1:35 Road signs: Russian eastern front WW II

Signs in mud and in snow

A winter crossing of a muddy road is one of the most rewarding subjects of the Eastern Front, and signs are unexpectedly important in it. A snow-covered sign leaning to one side, with soldiers standing by it arguing about the direction, tells a story by itself. This sheet gives the modeler enough signage to create such a crossroads without a single casting, out of nothing but scraps of plastic profile and cut-out panels.

Paper that behaves like sheet metal

The manufacturer gives as the contents a printed sheet of stiff paper with sides of 19 and 13 centimeters. A paper sign has an advantage over a casting in thickness, because at this scale real sheet metal is about a tenth of a millimeter and no casting comes close to that. The drawback is the white cut edge, which has to be colored in, and the need to fix the whole thing with matte varnish.

• signage tied to the Eastern Front, including direction signs written in Cyrillic
• the thinness of the paper matches the scale thickness of sheet metal better than a casting
• snow and mud can be applied over the finished sign, which settles it into its surroundings
• the sheet is enough for several separate crossroads

The method is simple and quick. Cut out, glue onto a thin backing, color the edges, bend slightly and age with fine dust from the bottom edge upwards. In less than an hour of work the scene gains an element that gives it both a geographical setting and a period, and at a fraction of the cost of a cast accessory.