Lufthansa

One of my Yahoo groups recently had a discussion of transport in wargames. This is part of my transport for my WWII Germans. It is the interior of a Lufthansa JU52 airliner. Civilian transportation was important to Axis and Allied powers in WWII. The airlines contributed greatly to the war effort. Lufthansa operated right up until the end of the war, with one plane shot down as late as April 21, 1945.

Civilian airlines can travel to and land in neutral foreign nations, something that military planes normally can't do. I painted up a group of civilian passengers to represent the businessmen, government officials, and foreigners who may be found on such a plane in late WWII, in Germany. To paint a group of civilians I start by gathering at least four flat colors that work for clothing, yellow, light blue, dark green and gray. Each figure is two parts, shirt and pants or skirt. At least one quarter of the figures get painted on at least one of the two parts in the first color. Then at least one quarter of them are painted the second color. Then at least one quarter of the figures are painted in the third color. All the remainder of the shirts, pants or skirts are painted in the final color. I then paint half the figures with brown shoes and the other half with black shoes. Last, I paint the skin.

Since these passengers will only be visible through the windows of the airplane, I don't really have to bother with tiny details like eyes and belt buckles. On the pilots I did paint gold buttons, wings and sleeve stripes. Lufthansa colors are blue and gold so the pilots and stewardess are painted in a sky blue with black leather and gold trim.

Each figure was carefully positioned to fit properly in the seats. Arms had to stay inside the cabin so those with an arm extended had to be on the correct side so the arm is on the isle side of the seat. I selected about half men and half women on the assumption that near the end of the war men would try and get their mothers, sisters, daughters and wives to safety in a neutral country. I also figured that diplomats, foreign industrialists, would also try to leave Germany while they had the chance so the other half of the passengers are men.