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Stop messing about - just get a Sub-driver! -
Not on the COLLINS control room display. I used Tamiya figures, the ones for NASCAR pit-crew. I was strapped for time and went store-bought in this case. Note that I never copy other peoples work without permission of the property owner. Any other course of action is theft! If I need kit parts, I buy the kit. I neither re-cast nor support those who do.
Here are examples of my figure work, and how I go about it.
Working small figures demands stronger mediums than clay; mediums that can be cured or baked hard and then worked with knifes, files, and scrappers. As most of my work has to be rendered in multiple copies, the original sculpting material has to not only hold up to the build-up and cut-down operations required to give the figure form. Then, the finished figure master has to hold up to the molding process. Small sectioned appendages (hat brims, hands, and fingers) must be strong enough not to break during the operation. The PVC bake-hardened Sculpey is too brittle, clay is out of the question, wood is too much of a *****, dense RenShape is not strong enough. I've found the ideal medium for sculpting work, on figures smaller than 1/12 scale is a metal armature covered with either a tough resin or soft solder.
Two-part plumber's putty is the cheap route, or you can spring for purpose formulated two-part, heavily filled epoxy sculpting paste. Expensive and take too damned long to cure before you can move on. I don't use them. I want stuff that works right away so I can get on with it.
This series shows the figures I worked up for the defunct 1/72 FOXTROT job. When sculpting small figures I build two generations of each figure: the first generation is a simple figure with no facial or clothing detail, from this I make a RTV tool and make polyurethane resin copies. These copies become the detailed master figures which eventually are used to produce the production tooling. I'm not going to teach you how to sculpt -- it's like riding a bicycle: you have to just do it till you got it down pat.
You know how you get to Carnegie Hall don't you?....
I solder an armature core, then bend the limbs to shape, then wrap the torso and limbs to approximate humane form. I then apply medium-thick CA and catalyze it with either baking soda or liquid accelerator. I then go at the figure with rotary burrs and make like I'm Michelangelo. I repeat the build-up and tear-down process till I have something I like ... or at least does not over revolt.
For the larger figures it's fine to use Sculpey, even without an armature. You start with a rough, bake that hard, and that becomes your armature. The nice thing about this medium is that you work in the soft material till it gets hard to handle without damage, then you pop it into the oven to harden the new work. Neat!
If you are going to get into figure and/or bust work, you should start with this stuff.
Work done to achieve the three figure masters needed to produce the parts for the our Bronco 1/35 Type-23 fittings kit.
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Excelent!! Thats exactly what I wanted. Im half way there already. Sculpy clay is the Cat's Pajamas in our house as it is. As for Carnegie Hall, Ive already been thru the West 56th street door, if you know where that goes. Never thought about winding the armature for the buildup. Duh? Im a one off guy anyway, so there wont be a production line. Basiclly would be for larger scale stuff, since the smaller scale figgures are avaleble cheap. After looking in the European market and seeing the prices from places like Andrea M. where the get tons of money for the 50 some mm, metal figgures, I think my own would be the way to go. I have made some sculpy over wire figguresas well as different bits and pieces for various models. I like the stuff. These were not painted but layed up with he different colors of clay. These divers were a wedding cake topper I made for some friends about twenty years ago. They have seen a lot of abuse and nasty weather out on my cabanna but still are in fare shape. If they had been painted and sealed, they would have faired better. I got my BS and BA as a professional Student under the GI Bill in Art and Music. Basiclly got payed to go to school for as long as they let me. Took every aspect of the art classes. Drawing/painting/ 3 dimentiomal crafts, metal sculpture, lost wax, photography, marketing and advertising, lettering and layout.....6 years of having fun and making messes at some other place than home, with all the cool tools and supplies free. Even took the ledgondary "Underwater Basket Weaving" 201. Advanced underwater dextarity course, a joke compaired to the Navy, but 3 credits to the good. Thanks for the Grammer alert, to Mikey. I shoot. speek and type from the hip, dont use spellcheck and still drink from the garden hose, so let it snow let it snow, let it snauex.:)
Last edited by Von Hilde; 12-30-2014, 08:20 AM.Comment
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To amplify on the figure making.
For those larger than 1/12 scale figures (dictated by finger thickness), I'm comfortable working in Sculpey PVC sculpting medium. The stuff handles like earth or oil based clay but has the advantage of being able to harden when subjected to a moderate, uniform heat. This feature permits you to take the work to a point where the soft material gets in the way, then you bake it hard, and proceed. Repeating the sculpting-baking cycle as many times as required
And the stuff is versatile, you can screed it, roll it, extrude it, and texture it with any tool imaginable.
