Completed IBG Polish Infantry 1939 (35048)

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon and Nigel!

Simon, yes I'm enjoying this and there's probably more than a bit of the masochist in me which makes this kind of work my cuppa. As to the firing position, agree with your assessment. I can recall my first time with a C1 (Canadian version of the venerable FN) and the nasty shock of what a loosely held butt stock can do to a cheek, fortunately the webbing had a decent amount of padding to absorb the recoil on the shoulder. He's not really in a firing position though, more or less at the ready, and when we have the group assembled the poses should all work nicely together.

Nigel, in for a penny, in for a pounding.



More progress. More scribing, undercutting and test fitting of equipment. Click on photos for full size.



















The soles have been touched up, puttees started and the kit bags and backpack are well underway. I'll do another bit of scribing in seams on the tunic and then add the buttons that were removed. This one is moving along a little quicker than the others, probably because I'm in tune with what needs doing and how to go about it. Still a fair bit of work to be done.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

Again nice work, fair point if he isn't about to fire. I like how you added the plastic to the boot, beats trying to use Magicsculpt, I shall have to remember that.

Cheers Simon

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Lovely detailing on #3 ,amazing how much your adding , making the figure as accurate as possible

#4 is coming along so you keep enjoying the pounding ...

Enjoying the descriptions you add as well as the great modelling hints and results

Looking forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon and Nap!


A bit more slow progress over the last few days. I've gotten the kit bags and entrenching tool glued on, buttons added and the rifle has been attached to his right hand. Click on photos for full size.


















I've done a bit of smoothing out and adding definition where needed, such as the belt and the right hip pocket. The pocket was really flat and featureless so I glued on some slices of sprue to the bottom third and the flap then shaved down and contoured them. A lot more lifelike now. The arms, or more specifically the hands, took some time to to get the rifle to sit properly. I ended up removing the thumb and trigger finger to make life easier as they were going to be redone anyway. There was a fair bit of filing and trimming needed for the hand and "pistol" butt as well. The left ammo pouch gets in the way of the elbow slightly so I gouged out a bit. Don't be afraid to do radical excise fitment. In plain terms; cut, scrape, gouge etc to get things to fit well rather than force parts or try to fill tricky gaps with putty. I sourced a head with an interesting expression that seems to work, problem is he has no ears so those will need to be done. No fear, I have a squash mold for such emergencies and we'll see what we get from that in the next session.


Still a bit of fun left, straps and more work on the arms//hands for the most part.


Kimmo

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

Nice update on the latest figure ,like the head you selected ......bring on those ears !

Have fun @ the bench ...we are enjoying the progress

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Briggsy]

Another well explained update, agree that you can get away with gouging bits out for a better fit, afterall there is give in the flesh and uniform that isn't there on the plastic. Love the idea of a squash mold for ears would make life a lot easier than me bungling two rugby players ears on figures!

Cheers Simon

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Nap and Simon!


Bench time has again been hard to find, but now an important hurdle has been cleared and we are just about ready to finish things off for the time being on chap #4. Click on photos for full size.



















Due to the nature of the pose, the arms have to get glued in place to make sure the hands line up properly. As you can see, the arms are a bit out of whack at the shoulder, however, this is a much easier fix than trying to reposition hands. Something to keep in mind; always look for the easier option to fix rather than worrying about parts lining up as they were intended to. It is far more important to get the geometry of parts to line up. Before the arms could be glued in place, I added a sling, swivels and redid the thumb and trigger finger. Not entirely sure if the thumb looks ok or not yet, a coat of primer will help to make that call. The straps for the gear were added before all this of course, the rear halves that go to the backpack will be added next session once all the fiddling with the arms/shoulders is done.

I was in the process of replacing the ears with my squash molded options when I realised they were much too big for this head. Ears and heads are all different sizes in real life, but these looked way off. So I mixed up a blob of Green Stuff and it dawned on me I didn't prep the ears that I chose to make a new mold of and decided to try and sculpt the ears for giggles. They came out decent, not great but perhaps they'll do. The next time I try to sculpt ears, I'll do it in two stages and with Milliput instead.

One more session should do it to get onto our final chap.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

Good going, if you Master sculpting ears a tutorial would be much appreciated.

Cheers Simon

 

[NigelR]

Excellent work. One day you will start painting these figures.....

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

#4 is looking good so far and with the areas you mentioned sorted will look even better

Look forward to seeing more and the painting

Have fun @ the bench

Nap

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon, Nigel and Nap!


