@ The general campaign population. Great stuff going on here! — camo patterns, leather, armor, etc. — lots of diversity and lots for me to learn … to be sure!

@ Chris, I thought you had the base all sorted out … wasn’t he going to be running through a paint factory? … just kidding! I really like the details on that figure right down to the veins on his arms!

Keep up the good work Gents!

—mike

Today's efforts went to cleaning up and improving the detail on the upper torso of the trooper. You can see what needs to be removed from under the collar. I also sharpened the straps with undercuts and softened some folds. I'll go back and add the two small cross straps later. Still a fair amount of work to be done on the left side, the right is shaping up nicely.







Kimmo

Sculpting finished - The Walk Around...




Priming tomorrow.
I'm actually little scared to paint it. Was alot of work and I don't want to @#%8!$ it up !

@ Kimmo, The undercuts look great — well worth the effort!


@ Tom, Go with thin layers and you'll be fine. ... Easy for me to say; I'm nowhere near painting — getting closer to the looney farm though!

Nice work on the hose!

—mike

'Tug of War' update.

Okay Gents, That’s gotta’ be it! … a possibility of 21 figures!!! 😁 This grouping will most likely go in front of the building ruins (right-hand upper corner of the base).

The figure is from the MasterBox 'Civilians, Western Region' kit. The 'Barrel Mixer' and tools are from PlusModel.



And now ... it's back to the putty farm! 😜

—mike

Looks good although the pose on barrel mixer-guy looks a bit stiff. I think that the elbow on the arm holding the shovel could come down for a more natural pose

Hi Johan, I agree ... very stiff! Not sure if I'll use him. I'll see what I can do to fix that. ... More practice!

Cheers!🍺
—mike

Obviously you have A LOT on your plate but could perhaps be a candidate for a first scratched body part?

Or what say you, Dr. Frankenstein?!

Hi Johan, I thought of doing that, but Igor (the hired help) insists on taking extended lunch breaks! Lol!

I think 20 figures (many conversions) might be enough, and I’m fairly pleased with the poses thus far. It’s time to get to the putty fill and cleanup process. I also have some details which will need to be scratch-built and/or sculpted i.e., hair, scarves, long sleeves, handbags, belts, rifle slings, etc. Then it’s off to the spray booth for that telltale coat of gray primer. After which, all of my mistakes will undoubtedly jump out like a scary clown from under the bed!

—mike

Thanks Mike, looks like you have your hands full as well. Fortunately, it's mostly just time rather than hard work.

More done today. I think the collar and coat are pretty much there, need to start working on the lower straps. I started on the coat tails by tacking the right side pieces onto the legs which had been glued up and set. When gluing, press the figure down to make sure the feet sit nice and level. The tails fit well enough, a little putty will be needed. I'm hoping that the two sides can be done separately, then joined with minimum fuss once I have the pants painted. I thought I'd show you what tools I use for the clean up and cutting/scribing.









I should get another session in tomorrow providing I don't get carried away spinning tunes tonight.

Kimmo

Hi all, Im going to get going here on some figs for a planned dio, these guys will just be background "colour" but a good excuse to brush up on german cammo.

Theres some great stuff being done here, excited to see how everyones work comes together.
Eric.

A short session today. Got the other side of the coattails glued up and tacked in place to dry, I also cleaned up the arms and rescribed missing or lost seam detail and cleaned up the Garand. You can see I removed the hands and glued them to short lengths of sprue. I hollowed out the cuffs and then will carve the sprue and glue them in place. Doing this will give you a good impression of depth and a little flexibility with the pose of the hands.



More tomorrow, hopefully.

Kimmo

Starting to get there with the trooper. I decided the straps and buckles were ok to work with. I did add some extensions and short pieces for the top straps to show them lose. The buckles had the detail shaved off the and then I added the webbing with stretched sprue. They need a scrape down once the glue sets. Ammo pouches are in place, the flaps need undercuts. The hands got reshaped and the gloves defined.








I started preliminary work on the medic. It's going to be a doozy, a lot of soft detail. Until next time.

Kimmo

Great stuff Kimmo! Following with much interest.

—mike

Thanks Mike, despite it taking forever, I'm actually enjoying it. Sort of like sculpture by numbers.

