Little Sabotage - The Anchor

Little sabotage was a category of actions of the underground, during Second World War in capital of occupied Poland - Warsaw (in later years also carried out in other cities). Actions were taken against German occupant, Poles co-operating with enemy by organization called Grey Ranks (Szare Szeregi) from early 1940. It comprised of slow and inexact work of Poles for German industry, not following decrees, harassment of collaborators and German folk, painting slogans on walls such as letter V for Victoria, later expanded to "Deutschland verloren" or The Anchor, joined letters PW for Polska Walcząca - Poland Fighting, distribution of underground press & leaflets, breaking windows of German shops, ripping German propaganda posters, stealing Nazi flags and replacing them with Polish. 

Action of "small sabotage" was a theme of this little vignette. One of Warsaw citizens is painting an Anchor on decree pillar. The figure was combined out of components from Miniart kit, French Civilians 30's - 40's. The figure has great pose, comes in several parts, the jacket is not molded but glued on what gives better overall effect. The only problem I found about this figure was the face, which did not have properly sculpted left side - almost had no left eye what can be seen on finished figure (cock-eye effect, but have done what I could). 

First was fixing the idea, figure and decree pillar, which was made out of card and all undercoated with Tamiya Light Grey. For base, thin sheet of modeling foam was prepared and edged also with strip cut down to fit & painted with Tamiya black colors - X18 Semi Gloss Black & then X19 Smoke. 

At first, textured plastic sheet was to be used, but decided to cut it out of modeling foam to resemble Polish sidewalk of that period. As preshading the same colors were used as for base edging, Tamiya X18, then recesses filled with Citadel Washes (nuln Oil & Agrax Earthshade) with addition of Humbrol Sand Wash and Humbrol Weathing powder (extremely messy thing) with finishing of Tamiya weathering powders applied using "sponge brush". The pillar was weathered with oil paints and posters with decrees (and one of a groovy movie) printed out.

Figure also undercoated using Tamiya Light Grey. Paining started with airbrushed basic colors - Tamiya XF66 (jumper), XF74 (trousers), XF15 (face and hands), XF49 (jacket & flatcap). From then on brush painting started with application of Citadel washes and first and second highlights. The face proved to be the most challenging, right side went easy & smoothly but left took me hours to  get something at least similar to an eye (and still does not look right). Figure holds a paint brush which was fixed using long modeling grass, wire sleeve with piece of pin and small paint bucket.