small scale surgery
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:08 amIn the context of a casting order I was asked about figures. Especially poses like sitting / leaning on a low wall or on a pile of tyres and similar.
Unfortunately in 43rd scale there primarily exist a few quite expensive standard – posed pit crew figures only, and the Chinese clones that are a bit too small but nevertheless usable in the background.
So what to do ? I still have some small boxes with parts from unsuccessful casting attempts ( the usual tiny bubbles on noses, feet etc. ).
Said and done, I made a surgical operation and did not even have to use a flawless figure this way.
The job was to convert a figure that originally is in driver position, i.e. half lying, into a slouching person.
A positive aspect was that the original figure consisted of head, arms, bust and lower part with legs.
1. Search for an appropriate photo
2. Get the lower part w. legs from lying into standing position. To achieve this I had to provide cuts at the front and rear of the knees and hips. Now I could bend this part into the correct shape and fix it with my preferred method – superglue and baking powder.
3. The areas where head and hips meet the torso had to be reworked a bit for the right position, too.
4. Arms and hands had to to be “operated†from their steering position into a relaxed one. Since this figure was only a trial, I simply glued the arms in other positions, cut off the left hand and turned it into a “discussing positionâ€.
5. Finally I filled a few gaps yet to make the figure a bit more solid. The feet would have to be a bit reshaped, too.
I prefer superglue / baking soda to everything else, because it hardens at once, becomes really solid but is easy to work on nevertheless.
It took me ca. one hour to create this “blankâ€. Now he will get a partner who holds the helmet in his hand and argues, too. I will use a second head which will be hollowed to get the separate helmet.
I love this kind of modelling because I do not want to have the typical sterotype dozen of figures on my track that you normally see almost everywhere. The people on the track live by their poses and movements, not their amount.
Roland
Unfortunately in 43rd scale there primarily exist a few quite expensive standard – posed pit crew figures only, and the Chinese clones that are a bit too small but nevertheless usable in the background.
So what to do ? I still have some small boxes with parts from unsuccessful casting attempts ( the usual tiny bubbles on noses, feet etc. ).
Said and done, I made a surgical operation and did not even have to use a flawless figure this way.
The job was to convert a figure that originally is in driver position, i.e. half lying, into a slouching person.
A positive aspect was that the original figure consisted of head, arms, bust and lower part with legs.
1. Search for an appropriate photo
2. Get the lower part w. legs from lying into standing position. To achieve this I had to provide cuts at the front and rear of the knees and hips. Now I could bend this part into the correct shape and fix it with my preferred method – superglue and baking powder.
3. The areas where head and hips meet the torso had to be reworked a bit for the right position, too.
4. Arms and hands had to to be “operated†from their steering position into a relaxed one. Since this figure was only a trial, I simply glued the arms in other positions, cut off the left hand and turned it into a “discussing positionâ€.
5. Finally I filled a few gaps yet to make the figure a bit more solid. The feet would have to be a bit reshaped, too.
I prefer superglue / baking soda to everything else, because it hardens at once, becomes really solid but is easy to work on nevertheless.
It took me ca. one hour to create this “blankâ€. Now he will get a partner who holds the helmet in his hand and argues, too. I will use a second head which will be hollowed to get the separate helmet.
I love this kind of modelling because I do not want to have the typical sterotype dozen of figures on my track that you normally see almost everywhere. The people on the track live by their poses and movements, not their amount.
Roland