1:35 Italian infantryman and officer Russia 1943

Italian uniforms in the middle of a Russian winter

Italy first sent an expeditionary corps to the east, and from the summer of 1942 the whole 8th Army. The units held a sector on the Don, that is flat country with no cover, and in December of that year the Soviet breakthrough caught them there. The retreat across the snow-covered steppe culminated in January 1943 at Nikolayevka, where the encircled columns fought their way west. The surviving formations were withdrawn from the front during 1943.

Two men, two roles

The set sets a private soldier and an officer side by side, a combination that shows the difference in equipment nicely. The men had a gray-green uniform and a greatcoat that did not match a Russian winter; an officer was told by the cut, by the boots and by small badges rather than by any conspicuous marking. It is exactly that mismatch between equipment and weather that is part of what makes Italian figures from the Eastern Front so eloquent.

Painting step by step

The base of the gray-green uniform is mixed toward a grayed tone, because cloth looks cold against snow. Bring the skin to life with oils in reddened shades on the cheekbones and the nose. Work the snow and mud on the edges of the greatcoat and on the footwear in at the very end, by fine stippling.

Placing it in the scene

The pair suits columns on the retreat, an artillery position and equipment bogged down in a drift. Because these are figures in quiet poses, they will also take simple placement beside a vehicle in a display case, where they replace a whole scene. If you are building a more extensive composition, try turning them toward each other: two men caught in conversation hold a scene together better than figures staring into empty space.