French War Memorial

With the upcoming "Come and 'ave a go if you think you're LARD enough 2026" but a few short months away, I think it is time to start churning out some terrain (as well as finishing the forces as well).

Feeling slightly burnt out from painting a sea of brown uniforms, I thought I would spend a morning putting together a First World War memorial for my Battle of Biville-la-Baignarde scenario I will be running. 

I wanted a small provincial war memorial, fitting for a small village like Biville-la-Baignarde and Google shows the actual item:

Now this posed a challenge as I couldn't find a figure like that anywhere so I decided to make a suitably French war memorial. I wanted an angel or similar female figure and after much searching found a female figure actually used on a real war memorial in Fulham & Hammersmith. With the figure found I wanted a nice plinth and recalled seeing one in the excellent Eskice's collection. My plan was to use the angel instead of Eskice's figure and change the base about as well.

With a little editing and fiddling (and resizing to 20mm) with I had the components I needed to print.

Print plate all set up

Once printed (and the sword was so fine I had to print several replacement parts and fix them afterwards), it was time to assemble and crack on with painting this. All paints are Vallejo by the way.

I wanted a nice aged bronze figure, so started with a coat of GC 72.058 Brassy Brass.

Very brassy indeed, this will need toning down

To begin to tone this down, next a wash of Agrax Earthshade to add some tones.

Agraxed!

But still too bronze, so time to add some age. A very dilute wash of VMC 70.969 Park Green Flat to add some real texture and age.

Looking much better

Finally another dilute wash of 50% VMC 70.969 and VMC 72.023 Electric Blue to make a turquoise wash to blend in nicely. Once this was done a dry brush of original GC 72.058 Brassy Brass and then a final highlight with VMC 70.801 Brass, an voila!

Now to finish the base and pretty much done. I just need to varnish her and she can go on to the table for  the Battle of Biville. Very pleased with a Sunday mornings work.

A few closeups of the statue first before the final finished item.

Finished War Memorial

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed painting it.