Osprey Publishing

Modelling Panzer Crewmen of the Heer

by  Mark Bannerman

Reviewed By  Kip Rudge, IPMS# 40597

Figures. The final frontier... The bogeyman… Kryptonite for the modeling superman… No matter how proficient many of us get with washes, filters, scratch building and pigments, figures are a Zen we have yet to master. It's not for lack of trying; it appears it's more for lack of … well… accomplishing. Books, websites and magazine articles have addressed this lack of success and there are still ham hands such as myself who just can't get consistent with figures (jiggy yes, consistent no). For every figure that actually resembles a human being, there are 10 more impaled on paper clips that are the result of hideous genetic figure painting experiments. I have come to the conclusion that individual initiative makes good figure painters. The techniques are as varied as the figures, and there are no short cuts. Therefore modelers such as myself, who tend towards laziness/shortcuts, end up with menageries of popeyed, albino-looking 1/35-scale mutants. Mark Bannerman, a favorite of mine since I first saw his figure work on Missing Lynx many moons ago, has weighed in with this new Osprey offering that is his take on figure painting. And much to his credit he avoided the endless parade of Waffen SS enthusiasts and focuses on the German Army, or Heer. Being as I own a library of figure books, none of which have enhanced my limited talent, this book has stayed by the bedside more than most. First, I really like Mark's style of painting. Figures are very subjective among modelers and some highly thought-of figure guys just don't crank my starter. Mark also adds some useful tips and ideas. His use of splintered toothpicks is bound to lead to rain forests being felled to meet the increased demand for broken toothpicks. I've not had time to develop my splintering and micro painting skills. But this is a method I will definitely attempt. The books tackles a couple of real bugaboos for rank amateurs such as myself - black panzer uniforms and camouflage. I'll not divulge his approach to these dark arts, but suffice it to say, I'm going to give them a try. Also Mark tells you how to blend paint. Blending two, or three, colors on an area the size of a small pea has always been problematic for me, but he offers a very workable explanation of the brush movements. Things that annoy me about figure books in general, also annoyed me a little here. I simply hate trying to match oil paint ratios, although it appears to be an intrinsic part of figure painting. Also the book features a couple of other figure painters, whose figures I wished Mark had done in order to relate his methods to different colors and figures. The last nitpick has to do with printing. It is annoying, especially when color is so important to painting instruction, to see color saturation and hue change between photos. This was really apparent on one series when I was certain through the entire chapter that the uniform color was off, and then in the last photo - the finished figure - the color appeared very close to my references. You fool me…no? All in all this is a very informative book that offers a little more insight into the arcane alchemy that is figure modeling. Thanks to Osprey Publishing for providing this review copy.

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