nuvolari
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2012
- Messages
- 33
Hi,
I’m normally not a military figurine modeler, or figurines in general.
My main interest is scratch building pre war slot cars, and most figures I made or have resculpted can be found in that direction.
But I’m always interested in history, and lately I was reading a book to the role the Belgian army played in WW1.
There is a lot written about role of the English & Commonwealth, French, Russian, American and German armies during WW1, but very little about the Belgian army.
The same can be sad about what’s available in the model world.
Also in Belgium itself, there is in general very little spoken about WW1, but that has a historical reason, I won’t go into.
The invasion of German troops into Belgium on the 4th August 1914, was a direct attack of Belgium’s neutrality as agreed by the London treaty of 1839.
This triggered a new spark in the conflict, that pulled the UK into WW1.
One of the main reason’s why Belgium was recognized as a country in 1832, was the need for a buffer state between the great powers of Europe.
And as agreed by the treaty all the countries who signed it, had to act incase the countries neutrality was harmed.
So by agreement, who ever turned aggressive to the nation, would have the nation as anomie together with the countries in the treaty.
Down side to the treaty, is that the protecting nations can only start to act at the moment the country is invaded.
So for a brief moment the country was on it’s own sources for it’s defense.
And don’t underestimate this brief moment, it took the allies 3 months to get their war mechanism in full action.
I’ve red somewhere that every single Belgian soldier had to face 16 Germans.
Also the advantage the Germans had with their armament, was a heavy match for the small Belgian army and it’s defense.
And still they menage to give the Germans a hell of a time, an the advantage to the allies to get organized, but they payed it very high military, civilian and cultural prize.
And It was only with the force of water that they finally put a hold to the German over force.
Something that with the technological evolution during WW2 not could be done.
Anyway coming to my build itself, this is set right in the beginning when the Belgian army stood on it’s own.
I saw this well known photo of an infantry unit, with their Maxime machine gun loaded dog carts on retread to Antwerp.
So this picture must be taken around the 20th August 1914.
What find so fascinating about this photo, are the dogs, they are the forgotten soldiers of ww1.
I looked up how many animals that where killed in active service by the end of the war, and you only can find estimated numbers.
1 milion dogs
250 thousand horses
No numbers are given for all the others, pigeons, monkeys, apes, camels, elephants and all other kinds that where put into action.
In memory of them I call my Build ” The forgotten soldiers”.
For the build it self I was very lucky to find a company called Scale link who sell a range of white metal WW1 figures and attributes.
http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Belgian.html
And they have a beautiful range of Belgian WW1 soldiers, and above all they also produce the dog carts.
So putting everything together was a good base to 3d the photo.
I started with the dogs them self.
I first cleaned up the figures, and was not so satisfied with the structure of the fur itself from the dog.
So, after cleaning and sandblasting the figures I applied a thin grey Vallejo primer.
I than initiated the fur with a very fine brush, using vallejo plastic putty.
I personally find the result very pleasing.
Before and after the clean up
Applying the plastic putty
Finished fur structure
the rest will follow in a later tread…
I’m normally not a military figurine modeler, or figurines in general.
My main interest is scratch building pre war slot cars, and most figures I made or have resculpted can be found in that direction.
But I’m always interested in history, and lately I was reading a book to the role the Belgian army played in WW1.
There is a lot written about role of the English & Commonwealth, French, Russian, American and German armies during WW1, but very little about the Belgian army.
The same can be sad about what’s available in the model world.
Also in Belgium itself, there is in general very little spoken about WW1, but that has a historical reason, I won’t go into.
The invasion of German troops into Belgium on the 4th August 1914, was a direct attack of Belgium’s neutrality as agreed by the London treaty of 1839.
This triggered a new spark in the conflict, that pulled the UK into WW1.
One of the main reason’s why Belgium was recognized as a country in 1832, was the need for a buffer state between the great powers of Europe.
And as agreed by the treaty all the countries who signed it, had to act incase the countries neutrality was harmed.
So by agreement, who ever turned aggressive to the nation, would have the nation as anomie together with the countries in the treaty.
Down side to the treaty, is that the protecting nations can only start to act at the moment the country is invaded.
So for a brief moment the country was on it’s own sources for it’s defense.
And don’t underestimate this brief moment, it took the allies 3 months to get their war mechanism in full action.
I’ve red somewhere that every single Belgian soldier had to face 16 Germans.
Also the advantage the Germans had with their armament, was a heavy match for the small Belgian army and it’s defense.
And still they menage to give the Germans a hell of a time, an the advantage to the allies to get organized, but they payed it very high military, civilian and cultural prize.
And It was only with the force of water that they finally put a hold to the German over force.
Something that with the technological evolution during WW2 not could be done.
Anyway coming to my build itself, this is set right in the beginning when the Belgian army stood on it’s own.
I saw this well known photo of an infantry unit, with their Maxime machine gun loaded dog carts on retread to Antwerp.
So this picture must be taken around the 20th August 1914.
What find so fascinating about this photo, are the dogs, they are the forgotten soldiers of ww1.
I looked up how many animals that where killed in active service by the end of the war, and you only can find estimated numbers.
1 milion dogs
250 thousand horses
No numbers are given for all the others, pigeons, monkeys, apes, camels, elephants and all other kinds that where put into action.
In memory of them I call my Build ” The forgotten soldiers”.
For the build it self I was very lucky to find a company called Scale link who sell a range of white metal WW1 figures and attributes.
http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Belgian.html
And they have a beautiful range of Belgian WW1 soldiers, and above all they also produce the dog carts.
So putting everything together was a good base to 3d the photo.
I started with the dogs them self.
I first cleaned up the figures, and was not so satisfied with the structure of the fur itself from the dog.
So, after cleaning and sandblasting the figures I applied a thin grey Vallejo primer.
I than initiated the fur with a very fine brush, using vallejo plastic putty.
I personally find the result very pleasing.
Before and after the clean up
Applying the plastic putty
Finished fur structure
the rest will follow in a later tread…
