I know it may be in poor taste, but does anyone agree that sets of bodies should be produced? It would certainly make it a lot easier to include corpses and make dios that little bid more realistic. Currently the only way I can do it is by sticking random arms and legs together and partially burying the body, but they are never made flat enough! As I said, perhaps it would be in too bad a taste. What do you think? Any suggestions for making them out of 'live' models?

hi,

welcome to the site,

its pretty easy to create bodies using the method you mentioned if they are partially covered, by dirt or a sheet etc,

several compaines are releasing skeletal remains, verlinden and warriors are ones that spring to mind.

as for it being in bad taste, that depends entirely on how they would appear in the dio.
i would say bodies, skeletal remains etc would not be in bad taste, unneccesary gore would be

cheers

joe

I, for one do not think it would be in poor taste. Nor do some producers. I know that Verlinden has a few figure sets that feature deceased soldiers.




Warriors has a few too

Whoa!! That skeleton fig is scary. Ok returning to the topic. If you are experienced enough, you can edit the poses of certain figures. Remember, not all corpses are laying flat on the ground. Some are hanging, sitting - depending on the last position they had before they died.

There are as Ken showed up a number of corpses. You do have to be descrete with how you model them and include them.
Reworking a posture to fit a downed GI can be tough. A live GI is not as limp and dropped as a dead one. You have to do a lot of joint work to get all the joints hanging and relaxed. With that a a bit of rubble, cover, gear and youre good to go.

What Slodder said, but additonally, you have to consider the molded on clothing folds. THe sculptors had gravity pulling down from head to foot. Your corpses have to reflect gravity pulling from totally different angles.
Also, the dead don't stay looking fresh to long. Depnding on the heat, bloating and decompositon can begin fairly quickly. It's pretty easy to find some quite gruesome pictures of Civil War dead in major contortions and bloated conditions who were only a couple days dead.
Trauma is also pretty nasty. Saving Pvt. Ryan gave you some serious examples of war casualties. Broken limbs are also quite common which means additional "joints" where they're not supposed to be and limbs pointing off in directions they aren't intended to.
Finding a middle ground between 1940's sanitized, bloodless death and the shredded realism of SPR while still having some feel of reality is a major undertaking.

I think that everyone has the right idea. There can be a happy medium between respectfully representing casualties and "gratuitous gore." I have seen dead bodies before, and I can be honest with you..I don't really care to see them again. Besides, we have to remember that kids are members of our hobby, and I don't think their parents (I'm one, too) would appreciate "graphic" dioramas. Just my two cents...
Rob

There are some great head sets of sleeping figures that would be appropriate on a corpse. There are also heads with mouths open that would work.
Despite the general concept of avoiding gore, when I finish my current (very many years) dio, my next one will be absolutely disgusting, reflecting some realities.
There is a great book about remodeling plastic figures with a hot knife and facial tissue paper dipped in dissolved plastic by Ray Anderson called, "The Art of the Diorama."

Sealhead

Sealhead

Never understood the mentality that castigates those who include blood or corpses in a diorama. War is violent, bloody, and horrible - it's highly unrealistic to ignore death whatsoever. You don't always have to show the dead, but better models and dioramas have the specter of violence and death hanging around in the details...

G'day all,
I have to agree with all on this subject. If it fits the scene/ dio then why not.

Jasmils

I have a question... Is that a dio of yours?? If so have you got that scene out of different angles... It looks really good and I like to see more of it

after seeing this post i caved in an bought Verlinden's Taliban Casualties

that skeleton looks a lot like the Skelly one that Gordy was working on a few months ago on planetfigure. Would that be a Warrier figure now ?

Fellow Modelers,
My next dio will be realistically disgusting. In other words, as it is for real. I need some help finding sites of war casualties. I feel ghoulish, but I am looking for realism, not over the top stuff. Any ideas?

Sealhead

It's funny how different people react to a dead body in a dio. The Dio I did for the Incoming campaign had a dead German in it and most people took it in stride. That is untill they saw the 2 rats next to the corpse and then the howling comenced. No nibbling or blood, just 2 rats next to the body. Boy, did I here some eeww Gross comments from the family and a couple of thats disgustings too. However my younger nephews thought it was really cool.

G'day Faust,
Yep its mine all right. Knocked this one up in 2 days after getting the *****'s with an Australian M113 I was doing for a mate.




I had to put the last pic in of my "GOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!" medal as well.

The 101st figure is from Michael Robverts Ltd, and the German Para is from Jaguar I think.
I didnt do to much gore on the German, just a small exit wound on the right shoulder. Not to much blood. I tried to make it as realistic as possible.

Cheers Jason

I have never been in war so I can't speculate about death on the battlefield. However I can talk about death from trauma and gunshot wounds and natural causes. The most striking thing that I can say is that death is not neat and tidy with people in "NATURAL" poses. Almost every body that I have seen has been a very contorted or painful looking unbalanced position. Also, short of having a torso ripped completely open the gore is not that bad ( in 1/35 scale at least) My suggestion would to go lightly with the blood and mess

LMAO, now that is funny.

lol it'll tie in awesome to my now massive diorama i have cooking

Nice Vigniette there Jasmils. like much the foliage and tree stuff. hand made or ready bought ?

I find that there are several ways to do "the dead guy"...

I often use Airfix Multipose figures that are geared towards "assemble as needed"... but I also use a lot of figures that come with tanks and are too poor of quality to be used as standalone figures... so I carve em up, heat 'em up, glue 'em up, then "lay 'em down".... Cover the cracks and gaps with a bit of white model putty... paint when dry.

My latest dio (currently on display as a dio feature) has a corpse in it and although it has a fair amount of blood (gore?) on the figure I have yet to recieve a negative comment. Not that negative comments would urge me to remove the figure anyway.

I have no problem with dead figures irregardless weather they are freashly dead, in pieces or invarious stages of decomposition. I feel the bottom line is that these dios depict scenes of war and people tend to get killed in losts of nasty ways. It's a fact regardless of weather you want to ignore it or not.

how exactly do you carve up and contort the bodies to make them dead in the first place. I only ask becuase I am planing a dio that shows the right after a battle, inspired by the movie Patton. On that note, whould you also be able to use the same technique to modify facial expressions?

Talk about Africa Corpse! It's not in bad taste as long as you don't splatter blood and guts everywhere. Keep gore to a realistic minimum, as Shep Paine says.