Sunday, June 5, 2011

Soviet Sniper, 1942

 This figure is from Pizzaro Miniatures, and is white metal. The box says he is 54mm, but he is way too tall, and is closer to 70mm. Let me say outright that I am very dissapointed with this figure's quality... a quick glance at the figure and it is immediately apparent that something is off. The white metal is very pitted and rough. The sculptor really seemed to struggle with proportions, especially in the arms and head. Just look at the arms... the forearm is about 1/2 the length of the upper arm. The hands are barely recognizable, and the Mosin-Nagat rifle has no bolt. That, and the head is about the same size as his feet. The base is also somewhat carelessly thrown together, with obvious kit components thrown around. For example, there is a segment of 1/72 Tiger track links at his feet... ish.

 Luckily, I bought the figure for next to nothing, so all was not lost. I was really in the mood to paint some khaki, and this figure was the perfect subject. I wanted every uniform component to be a slightly different shade of the same color, to give a bit of visual interest to the otherwise bland color scheme. I used oils over an acrylic base.

 I was too lazy to pin the figure's legs, and this really came back to bite me. I've probably broken and re-glued the legs back together fifteen times.

 This guy was uniquely challenging to paint because of his weight. I'll be avoiding white metal kits because holding onto them for more than an hour gets to be too much. I know, I'm a weakling... whatever.

I churned this guy out in about a week sometime in 2009. I'm reasonably happy with the paint job, but the scultping bothers me so much that i really hate to look at him. Sounds harsh, but I'm picky.
Thanks for looking!

6 comments:

[insert fiery hate rhetoric here]