Hello everyone....

[Pat-Camp]

Hi everyone,

Many thanks to my good friend Phil May for directing me to planetfigure. There are some wonderful figure models in the gallery: very inspiring! Maybe I'll quickly finish the biplane, Japanese fighter and battleship models currently on the workbench and get back to doing some figure painting!

I wonder if any of you can offer some ideas? I would like a 54mm figure of a US Navy sailor in a relaxed pose. He is to go with the 1/32nd biplane I am finishing. It is set on a section of flight deck and catwalk, and I would like to depict the figure standing at the catwalk railing. The date is 1935.
I've taken a look through The Red Lancer and Historex on-line catalogues and can't see anything that I can easily adapt. Ideally, I would like to avoid white metal (only to keep the weight down) and 35mm figures (the difference in height may be too noticeable).
Can you offer any ideas for a figure that would be easy enough to convert?

kind regards to all,

Patrick

 

[yeo_64]

Hi Patrick :lol: !
Welcome to the "planet" !!! With regards to your question, perhaps you can try the Tigershark pilot with the leopard kit from Legends Models (LF0031: 1/35th Flying tigers Pilot with a Leopard). It's resin and I suppose it might fit the pose that you are looking for. HTH. Cheers !
Kenneth .

 

[Pat-Camp]

Hi Kenneth,

Good choice! I find it slightly surprising that the figure is in 1/35 scale rather than 1/32, although I do see that it is also available with a chunk of P-40, presumably also at the smaller scale.
The picture I have in my mind is with the sailor having the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, so the main job I would have to do is modify the flying jacket.
From another point of view, he would be easy to convert to a Navy flyer and I have another model in my "to do" pile that he would be ideally suited to. So maybe I should buy two of these figures!

Thanks for your suggestion. Anyone else out there any other ideas?

Pat

 

[quang]

Hello Pat,

IMO the best route would be the old and tried Airfix Multipose figures.

They're in proper 1/32 scale, the material (polystyrene) is easy to work with and the sculpt quite adequate.

For your subject, a between-the-wars US sailor, I'd suggest the US Marines Pacific set.

You can find them HERE. £3.50 CHEAP!

HTH
Quang

 

[Pat-Camp]

Dear Quang,

Brilliant suggestion! Rolled up sleeves are there. And I wanted to have one foot of the sailor resting on the catwalk rail and that should be easy to do as well.

This is the way I'll go, if I screw up the conversion I won't have lost much cash and the practice will do me good!

Any ideas for a replacement head, or am I pushing my luck too far?

Thanks very much for the reply and the link,

regards,

Patrick

 

[John Long]

You can replace Airfix heads with Hornet 1/32 heads, Mussini, some Historex, and Shenandoah heads without much difficulty. The Marine set Quang suggests is a good call. There are unbloused trousers and rolled sleeves. The only real work will be the removal of suspenders and resculpting of the shirt. With little judicious carving, you may even be able to create a "dixie cup" hat.

 

[quang]

Hello Patrick,

John's suggestions are quite adequate but you may want to try the heads included in the Multipose set first.

They're generally well sculpted with good, natural expressions and as far as I remember, bare-headed. All you need to do is add some hair from putty and refine the facial features to make up for the 'fuzzy' details due to the injection-moulding process.

HTH
Quang

 

[kevin]

Hi pat



Long time no see. How are you doing? welcome to the planet as you can see they let in any old riffraff
I think the guys have come up a good solution and knowing how good a modeller you are, this sould not be problem for you.


cheers


kevin

 

[Pat-Camp]

Hey Kevin!

Great to hear from you. Hope you are well and look forward to seeing you at one of the shows. I'll contact you directly by email to find out what you've been up to!

All the best,

Pat

 

[Pat-Camp]

The figure is finished!

And I did have fun converting the Airfix US Marine multipose figures and slapping on a bit of Magic-Sculp here and there. So many thanks to Quang and all you others for your suggestions.

Here is a photo or two. I accept that it is not to your standard, but he still looks pretty good on the model.

Pat

 

[quang]

Looks great, Pat!

Your conversion is more than adequate. Very casual, natural pose. The foot resting on the chain adds to the realism.

Of course there are a few things that can be improved (like the staring eyes) but nothing that cannot be achieved with time (especially if you choose to spend it on this Planet )

Best wishes,
Quang

 

[Sambaman]

Patrick,
this little scene turned out nicely. I really like the position of the figure on the cat walk.

Jay H.
OKC

 

[Stonerdog]

Pat,

Great vignette, I like the "looking up angle" shots. Quang mentions the "staring eyes"...this is easliy remedied by several methods: A quick tip too..in 54MM scale the figure is akin to looking at a person at the range of about 60 ft. At this distance the eye becomes pretty much a slit.
Paint your bas flesh color. Then paint a thin vertical band of chosen eye color....try to make the eyes looking to one side or up, down depending on the scenario you picked. This keeps the thousand yard stare to a minimum. Once the eye color is in place you can correct as you begin your final face paint process.
Some figure have well defined eyes and sockets. Use a medium light grey instead of white and make the pupil/iris with a shrapened toothpic(cocktailstick) or a pin.
Hope this helps.

 

[Pat-Camp]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

I did enjoy making the figure and it gave me the enthusiasm to return to figure painting after an absence of 2.5 years. Mind you, I didn't realise just how bad his eyes look: probably about the worst I've done!

I've purchased another two boxes of US Marines in readiness for my next major project, which is a 1/32 TBF Avenger mounted on an elevator platform with the deck handling crew. That is a little way off being started, as I want to do a few quick builds first of all.

Kind regards to you all. You may not see any new figures from me for a while, but please be assured that I will be taking a regular interest in your postings/work.

Cheers!

Pat

 

[Charles Denomolos]

Hi, Pat, nice work, and good execution. Onlything I could recommend, is to give our boy's dixie cup a little outward flare. Not totally nessecary, but, the real fleet sailors always try to flare the dixie cups as much as possible. For reference, see "The last Detail" starring Jack Nicholson.