From KevinH - 28mm WWII US Paratroopers (30 Points)

I picked up a portable "photo booth" last year.  Unfortunately, it came with the new "twirly" bulbs, and they've made my pics look pretty crap - even with some Photoshop tweaking.  I'm a bit sad about this...  I think I will go back to my old method of snapping pics.  I've still got regular bulbs, so I might try swapping out the "twirly" bulbs for regulars in the booth...

So - my first post (outside of the Fortnight post the other day), will be for some Bolt Action/Warlord "US Airborne" models, in 28mm.  I painted five Riflemen in the last Challenge, and I'm determined to get more of these guys done this time!  Here are a couple of "Officer" types, a Bazooka team, and an LMG team (Light Machine Gun, for the uninitiated)..

(please excuse the shoddy pics - I will endevour to do better next time.  Those pics from last year's Challenge look SO much nicer...)

Here are the Officer figures.  The first has a pistol and Carbine rifle, the second has an M1 Garand rifle.  He also has a pair of binoculars, so could double as a Forward Observer, I guess.

 

This is the Bazooka team.  Is it just me, or does that Bazooka seem a bit tiny...?  As much as I love Paul Hicks sculpting, there were a few things that didn't turn out so well - this Bazooka being one of them.  He also seemed to do rather small MP40 sub-machine guns on the Germans.

And lastly, the Light Machine Gun team - moving to a better firing position.

You'll be seeing more of these figures over the coming weeks.  I picked up the "Lt. Winters" special edition figure Warlord produced a few months back, plus I've also got two Airborne jeeps, a Mortar team, and a Pack Howitzer team, as well as a few more Riflemen.

After painting the first few in the last Challenge, I've gotten over my 'hang-up' of trying to paint these guys!  So I look forward to continuing the efforts.  The same could probably be said about all the British Airborne figures I have - but those damn Denison smocks really DO give me a mental block!

Thanks for looking!

From Curt:Nice work Kevin! You've done a great job on these sculpts  though I think your lighting is stealing some of the show from us. (FYI: I've found wamth-adjustable LEDs work very well for booth photography.) The bazooka may look a bit small but it actually wasn't a very large weapon as it only fired a 2.36 inch rocket. Here are a couple period photos of two variants of the bazooka:

I think Hicks' sculpt, while perhaps a bit foreshortened, is not far off.

Again, great work Kevin. I look forward to seeing more of these along with your Lt. Winters sometime in the coming months.