As part of my ongoing project to recreate the WWII battle for Crete, I have been working on building some terrain and painting up the opposing forces.
Here are a few pics of a couple of miniatures I have painted to test out different colour schemes for the Allied armies.
I looked around the web to find some reference sites; here are a few:
- https://i.pinimg.com/originals/24/ba/9d/24ba9d3a69a97554866d91acb9b39a69.jpg
- https://eminismagazine.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/mb-8th-army.jpg
- https://www.super-hobby.com/products/WW-II-British-8th-Army-North-Africa-1941-1943.html#gallery_start
- https://i.pinimg.com/236x/9b/87/75/9b8775498dd622bc3b9c8367a62ae79b--rats-travel-ideas.jpg
- https://i.pinimg.com/736x/41/6a/c5/416ac543560149866ba33c94ead55cd5.jpg
- https://www.facebook.com/desertratslivinghistorygroup
Looking at the colour of the various uniforms in photos, especially of re-enactors (rather than artists' renderings), they are not particularly...uniform. There is a lot of variation in the tones and shades of khaki, beige and tan. I guess this makes sense and would be historically accurate to paint up my army using various shades and avoiding uniformity. The soldiers on Crete were a mixed bunch in terms of both units and nationalities and had congregated from across the Mediterranean prior to the German invasion. On that basis, I decided to try out several different colours for the uniform (randomly mixing and matching on the shirts, shorts, trousers, battledress) from the Vallejo range.
- German Camo Beige
- Middlestone
- Iraqi Sand
- Khaki
- Dark Sand
- Desert Yellow
The miniatures I am using for my "Creforce" are all from either the Artizan 8th Army range or Artizan British Infantry, supplied by Great Escape Games. I've got a mixture of troops in summer uniform and battledress. Looking back at from photos from the time, the soldiers on Crete really were a mixed bunch, so it seemed appropriate to have a mix of minis too.
Here are the first two test paints, with only the main colours blocked in.
After blocking in colours, I use Games Workshop/Citadel Agrax Earthshade to darken the colours down and provide shading. Here is what the same two models look like with the shading applied.
I'm reasonably pleased with how they have turned out. I can see which colours work well and how they look after the shading. Looking back at the reference photos, I am leaning towards painting most of the army using lighter tones such as Iraqi Sand as the main base colour.
Here is what the same two minis look like with a bit of highlighting applied.
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