1:35 German infantry soldier eating - WWII

An infantryman at a meal, a figure in 1:35 scale

A single figure gives a scene a story faster than another piece of hardware does. A soldier absorbed in eating is exactly the kind of subject that gives a diorama calm and at the same time hints at what happened before. The resin casting comes from the production of the Italian brand Royal Model.

Food at the front

The German infantry carried food in a light-alloy mess tin that was hung on the bread bag or on the pack. Hot food was brought up from the field kitchens in insulated containers carried on the back, often only after dark and quite often already cold. The basis of the daily ration was bread, canned meat and ersatz coffee, so a moment with hot food was worth something.

The details that decide

The hands and the object the figure is holding deserve attention, because that is exactly where the credibility of the scene breaks down. Set the tilt of the head and the direction of the gaze so that they point toward the food and not away from it. Do not leave the uniform uniform: the knees, elbows and the back of the trousers got dirty fastest, and a different tone in these places brings the figure to life at once.

Where to place the figure

• in rest scenes behind the front line
• with models of German hardware in the same scale
• as a vignette of its own on a small base
• for modelers who collect genre figures

The scene benefits if you add one extra small thing to the figure: a helmet laid aside, a rifle propped up or a bread bag thrown down. The viewer will work out the rest of the story from it.