This is perhaps a little off-topic, but since I have uploaded some of the art that I had planned to put on the site, I thought that I would continue along the same vein with the UPDATE and talk about some 1:1 art that I did back when I was reenacting. The picture below is an overview of tonight's discussion.

1. Personal photo album, designed to be carried in the tunic pocket.

2. SS Pocket knife, reproduction, with swastika and Adolph Hitler’s signature inscribed on blade.

3. Reproduction army manual on German mine detector.

4. German identity disk (dog tag). This is a reproduction that has been hand stamped and aged.

5. Storybook in German, an original dated back to 1920, printed in gothic font, text is a Christmas story.

6. German march song book, original 1940

7. Reproduction SS Branch Soldbuch, aged.

8. 1935 Original party pin.

9. Original junior officer’s identification pennant.

10. Computer generated Deutch Marks of various denominations.

11. Handmade period postcard, with computer generated stamp.

12. Computer generated railway ticket stubs, distressed by hand.

13. Black and white picture of my lovely bride with period like scallop 
edges and hand distressing (the photo, not the bride)

The postcard is one of my favorite pieces. The original card was made by a friend. I added the stanp and my wife did the writing. The contents of the writing, which are in German are from a young bride to her German Soldier at the front.

The postal stamp was done by hand with circle templates and a steady hand. The computer generated stamp was cut out and glued in place to give the relief of an actual stamp on the card. The unit stamp is one that I own.

The Deutch Marks are two sided, made on the computer. Once printed, they were distressed by hand to achieve the look of having been carried around.

Of course a majority of the project was the Soldbuch itself.

I wanted it to look as though it had been carried around in a jacket pocket, unprotected, for a couple of years. The entries in the book indicate a soldier that has been in combat for about a year after his initial training, the book would have received some wear and tear by this point.

The soldbuch is an item that can be purchased and that is what I did, but I took mine apart and carefully scanned all the pages in the pagination required to create the book properly.


(Below) The top pages are the scanned pages from out of the book.
(Below that) are pages that have been doctored in Indesign

Once the pages were scanned in, I was free to add the handwriting and various stamps on the computer, reprinting the entire book on appropriately colored paper. Since my handwriting is not all that good, this was a great way for me to achieve a realistic looking period look to the writing and typewritten or stamped items.

There were plenty of examples out there of war-time Soldbuchs. I could translate them using online programs like BabbleFish, I even found a tutorial online that had a line by line translation of most of the book. I did a lot of research on it, filling a notebook with examples and explanation. I didn't want to just copy someone else's Soldbuch, I wanted it to be original and I wanted it to make sense. The research took about 6 months. Creating the book took about 2 weeks.


So, why am I boring you with this little story? Well, there is some application for our hobby. A lot of items in 1:1 scale can be reduced to 1:6th without too much trouble. There is some simplification of course, but  many items can be made in the smaller scale. I am currently working on WWII German art. I think, when it is all done, there will be some pieces that haven't been seen in 1:6th before. One thing is for sure, my reenacting research is coming in handy now.


That's all for tonight, until next time, have a good one!

In Wednesday's email UPDATE I am going to talk a little bit about this book, WARGAMES by Jenny Thompson. I personally cannot say enough about this book. If you read and enjoyed CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, you will find this to be a very good read as well as it looks at the world of the Modern War Reenactor.

My premise in the email UPDATE is that reenactors and 1:6th modelers share something in common, the desire to strive for Authenticity, not just in their impression or their figures, but Authenticity in their photos. Think about it. We will do just about anything to make our little guys look real and reenactors  try incredibly hard to have period-authentic photographs of their events. Here are five examples of reenactment photos from an event that I was part of at Ft. Carson Colorado. The first four pictures are in black and white and have had some tinting and noise added. See what you think.

The last reenactment photo is in color, but it has been done in the style of 1940's color photography and is intended to look washed out. This is me, sitting in a tree line watching two GIs in a draw below the ridge that I am on. Let's here it for camouflage, they never saw me and I had two more kills.

I know I work just as hard trying to make my little guys seem real. I remove backgrounds, I add backgrounds. I mess with the color, the hue, the brightness and contrast, I use filters and anything else I can think of to try to achieve realism. It doesn't seem all that different to me. We want to fool people into believing they are looking at the real thing. A little harder with vinyl men, but we still try.

So tell me what you think. Read the email UPDATE and then post a comment. I would like to hear if you think I am off my nut, or if you agree. What are some of the techniques you typically use? Inquiring minds want to know. That's all for this time, until next time, have a good one!