From the Panzerwerfer and Maultier builds I had a lot of parts for a standard Opel truck left over, so I decided to redo the Rasputiza scene. I finished the new Opel truck, and added it to the base, together with one of the original figures and the original driver. As war-time pictures usually show many soldiers trying to move trucks out of the mud again, there will remain many more figures to be added…
Now the small scene featuring the Opel Blitz is finished. The last figure is also attached to the base:
As I enjoyed sculpting the other guys so much, I could not resist to add another figure that will be pushing on the Opel Blitz truck:
On the bread bag the canteen and the water bottle will be placed, as well as a Kar98 rifle over the shoulder.
Update: Now the figure is painted and fixed to the base:
I added the next soldier to the Opel Blitz cargo truck, which is now my second scratch built figure:
After finishing the frame body of the third figure, I added the boots, building them up from the soles on with a lot of sanding in between. Then I added the trousers legs (as far as they will be visible), and started working on the coat:
Building the soles from putty is not that satisfying, so I will try using sheet styrene instead. The last picture shows one part of my work – in – progress sole stack.
I made quite some progress:
And I am not so sure about the soles. Perhaps it is better to use putty, but to start with the heels…
Meanwhile I added two soldiers pushing the Opel Blitz to the base:
In the meantime I have finished sculpting the first figure, and it is also almost completely painted:
The lower side of the hands is not worked out, as they will not be visible. The dirt on the coat will be refined with some more oil washes, and the skin parts need some more highlights.
I already started with the second figure. Currently I am working on the boots, they have to be sanded to shape, and then some more details will be added.
The sculpting is real fun, but also challenging. A lot to learn… For the buttons I use brass tubes of different sizes to punch them out of thinly rolled putty.
Now I finished the head of the first figure and mounted it onto the body (and do not mind the hands…):
And this is how the figure looks like on the base:
Actually I am not happy with the two figures still missing, so I decided to sculpt these figures from scratch. I started with the first figure:
I made a frame from two pieces of milliput (shoulders and pelvis) and some pieces of copper wire, forming the back and two legs. After bending this frame to the final pose, I fixed it using more Milliput. Then I sculpted the boots and the trousers legs, which are not that detailed higher up, as they will be covered with the coat later on.
In the meantime I continued to work on the figures. The first figure is now finished and already fixed to the base:
I also finished scultping on the next figure and started painting:
Now the Opel is finished! It went all quite well in the end: painting the tarp (base color with Tamiya mixture, then some pigments and pin washes), fixing the driver’s cab to the frame, and finally adding some more weathering (dirt splashes etc.) to harmonize the different parts of the vehicle.
I also added a towing cable to the front hooks, as this can be seen on almost all historical reference pictures in some form. And that is how the Opel looks now:
Now I will add another three figures. One is from Alpine, slightly reworked:
The other two figur are two guys originally rolling fuel drums, terribly sculpted and currently being strongly reworked:
Now the Alpine Figure is almost finished:
fieldgrau - military scenes in scale 