Flammenwerfer!

Hey All!

A few weeks ago, I finished painting and photographing a few miniatures for a tutorial on Flammenwerfer teams. I was planning on posting after I returned from vacation and I had a chuckle as a fellow 15mm painter (goes by the handle 'Hamster') on the FOW forum posted a great-looking team of Soviet flamers!

Here:

Soviet Flamethrowers

Though lacking the finer painted details, his use of shadow and lighting effects on the surrounding terrain and figures is excellent and adds a dash of realism seldom seen in 15mm. Well done! May have to incorperate this into my own minis!

Color me a little humbled...onward to the tutorial...

MW BF GE726 Pioneer Platoon blister:

Many of the figures for this blister are simply fill-ins from other blisters but there are some original poses in the blister. The majority of the unique 'Pioneer' figures are more or less in static poses but there are a few good action shots (three figures in front in the photo below). You may need to do some head transplants as the heads of the figures with helmet covers are too small (an issue with most BF German figures with covers). Also included in this blister are a pair of crouching flamethrowers and a pretty decent cast of a Goliath tracked demolition charge. 

Flame Construction:

I began by cleaning and mounting the flamethrower figures and choosing some additional figures to add to the bases as support.

The wand of the Flammenwerfew 35 is too fragile to support much on its own so I replaced it. I cut off the tube of the wand and carefully drilled out the end to accept a brass wire replacement.

 I glued the brass rod into the hole using JB Weld Kwik. This a 2500-pound (!) strength 2-part epoxy putty that I now use for all glue work on 15mm miniatures.

Using Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf, I covered the rod in a sort of flame shape, using cyano glue.

I soaked the entire flame in slightly watered down white PVA glue and let dry overnight.

Once completely dry, I sprayed the flame black (to cover the green and add shadow) and the figure white (could have saved masking if I painted them separately – Doh!

Painting the flame was done with Tamiya yellow and orange with some black and white for  soot and highlighting. Any paint would do but the Tamiya dries super quick and covers the black well. The second figure below was modified slightly by bending his raised arm down to place an encouraging hand on his comrades shoulder as he increases his carbon footprint.

(Begin shameless plug) German Flamethrower card for Schwere Kompanie (End shameless plug)

 

Cheers!

Troy