Plastic possibilities

Metal figures are great, but they are what they are. The availability of plastic multipose figures in 28mm means you can have suit yourself and have all sorts of possibilities, including conversions. I got hold of a sprue of late war German grenadiers from Warlord.

I want a sniper team for the table so I've chosen one standing figure for the spotter and the kneeling figure for the sniper himself, who is going to be an officer.

The sniper will have a Gewehr 43 with a scope, and the spotter is there with his binoculars.

The scope is just a basic representation fashioned from stretched sprue and kind of carved and scraped into shape. And here is the finished figure. I had a go at erbsenmuster (pea dot)pattern on his trousers. I think this pattern was reserved for the SS, and this is not an SS figure, but maybe it's all they had in his size...
I always tend to mark knuckles out in a very obvious way when painting hands, which looks a bit OTT come to think of it. Must stop doing that.

I decided to do a very simple conversion on the spotter figure, so he can have both hands on his binoculars. There is a good selection of arms on the sprue with open hands in varying positions, so it was easy enough to come up with something acceptable. A bit of filler in there and Bob's yer uncle.

Just a few more bits to paint now; his other arm obviously, bread bag and water bottle, and a map case. The sniper is just carrying his side arm, separated from the MG42 toolkit pouch on the picture higher up. Plastic is great (except when it's floating in the sea) and so is the humble scalpel!

The sniper's mate is done. I know what you're thinking, neither of them have gone for the concealment thing which is traditional for snipers, but they will have some tall grass on the base.