OTB's Early War 20mm ARVN Company

Here's the company all set up and trimmed away. The figures are mainly the new Orion Early War ARVN plastic figures. I used 3 boxes of them to make up the unit, along with the some Orion Ruff-Puff figures for NCOs and light machine gunners, and some Waterloo 1815 and Airfix WWII US Marines to give some variety.




Spray-painted company. I do a base coat with gloss black paint as these figures are very bendy - some of it's going to flake off anyway.




Pants done, along with the base coat for the hands and faces.



Some of the paint is already peeling off. With these soft plastic figures, I always have to finish off the rifles and boots last - these are the bits most susceptible to peeling.

I like these figures - they look like ARVN, and have the right weapons.

Some reference pictures:



This is from the Osprey guide Army of the Republic of Vietnam 1955-75, which I have long had a copy of and is the Bible for ARVN uniforms....



A guy with a helmet and an M1 Garand - you can see why they preferred to use carbines.



A group shot from the early war period - note the scarves. Various of the Orion figures have foulards so I am going to paint them up, probably blue, which is what the 1st Infantry Division wore, as shown in the Osprey artwork.

Looking forward to seeing it all at the finish line OTB!

I have avoided using soft plastic figures for years because of the paint peeling problem. Having read about it somewhere, I coated a few soft plastic zombies with Elmer's glue and let it dry before painting...they haven't peeled yet, but of course being zombies they don't have many small surfaces to flex and peel.

-BadMoon

definitely need more ARVN in games , I find that colouring in the bendy broken bit with a sharpie pen helps

Thanks for your tip air bubbles - normally I just touch them up before I base them and then varnish them and they are usually fine. I have 20 mm plastic VC that I painted over 20 years ago and they are still going strong.

OTB wrote:Thanks for your tip air bubbles - normally I just touch them up before I base them and then varnish them and they are usually fine. I have 20 mm plastic VC that I painted over 20 years ago and they are still going strong.

the sharpie ''painting'' never flexes/flakes ... the newish sharpie metallics are a revelation ... hours spent adding brass fittings to muskets now takes minutes .. i use the browns to paint 15mm horse furniture ... well worth a go for anyone

Getting there...



They're starting to shape up. I'm just painting all the pouches and rucksacks at the moment.

Nearly finished...

Coming along nicely!

OTB wrote:

Nearly finished...

Finished! Here's a shot of one of the three platoons:

Awesome! Well done Sir!