Model: German WWII Machinegun Greatcoat Brand: Tamiya Scale: 1/16 Subject: Figure
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Contents of the box
all neatly packed in plastic bags.

Without the bags

At first glance when you look at the sprues it's all nice, but when you take a closer look you'll see a lot of mold-lines and that will take you some to clean it up.

After cleaning the shoe it looks like this, mold lines have been removed later on.

and after i put it on a painting block

1st Update

Earlier i showed the moldlines, well on the arms they ain't getting better.

Finally a dryfit of the model holding it together with blue-tack.

Here a side view of the figure, i hope the arm has a natural look.

I scraped away the chin belt, because i want the chinbelt over the edge of the helmet, first try is tamiya modelling tape cut into a fine line, but eventually i think i'm gonna use milliput or a piece of evergreen styrene sheet or something to scratch a chinstrap over the edge of the helmet.

and last but not least, a head 'on a stick'

Nice detail is that you can choose between two different belt buckles, the Heer belt buckle (no. 17)or the waffen SS belt buckle (no. 16)

2nd Update

Last week i airbrushed the figure in it's basecoat with Vallejo (mode color) German Uniform and didn't use a primer of any kind, just to give the figure as few layers a possible and prevent lossing details. I did clean the figure with a soft brush dipped in Revell airbrush cleaner.

I put 4 layers of Vallejo (model color) Glossy black on the boots, but in my opinion they can use an extra layer.
I know it's shiny, but i want to create the buffed and polished shoe effect first and later on i can make it more dull to fit the story of the figure.

and then i worked on the stahlhelm, i've searched and looked at a lot of different helmets for reference. The helmet on my figure (as far as i know, please correct me if i'm wrong) was used at the end of the war. The normal M35 stahlhelm has installed vent holes/rings and as each version of the helmet was made simpler, the vent hole were simplified to stamped in and eventually disappeared with later simpler versions. (maybe they got tired of the whistling sound of the wind in their helmets, like the modern construction helmets...grrrr)

The other thing i noticed on the different helmets was a structure, the one had a very smooth surface and the some others had some texture on them, because i liked this so much, i wanted to replicate this texture.

What i did was, i used Mr Surfacer 500 and a Q-tip/Cottonswab and i dipped it in (undisolved) and began pressing on the helmet with the q-tip until i got the wanted texture. There are different ways of doing this, but i choose this one, the downside of this method can be that the little hairs from the q-tip end up in your texture, but that doesn't matter very much because you'll be sanding the texture off later on when it's dry.

So i waited till it dried up and i sanded it with a little piece of grain 1000 sandingpaper, to a softer texture.

Later i 'sanded' the helmet with a little piece of steelwool(the stuff that you can clean very dirty pots and pans with) to an even softer finish, to the texture effect i liked.

3rd Update

I had my figure ready in the basecoat, but i wasn't fully satisfied with it because the paintjob was to fragile. When you nick it, the paint comes of. and that maybe has to do with the fact that i didn't apply any primer. So I decided to redo the figure.
I removed the paint with a flat brush and a cup of alcohol and took of the paint no problem. after that (what i could've done in the first place) I put the figure in a plastic bag and sprayed in Mr. Muscle stovecleaner, let it rest over night and cleaned it this morning.
Note: wear latex gloves because your fingers get very slippery and the stuff seems to be harmfull for your skin.

Meet the 1/16 version of the 'terrifing snowman'

I've got the MG42 finished thus far i can paint it.

I wasn't totally satisfied with the texture on the stock of the MG42, so i sanded it off and used fine epoxy putty to make a new texture on it.
I applied the texture by pressing the edge of a knife horizontaly into the putty. I think i'm also going to make the screwhole in stock as is in the original.

I've finished the top of the MG42 as best as i could, to remove the nasty seemlines you get after glueing the halves together.

I have also hollowed out the funnel of the MG42 by first drilling a hole in the end of the gun and after that i used a nr. 11 blade and slowly hollowing out the funnel by turning the MG between my fingers.
(sorry, this is as sharp i can get the funnel)

and 'last but not least', I've made a start in painting the face with oil paint. The paint i use it Winsor & Newton Oil Colour. It's the first time for me that i actually paint figures with oil paint. Before painting i applied a thin layer of white primer.

I've mixed three colours to try and make a base skin colour. titanium white, crimson red and cadmium yellow. At first it looked a little yellowish so i added a little more red and white to soften it out. I did not thin the oil paint it just paint little blobs of oil paint on a piece of paper and when the paper absorbed the oil in the paint i took the colour paste and mixed mu colour and applied it pure as thin as possible. I let it set for a few hours and after that i took a clean soft flat brush and spreaded out the paint with the brush to make it softer.
The eyes here are white, but i've already painted them the same colour as the base colour.

I've change the basecolour from it's yellow tint to a more normal colour.
I've mixed the following colours:
Flesh, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre en Burnt Sienna

Much better against the old one..

Then i added shadows and highlights, i only coloured in the eyes with brown

I was thought that the helmet casts a shadow over it's forehead, so i made that a little darker. I hope it's something.

and here with the helmet on (little off)

I did the face in two hours and since this is my first face painted in oil, i'm pretty pleased with myself and with some practise some real nice things will come from it.