Ain't nothin' but a G36 thang

G36 V.3 is coming along. I mixed a small amount of Green Stuff into the Brown Stuff (maybe 15%) so it will have a little bit more stickiness and surface tension. I thought the higher surface tension will enable me to make a more consistent flat plane. It did. I went further than I had initially thought I would but I think I stopped advancing in a good place. 

Sculpting anatomy 20mm

Building up the anatomical shapes. 

For some reason as I was adding a lump to serve as the base for the head of the one guy I started pushing the material around to make a place for adding the face and decided to just do the face. The work was pretty hard and I won't try it again without the basic form underneath; the whole thing flopped around. I sort of got control of it in the end. It needs a little more work still but it's cool to have.

 I got two more guys to add the shapes to and then I'll do some work on the 2nd G36.

For those who have been following- the dice are on their way now and I'm slowly reading the Force on Force rulebook. I love the smell of the print ;)

This will be Bundeswehr infantryman 4/5

PIP

This is mystery faction guy

Kneeling and pointing.

Comparison photo with modern militia men 1:72 scale

I've had the rule book for Force on Force for quite a while now though I haven't read through it. I went ahead an ordered myself a box of Caesar urban resisters in 1/72 scale and another box of modern IDF so they can fight each other to the death. 

The terrorists arrived first.

I was very pleasently surprised by how nice some of the details were such as the faces, some of the hands and clothes. To be honest, compared to our guys the weapons, however, are almost indescribable. I can recognize what they are, just. I don't know if it's something to do with how they're cast like a technical limitation on fine detail or the original sculpts. 

I never had any 1 to 72 scale figures so this was a great opportunity to compare them with my modern German infantryman. He's a little bit larger than those terrorists/freedom fighters and bulkier (but he's truer to scale if I am the judge of anything!). The details are more crisp for sure but I don't really know what he'd look like after being cast; I mean there might be some loss of crispness, I imagine. I think that our modern Bundeswehr is looking very good among his 20mm compatriots. 

I still don't know how to play the game but I feel a little more prepared. I don't have the right dice also.

I'm making more. Here are our 4 new friends. I can't wait to see how they turn out. Next session will be all about really refining the anatomical forms so I have a good base to work from.

This guy will be carrying a G36 with grenade launcher.

This guy will have an SAR-15 or a short M-16.

 This guy will have a G3

Another short M16 

This is the G36 for 3/5

New armatures - 20mm FTW!

My dear readers. Most exciting news recently. First, I apologize for being so late with this update. I've had a hell of a week. My infant son has had some kind of series of virus illness and I've been taking care of him which demanded almost all of my time and attention. I did make some progress and you can see it here, most of it from today. 

What's this exciting news you speak of, you ask? Well, as you may or may not know I haven't been able to find work in my professional career. Neither as a salaryman nor as an independant. The market has had some slow down in the past year. 

Suddenly, though, there has been a very dramatic inflow of projects my way meaning that for the next couple of months at the very least I am going to work from home. Most of these are in my illustration field of work. What this means for the miniatures is that I can set aside a little time for a couple of sessions per day and will be able to move forward much faster.

I'm working on making the G36 for the third of our five shooting Bundeswehr modern ISAF infantry. The second guy is sitting pretty on his base; I have had to extend it a little because it was unstable. 

And looky here! FOUR, count 'em, four distinct 20mm or 1/72 armatures. I need two more Bundeswehr infantry so who on earth could these extra two guys be?!?! I decided to put work towards a speculative, personal project seeing how nice the German soldier miniatures are coming along. 

A fruit fly chilling on a statue. He imagines he is a pigeon.

Disaster strikes, somehow improves work.

As I was working on the guy he slipped and somehow I broke off the G36. I could not proceed with adding the rest of the left arm but in the end re-positioning it and reinforcing it made it look more better! Thanks, Loki, I suppose. 

Here he is posing in front of my handsome epiphytic moss. I want to do some work on the flash hider, and add a base. Also we're gonna cut everything up (GULP). But I'm well prepared. Note the left hand is not stuck at all to the rifle. 