Kimmo

Kimmo, the work you've done so far looks great! What a big difference! At 1/35 too? I didn't even go that far with my 1/16th. Maybe in my future projects.

hello to all,

very nice progress guys, Kimmo i like your project details..

my update:
starting with flesh tone,i used vallejo acrylics.
Base color: Brown sand
Highlights1: 50%Brown sand +50%Basic skintone
2: 30%Brown sand +70%basic skintone
3: Basic skintone
Shadows1: 50%Brown sand + 50%burnt cad. red
2: 30%Brown sand + 70% burnt cad. red
deep shadow i mixed grey blue and carmine red to make purple. i only used this for winter effect...
for the white of the eye, i mixed 90% white + 10% old rose.Pupil, german black brown and last thing lower lip carmine red.







yolk

Jessie, That looks great so far! Thanks for including the painting specs. Glad to see you guys are moving ahead — gives me a chance to slow down and learn.

—mike

Thanks Jessie and Joseph.

It's really not that difficult working this small if you keep a few things in mind. I use an optivisor (ok, cheap knock-off) and make light passes with sharp blades for the cuts and scribing seams. When you need to redefine a strap, let's say, I use the small curved blade to first lay down a cut line, use a rocking motion rather than just trying to slice or draw the blade. The curved blade is actually better for making straight lines freehand. Once that's established, then it's a simple matter of trimming and shaving up to the cut line. Then you can go ahead and score or scribe the undercut. When I did the undercuts for the collars, I removed just enough material at a time to allow me to remove more material, keeping in mind to not remove too much so I could block in the webbing, then kept chipping away as it were, and finally, cleaned it up. It's a slow process, but it works quite well. Use different tools to get into hard to reach areas. For example, the small openings on the collar needed a dozen or so passes with the sewing needle to allow me to get the scriber in, which allowed me to get a blade in and then you can polish up the plastic with a toothpick and apply a little liquid cement to further smooth things down.

Sharpening up detail is just a matter of light passes with a blade, either slicing or scraping. Adding the straps and so on is straight forward enough, just tiny. The sprue for the buckles was glued on oversized and trimmed after the glue had set, even I'm not crazy enough to try and place 1 mm lengths of stretched sprue exactly in place. It really comes down to focus and patience, and a very light touch.


Kimmo

Welcome to the Gucci Handbag Factory!

A bit of "accessorizing." … Some Basswood, copy paper, a few Styrene buttons ... Voila!

The top handbag will hang from the bicycle's handlebars as seen in my reference image (Page. 5).


Salute!🍷
—mike

I'm finally back with an update to my troops. After reading through the numerous posts on this thread, I came up with a plan to fix the eyes.

I first painted white for the eye ball. Then went back and touched up around them to give more of an eye shape. At least as much of an eye shape as I could muster on these tiny guys. Once that looked good I painted the pupils. This time I used a pin to dot the eyes. It worked pretty well...



I still have to fix the rifle barrel and weather them. But that probably wont happen until I place them in the diorama. I'm really happy with the way they turned out.

Happy Saint Patty's Day!

Tonight, after a couple of calming beers, I went back to convince myself that this grouping could actually work. So, I went at it ... and it was every bit the fiddly assembly that I had expected from the beginning!

Here’s ‘Crazy Ivan’ and the ‘Stubborn Deutsche Frau’ with drilled-out necks, and sleeves.


Please excuse the sloppy tack as this is merely a dry-fit session.

—mike

Another session in today. Got some undercuts and seams on the ammo pouches, fortunately I didn't have to do them all as a few will be hidden by the arms. I carefully worked a blade under the flaps and then lifted to get some separation. I also shaved down the sprue on the buckles. Next up for this guy is a coat of primer on the legs.





The medic got a fair amount of work done. I need to sharpen and define all the straps and harness, pockets and collars. A good start today. As you can see, the boots are going to need a lot of work, the detail is soft and the tops need to be reworked completely as the lace and tongue detail is missing, this might get interesting.








Hopefully I'll get some more time in tomorrow.

Kimmo

Doing some great work Kimmo and co!!.Enjoying the figures transformation and detailing!!
Keep it going Chaps!!!.
Happy modelling from Richard

Some excellent work on here, tips, tricks and attention to detail that i would never have even considered.
So glad i joined this campaign and just itching to get back to my figure in a weeks time. Damn i hate working!!