I needed a 1/12 figure blank from which I would produced this Diver, submarine driver, and a figure for Jim Christley who would configure it as an oarsman for a working scale model of the ALLIGATOR's initial propulser.
If the wash and weathering on the Diver's dress (nothing unique, pretty much typical soldier summer garb -- only things different are the hard-hat and weighted boots) seems a bit over-stated, know that this was intentional. Effects miniatures are viewed through the less critical eye of the film or electronic camera, not the eyeball; so, if details are to be registered and conveyed to the viewing audience, things have to be overstated.
All this in support of a TV production that I worked on with Tim Smalley, who got me into the job. A one-hour documentary produced by Dave Clarke Productions, 'The Hunt For The ALLIGATOR'. To this day it's still in the rotation, airing on the Discovery Science Channel every now and then.
The 1/12 practical effects miniature, representing the Civil War era Union submarine, not only had to operate, via r/c, in the water for the effects shots, but also had to serve as a display piece around which was wrapped off-camera narrative, and close ups taken as its mission and features were described -- it had to be very detailed, right down to the flush-rivets. A figure of a dressed out Diver as well as a bust of the sub-driver whose head and shoulders can be seen under the opened copula had to be crafted.
This, of course, is what we think when someone talks about employing the clay-like PVC Sculpey sculpting medium. You work it like clay using traditional clay working tools. And that's what I'll show you in this post. But there are other ways to manipulate this medium:
Here's an example of masters formed entirely from baked Sculpey -- two exhaust pipe flanges, hex-bolt heads, and 'goose-neck' water-trap. All built in support of a fittings kit we produced for the Williams KAIRYU kit.
You can get the clay/Sculpey extruder at any art supply store. And if the dies provided don't do it for you, you can make your own disc shaped die -- shaped to produce any extruded rod of the cross-section you want -- that's what I did for the hex-bolt heads.
So, I sculpt a 1/12 generic figure with no major attempts made to detail facial features or fingers. I then make a rubber tool of it. Then, I cast the required number of blank figures. I then take a blank figure, break its limbs and give it a pose that works as a Diver plodding along the muck.
I built up a hat from brass tube, sheet, and turned rod. An umbilical was formed from marrying a piece of twine (representing hemp rope) to a length of back insulated conductor (representing the air-hose). I built up the figures clothing, belt and buckle, belt loops, collar, fingers and shoes from CA and baking soda -- that work went surprisingly fast.
Nothing to it, sports-fans.
MLast edited by He Who Shall Not Be Named; 12-30-2014, 06:15 PM.Who is John Galt?Comment
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How about the first image, was that a mars lander concept? Love the concept rockets and space stations that we were going to do, until we ran out of money and everyone lost interest in exploring space. I feel they are more exciting than the real rockets and space stations.Comment
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You mean this one?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWINrpzDQCY
If so I'll write up a picture heavy WIP for you -- I participated in a Hollywood technician's bus-holiday: restoring a venerable, old effects miniature from the Technicolor film, The Conquest Of Space.
MWho is John Galt?Comment
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Yes! love that stuff, I have a number of prints in my entryway of the space exploration concepts. Bonestell & images from Colliers. Have an early rocketry book by Willey Ley.Comment
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To keep this conversation going, David you restored a large T.V. submarine the Seaview. Do you have photos of the work you did to it?If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.Comment
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Who is John Galt?Comment
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Wow !!!!, and still moaning to me about the details, djeeez!!!
Manfred.I went undergroundComment
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David,
What is the earliest RC sub that you built?
What ballast system did you have in it?If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.Comment
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A 1/96 AKULA. The initial hull was built for the Librascope Company, a display piece for their booth at the annual Washington difence industry trade-show. A year later I used the tooling to make my first r/c submarine. This was in the mid-80's.
I contained the control, ballast, and propulsion elements within GRP removable water tight containers (WTC).
(I later modified WTC to mean, water tight cylinder -- I was the guy who was the first to offer WTC commercially -- though credit must also go to the great Nick Burge of the UK, who did similar work, unknown to me at the time).
The American guru's in the game of the time included Skip Asay, Mike Dorey, and Dave Weeks. I read their articles and based my work on theirs. The ballast system was a bit involved (I was, after all, qualified in real submarines): the ballast sub-system featured hand-crafted pneumatic vent valves, a CO2 gas source, and made extensive use of Clippard air-control valves. Propulsion was a big 500 sized, 7-volt Pitman motor, geared 3:1.
I later gave the hull tools to Lee Upshaw who went commercial with the project.
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