Dan Morton
A Fixture
Among the soldiers of the German army of the First War, in the latter part of the war, to be a "Frontschwein" was a distinction. It meant you had defended the Fatherland in the front lines. You had been through everything the enemy could throw at you and you still endured. Front pig. Frontschwein is a 'colloquialism', a word 'invented' by the soldiers themselves. I'm told they didn't use 'frontseite - schwein' for whatever reason and instead used the English word 'front'.
I wasn't really looking for photos that typified "Frontschwein" - - if I had been I probably couldn't have found any! I came upon the raw black and white rather fuzzy photo attached. Take a look at the soldier's uniform. The trousers are in tatters and he's obviously filthy. Lots of the German photos one encounters are 'composed' for home consumption, but this sure wasn't. Right away I wanted to do a figure based on it.
He's taking his turn kneeling in an observation sap behind a "grabbenpanzerplatte" armor shield peering into No Man's Land.
This is in 1/16th scale and is made mostly from my usual mix of MagicSculpt and Kneadatite. The rifle, head, hands, part of the gas mask, grenades, ammo containers and bayonet are resin parts. The boots and the club are castings from earlier sculpts. The stahlhelm is an excellent Jon Smith casting with liner to which I added chin straps. The dark stuff on the chin is kind of an experiment to give some beard "depth". We'll see if the painter can make it work.
The soldier is meant to be from 1st Jager-battalion. Graf York von Wartenburg (East Prussia). I've included a color chart to indicate approximate uniform colors. The epaulettes have a large red one with a dark green piping border.
From the photos, I see I have some cleaning to do, but otherwise the figure is finished.
Hope you like it!
All the best,
Dan
I wasn't really looking for photos that typified "Frontschwein" - - if I had been I probably couldn't have found any! I came upon the raw black and white rather fuzzy photo attached. Take a look at the soldier's uniform. The trousers are in tatters and he's obviously filthy. Lots of the German photos one encounters are 'composed' for home consumption, but this sure wasn't. Right away I wanted to do a figure based on it.
He's taking his turn kneeling in an observation sap behind a "grabbenpanzerplatte" armor shield peering into No Man's Land.
This is in 1/16th scale and is made mostly from my usual mix of MagicSculpt and Kneadatite. The rifle, head, hands, part of the gas mask, grenades, ammo containers and bayonet are resin parts. The boots and the club are castings from earlier sculpts. The stahlhelm is an excellent Jon Smith casting with liner to which I added chin straps. The dark stuff on the chin is kind of an experiment to give some beard "depth". We'll see if the painter can make it work.
The soldier is meant to be from 1st Jager-battalion. Graf York von Wartenburg (East Prussia). I've included a color chart to indicate approximate uniform colors. The epaulettes have a large red one with a dark green piping border.
From the photos, I see I have some cleaning to do, but otherwise the figure is finished.
Hope you like it!
All the best,
Dan