Simon, I found a pretty good video that should be adaptable to smaller scales. It's a bit on the cutesy side, but worth a watch. I have a couple of ideas bouncing around in me noggin, let's see how things go getting all this wrapped up.





Nigel, that's the sort of vicious rumour people who want to see stuff painted would start, but it is dragging on a wee bit too much for my liking.




Finally got the last of the work done on this chap for now. There will be some final tweaks and putty work needed as with the first three. Click on photos for full size.



















Nothing major was done, just some straps and a quick fix of the thumb on his left hand. A simple cut and bend so that the thumb was up against the stock and then some putty. I made up a new ear mold and we'll see how that looks when I get back to the final touches for all four. One more to go...



Kimmo

 

[Kimmo]

Moving along to our last chap, this should be a fairly quick and hopefully painless experience. I decided I'm going as OOB as possible with no scribing, undercutting or replacing detail. I will of course be paying attention to fit, clean up and where absolutely necessary, removing material to sharpen detail. This will be mainly needed on the straps for the backpack. Click on photos for full size.



















This chap is perhaps the best molded figure of the bunch. The straps and buttons are pretty good off the hop and the only areas that really need attention are the sides and back of the torso. The straps need to be thinned and excess material removed from the hip area, not terribly difficult and good enough for a first session. Things went so quickly and effortlessly with clean up that I managed to get the legs and torso glued together in less time than it would have taken for me to clean and scribe the leg of one of the other figures. Fit is pretty good, the gaps around the waist isn't going to be an issue once the gear gets added so it doesn't need to be addressed yet, something to remember so you don't spend time filling gaps that won't be seen. The entrenching tool was glued now as it needs to go on first and I want the glue to set properly.


An encouraging start, lets hope this pace continues.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

Nice work on standing figure and I understand why you left the grenade thrower till last, by this stage you must be getting cramp in your thumb and fingers with all the scribing. Looking forward to seeing them painted now.

The video was good, I'll need to watch it a few times, with the sound off. A long timesince I worked with polymer clay which I always found easier to work than epoxy based putties, but I doubt I could use it on 1/30th scale, I always had a tendency to burn it until I discovered it worked just as well boiling it.

Cheers Simon

 

[Kimmo]

Cheers Simon!

Hands aren't in bad shape, there's been enough downtime in between sessions to keep them from being overworked. I've never used polymer clay myself, I figure the approach could just as easily be adapted to Milliput or even styrene. I really like the presentation and the elegance of her method.




Since I had no intention of doing other than the bare minimum with this chap, it went together quickly and without any major issues. There will be a few touch ups needed with putty and maybe a scrape here and there, but other than that, it's done. Click on photos for full size.


















There were a few areas that needed a bit of fiddling with, notably the gear. I opted to remove the tabs on the kit bags and ammo pouches to make fitting easier. The large mounting tab on the backpack got cut down a little as well so that it wouldn't show. This pose exposes that area more than on the other figures and illustrates that even keyed parts don't always fit as intended or desired so dry fitting is always important. The important thing to keep an eye out for here is to make sure the upper straps connect with the backpack. Test fit and sand/scrape material from the back, mounting tab or even the blanket to get everything sitting nicely. The lower straps don't need to be thinned as they can't really be seen, on a standing figure you might want to thin them out.


I made minor modifications by adding a slice of sprue to the lower left side strap to connect it with the bread bag, and repositioning the left thumb slightly to connect with the rifle. Speaking of the rifle, it is different from the ones I used on the other figures, not just because of the fixed bayonet, but it is also a tad longer and has no bolt for some reason. The length is fine as the Poles did have a shortened version as well as a normal length rifle. One detail that is technically correct on the shorter version is the curved bolt. That is a cavalry feature and if we want to be pedantic should be replaced to a straight bolt for infantry use.

I used the head as is and went with the cap for a bit of variety and to keep a couple helmets for the spares box. The head as is isn't bad apart from the ears. I did do some minor work around the jaw line and scraped off some blemishes forward of the ears. One thing you can do to make life a little easier if you opt for kit heads is to hollow out the collar and add some material to the neck to increase depth. Very often the neck is short to begin with (not the case here) and you might get an ugly seam to deal with at the collar. By extending the neck slightly you eliminate that problem and you then also have the option to paint the head separately without having to worry about gluing issues. I've just got the head plopped in place with a bit of blu-tack.