I made progress on the other guy too. Improved his helmet which looked a little bicycle like and added a shirt collar. I need to make a new gun for him, which I started on. His arms will wait till then. 

In the session after the next we'll start on the next 2 guys. Which will bring us to the complete 5 figures! 

I'm also considering starting a side project of making units speculatively, without selling them in advance. I sort of really want to make some modern IDF. I know that there aren't that many available in 1/72.

For scale- next to some items.

We're almost at 3 20mm Germans

I've sculpted the sleeve and hand of the right arm. Afterwards I added a little bit of Green Stuff to the area where the left arm will go because it was somewhat uneven. My hope is that using the Brown Stuff for "fixing" the pose of the arm will create a weaker bond between the parts and allow me on the one hand(no pun intended) to work on the arms with some resistance offered by the armature and on the other hand to create a clean separation when it comes to cutting it up. The results remain to be seen. The worst case scenario is that it won't make any difference, I hope.
I brushed a very fine layer of Vaseline on the fore grip of the rifle and positioned the arm. This is for an even cleaner breaking point as I don't need two joints to support the position of the arm.

On the other dude I sculpted a couple more pouches, clasps and the helmet. I then added the helmet cover. I also continued with my "bone" structure with some minor tweaks.

Until next time.

If you'd like to comment please write something.

You can say what other types of modern Germans you'd like to see: command, advancing etc. Perhaps other types of units, spec ops, AFV crewmen and such or even if you'd like to see completely different national army guys, militia, perhaps entirely different historical figures. Go crazy.

As an aside, I'm starting to think about doing some vehicle models but I haven't the faintest clue on how to go about it. I see a material order coming in the near future. :)

20mm/1:72 Modern ISAF Bundeswehr sculpting update

Here we are again. I'm itching to see them form a small group already. I think it will be very nice. 

I'm blogging about miniature sculpting

Nothing much to say. Have a look at the pictures. I'm keeping going.

1/72 is just a cool scale

The helmet cover is on and the shape is much more appealing. I'm really excited about how these guys are coming out. Can't wait to see pictures of painted ones as part of gamer's armies. I'm enjoying the scale very much. It's that little extra bit smaller than the "28mm" so it's more miniature and it's still large enough for all that excellent detail.

Look what I'm doing with the arms. As preparation to posing the figure I've added Green Stuff to serve as bones so I can preserve the proportions.

This man now has ears and leg drop rig straps. I've decided to roll back a little and not work on too much at one time so I can get better results.

G36 2 of 5 is coming along. I think it looks really nice.

Proof of concept for the cut up figure. With the dowel system he's holding up without any glue; he will fall apart if shaken a bit so players/modelers will need to glue things in place.

AND A CRAZY LABORATORY WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST FOLLOWERS! Hooray! We're at a whooping 5 followers. Thanks for signing up you guys!

Off with his pants! ...and chop off that guy's arm while you're at it.

Too tired to write much. The "stuff" is still wet a little in some areas and I'm going to push it around a little.

The helmet looks stupid but it'll get better when I add the cover.

The hole and dowel system.

I carved off his pants because they were too huge.

German Miniatures update (sunglasses,G36, straps)

Today's update: Two magazine pouches, hair and chin straps on one guy. Some nice progress on the G36 (will have to carve/ file some of it) and a face with shades and leg drop rig straps for guy #2.

Starting to look the part.

'sup?

Intense Green Stuff session

I've received feedback that some of the details were a little mushy from a kind forums poster. I wanted to really focus on improving the detail level this time. I increased the ratio of yellow to blue from 55/60% yellow to around 65% yellow. I also added around 15% half and half mix of Brown Stuff. It came out a very large amount of mixed putty.

 I worked as fast as I could and added: leg drop holster straps, holster and pistol magazine pouches, cargo pocket, jacket and vest and then on the other guy the boots and pants(with a better preparation for the leg drop.

By the end of the pant on the second guy the material was too cured to blend well with itself so there's lumpiness and seam lines but it might even out with a little shaving and carving.

I think it's a very nice bit of progress. Maybe I bit a little bit more than I could efficiently chew so I won't go as far next session.