Revells German Navy crew - I can tell you a bit about it. In general, Revell uses a rather soft kind of plastic to make their miniatures. Therefore their sets from time to time have problems keeping the paint. I had that problem with Revell paratroopers. While one set was completetly fine, the color couldn't stick to the second one and always fell off once it was dry. (Yes, even washed in soap water and extensive priming didn't help.) Same with the German Infantry, which was in two different sets I bought.

 

So it can be that your have got luck with them, it can be that you have got problems.

 

 

 

If you still have those figures, and if you'd like to try out something for science, can you try priming them with some reaper brown liner?  So far it's proven it's capabiltiy on all plastic I've tried, but I don't have any of the revell figures.  I'm curious to know if it would also work on them. 

[SisterMaryNapalm]

3 hours ago, buglips*the*goblin said:

 

If you still have those figures, and if you'd like to try out something for science, can you try priming them with some reaper brown liner?  So far it's proven it's capabiltiy on all plastic I've tried, but I don't have any of the revell figures.  I'm curious to know if it would also work on them. 

 

 

I don't know if I still have them got. Maybe some leftovers at some of my bitboxes. Then again - I don't have got the Reaper paint. So that ... might be a bit difficult. But I can have a look if I find some figures.

[Nunae]

Those guys I plan on painting. I like that they aren't just standing at attention. And my dad should be able to place them on his Type VII. Judging from this picture, I just need khaki (which I have), some blueish grey for the pants and hats and should be fine.

 

Ah, with this thread already open, are there any notable differences from painting 28 mm scale to painting 1/72? Does the racoon eyes painting strategy still work? 

[SisterMaryNapalm]

From my experience it is slighty different, due to the size. So you can have got really big 1/72 or really small ones.

 

Have a look ->HERE<- for my 1/72 Gallia project. There you can see Caesar miniatures and Revell in comparison to Reapers Sophie.

 

You STILL can paint the eyes, but they will be very, very small. And maybe it is a good idea to go brighter on the colours as they then tend to pop more to the eyes.

[Beagle]

Warlord Games do 28mm Kriegsmarine, but they're all in action poses

 

 

Artizan also do some

 

[Glitterwolf]

On 8-9-2017 at 7:42 PM, buglips*the*goblin said:

 

If you still have those figures, and if you'd like to try out something for science, can you try priming them with some reaper brown liner?  So far it's proven it's capabiltiy on all plastic I've tried, but I don't have any of the revell figures.  I'm curious to know if it would also work on them. 

 

I have used Brown Liner on Resin scenery ( Greenstuffworld Aztec ruins) the New Hard Plastic Bones III Mausoleum and several other resin and plastics, works like a charm.