Now I can clean up the bench and get sorting out bases. The first figure will get his own little scene, the next three will get grouped and our last chap is still to be determined with what he gets if anything. I will say that there is a bit of a surprise to come in any event. Once the bases are ready to go, I can do the final touches to the heads and so on and get painting. Still plenty of fun left.


Kimmo

 

[NigelR]

More excellent work, I wish a few figure sculptors would watch that ear video. I've been working on a few figures recently with distinctly dodgy "ears"......

Once the bases are ready to go, I can do the final touches to the heads and so on and get painting.

Yaaaaay!

 

[Briggsy]

Yes the ear making video was very good, with the sound down, it will work well with smaller scales and normal epoxy modelling putty.

Looking forward to the surprise you have in store and of course the painting, hope you come up with an idea for the last figure, it would be a shame not to use him.

Cheers Simon

 

[Kimmo]

Afraid no painting yet Nigel...


After a couple of days of thinking and letting my subconscious do all the heavy lifting, I started sketching out ideas for the bases and then getting some rough mock ups done. For our first chap, a simple foam base was whipped up with an approximation of all the pertinent features I want: multiple elevations, a path, slope and a tree trunk. Click on photos for full size.



















Our group setting required a bit more fiddling. I was aiming to do a street scene and needed to keep things small and manageable in size and height. My sketches became cardboard cutouts and I played with sizes and composition, then used a glue stick to cobble up something fairly comprehensive to work off of.



















There will of course be a fair bit of fine tuning with both bases as things progress, but the hard part is done and now I can concentrate on making the building and getting the initial groundwork done. Our last chap will just get a very simple bit of groundwork, probably grass, and will just be whipped up as we go.


Kimmo

 

[Briggsy]

Great looking base ideas which will show the figures off to hood advantage.

Cheers Simon

 

[Nap]

Hi Kimmo

As always the figures are well built up ,and now you’ve started on bases ....a veritable whirlwind of modelling skill

At least show Nigel a paint pot ...the poor lads suffering ....lol

Looking forward to seeing more

Have fun at the bench

Nap

 

[Kimmo]

My apologies for the lack of updates. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was this scene. A whole bunch of delaying factors made progress excruciating slow, chief among them lack of space and the extremely fiddly nature of some of the work.


What began as an idea slowly morphed into something more concrete (and stucco). I decided I wasn't going to be satisfied with something basic and put together as quickly as possible so I ended up spending a lot of time sketching, googling, dry fitting and head scratching until I was happy with the direction all my decorative ideas were headed in. I decided getting this thing done was more important than cleaning off my bench several times a week and getting in progress shots taken so we'll have to be content with these. Click on photos for full size.














Before all that came to be, the openings for the window and door had to be cut out, boxed in and then strips of styrene were glued around the openings to make a frame to which the trim could be glued, and which would also serve as a depth gauge for the stucco. I managed to get everything reasonably square and plumb, which is a bit trickier than you might think. After sorting out the various depths of the trim, I taped off the areas that wouldn't need stucco and started slathering. I used Vallejo Stone Liner which is basically a fine textured paste and worked it until I was happy with the look and coverage. The real fun started in getting the trim/molding made from various sizes of strip, profile and rod. The concrete foundations and coin (the corner stone doohickeys) are from cork sheet with a light layer of putty to fill in any obvious gaps and for a wee bit of texture. The door is sheet and strip. I whipped up the signage and backdrop in Inkscape, the font is a loose copy of something interesting I found which had to be redrawn, fortunately not many letters were needed. The backdrop is a blurred and darkened interior photo of some sort of establishment, ditto for the door window and the sign there is a reduced image of a closed sign. All of these were printed, cut out and are just tacked in place for now on clear sheet. The doormat is made from rigging thread. The groundwork is AK carving foam glued onto fibreboard backing (the stuff you find on the backs of shelves), the cobbles made with punches from a previous project. I would have liked a more square pattern for the smaller ones, but this worked well enough. A few liberal coats of Future sealed everything and gave the foam some strength.

And that's the update. There are a few tweaks needed, and I have to decide whether I'm ok with the roof ending at the trim or if there should be a minor extension upward. I really don't want this to get any taller than it is, but it might need it to get some definition up there.

Next up I'll get started on the second base and try to get everything ready for painting early next week.


Kimmo


PS

And to put Nigel out of his misery, here's a pot of paint that will be used on our grenade thrower. The manufacturer has been cleverly hidden to keep everyone in suspense.