M is for Military by Merit or Model Scene

Because I’ve touched on Merit above, and will cover a lot of the other early British small scale Military in the remaining new posts below, it seems right to just slot these three sets in here…

As most of the variants could have been produced by paint alone; The WAF’s, WRAC’s and WREN’s, the Officers and the bereted other ranks; it was good of Merit to go to the trouble of producing 15 new figures for these sets, these being un-related to any Wardie/Mastermodels mouldings.

I used to think the blue WRAC was a colour variation, but a look in Picasa under 100% enlargement shows she’s a home-repaint, some fool liking Crab Air as much as he probably likes the French! An out-painter did forget to paint the flesh on the soldier next to her, and I think of him as my Gurkha soldier, point-off-fact; he also came without a base so he may be a late Model Scene figure, unpainted to save money?

Early sets were pink plastic, with the uniform over-painted, late sets were (for the army at least) uniform colour with the flesh over-painted. Note how the late officer has green (Light Infantry) shoulder flashes, not red; line regiments, artillery etc.