1:35 Válečné plakáty II. svět. válka

Wartime posters in 1:35 scale

In the Second World War propaganda was visible on every corner. Calls to enlist, warnings about enemy ears, offers of work in factories and blackout notices covered the walls of cities from London to Kharkiv. This is exactly the kind of detail that tends to be overlooked on dioramas, and yet it gives a scene period atmosphere faster than another figure does.

The content is a printed sheet from which you cut the individual posters out. These are not decals, because paper is worked differently and in many respects more easily.

How to apply the posters

First coat the back of the cut-out sheet with diluted PVA glue and lay it on the base. On rough plaster or on a wooden fence press it down carefully with a brush so that it follows the unevenness, because a flat rectangle stuck on a bumpy wall looks unnatural. You can tear the edges and leave one corner lifted.

The colors take careful aging. A weak glaze of brown or gray, thinly applied and wiped off at once, takes the newness out of the print. A poster faded by the sun has lighter edges than its center, which can be suggested with a dry brush and a little white.

The set suits the walls of ruins, billboard columns, hoardings around a building site and the interior walls of station buildings. It goes well with scenes featuring civilians, where military equipment alone cannot carry the story.

It pays to handle the cut-outs with tweezers and to cut them with a fresh blade, because a torn paper edge can never be straightened again. Anyone who wants to go into detail can thin the back of the print with fine abrasive before applying it; the sheet then conforms better to an uneven surface and its thickness will not show in scale.