About six weeks ago, I bought a set of eight 1/32-scale figures made by a company called Replicants. They represent members of the French Resistance, or perhaps partisans operating elsewhere in occupied Europe during the Second World War.

They’re rather unusual figures.

Most of the figures I paint are soldiers. British, German, French, Napoleonic, whatever. They wear uniforms, and generally speaking, there are recognised colours for painting them.

Not so with these people.

They’re civilians. Ordinary men and women wearing ordinary clothes. Jackets, trousers, skirts, caps and overcoats. The sort of clothing you might have seen on the streets of France or Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945.

And that presents an interesting problem for the model painter.

What colours do you paint them?

Now, here’s where modern technology comes in.

I asked artificial intelligence for some advice. Not only did it suggest appropriate colours for civilian clothing of the period, but it also supplied the reference numbers for the Vallejo model paints I use.

Amazing.

I’m 74 years old, and the idea that I can ask a machine what colour to paint a French Resistance fighter and receive a sensible answer, complete with paint manufacturer’s reference numbers, still blows my mind.

So I painted them.

I’m not entirely happy with the results. My painting isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. Age does things to your eyesight and your ability to hold a paintbrush steady.

But I enjoyed painting them, and that’s really what matters.

One of the figures is a clandestine radio operator. He’s crouched beside his equipment, presumably transmitting information to London while hoping that nobody is listening who shouldn’t be.

Another is preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail.

Others carry rifles or pistols.

But perhaps the most interesting figure is a woman carrying a baby while drawing a pistol.

Apparently, this figure was inspired by Lucie Aubrac, one of the most celebrated women of the French Resistance.

Aubrac was a teacher, a mother and an active member of the Resistance. In October 1943, while pregnant, she helped organise the daring rescue of her husband Raymond from German custody.

An extraordinary woman.

I haven’t been able to establish whether the Replicants figure represents a particular incident in her life, or whether the sculptor simply took inspiration from her story.

But the figure raises an interesting question.

A woman, a baby and a gun.

I’m not entirely comfortable with it.

Is the baby being used as cover? Is the woman defending herself? Has she been caught unexpectedly in a dangerous situation?

Or has the sculptor simply decided that a woman carrying a baby while producing a pistol makes a particularly dramatic miniature?

I don’t know.

And perhaps that’s the point.

The Resistance wasn’t made up entirely of men in berets carrying Sten guns. It included women, mothers, teachers, railway workers, farmers and ordinary people who found themselves making extraordinary decisions.

Some were heroic. Some were desperate. And some of those decisions must have involved terrible moral dilemmas.

A miniature figure doesn’t have to celebrate everything it depicts.

Sometimes it can simply make us think.

One final observation about these figures.

Although they’re marketed as French Resistance or partisan figures, their civilian clothing makes them remarkably versatile.

With suitable historical context, they could just as easily represent irregular fighters in the Spanish Civil War, resistance movements in Eastern Europe, or even participants in later conflicts, including Northern Ireland.

There are no uniforms to tie them to a particular army or period.

Just ordinary people, caught up in history.

Anyway, they’re finished now and will join the growing population of my 1/32-scale world.

And despite my complaints about the painting, I’m rather pleased with them.

Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once.

I enjoyed myself.