Messages

1021

Showcase & Gallery / Re: UVS models

« on: February 21, 2018, 09:59:21 pm »

I would think the Commander should stand behind the Gunner , he won't be moving much . Unlike the Loader having to toss rounds into the gun and then bend and pick up another from a rack or bin . Never was much a fan of pins for figures , unless I wanted them removable for diorama / play purposes .  Usually find I have to cut and re position legs and feet on most vehicle crews to make them fit . Checked out more of your site today , as Pinky says , it's great . I see you had the same problems with the JS -II I did 

1022

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 21, 2018, 12:34:10 pm »

Tank # 44








The figures 1. # 31 2. # 20 * 3. #24 * 4. #33 5. # 20 6. # 20 * 7. # 33 * 8. # 19 *  ( the * means I hacked up the legs to make the figures sit  ) That part is a lot of trial & error , with just minimum glue to see if the figure will work . You can hide mistakes with carefully placed pouches and packs , and green stuff becomes a very handy as well . If I had to do them over I would probably glue them together as one group of 8 or 2 groups of 4 , making them removable ( magnets ? )  instead of  gluing them onto the tank  If you look carefully . you will notice figure # 4 has a quilted jacket and regular arms   . After 2 years I notice this  . The clear vodka bottle is a shortened  1/35 Tamiya part  , you never know what you might find in the parts box 

1023

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 21, 2018, 12:21:02 pm »

Its taken quite a while but I finally figured out which BA Russian  figures I used as tank riders . I probably built these guys 2 years ago and they've gone through a couple of up grades and changes . When 1st built each tank had 6 , now # 43 has 5 , plus  2 guys in the act of dismounting and # 44 has 8 , and I have an extra guy who can ride on 43 if I just want to show it in motion







1. figure # 25 2. # 20 3. #33 4. #31 5. # 25 with # 21 left leg

1024

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 21, 2018, 11:36:52 am »

Thanks Jimmy . Try your hand at some tank riders , you can use the kneeling guys and a couple of the standing types without any real hacking and slashing . I like to pick up BA sprues for kit bashing when they have their 1/2 price sale or last month they had a buy 3 ,pay for 2 sale . Its not a pain in the wallet to mess up a figure that set you back about .75 cents .   Here's my 251 with the crew bailing out . My inspiration was the  Tamiya model box cover from the 70s

The guys inside had legs cut and bent to put one foot on the seats . The guys jumping over the sides had their legs removed and sutible ( whatever worked  ) legs added . IMO its not the legs but its the arms you really have to worry about

It's getting them to look as if they are captured in a second of motion

You can even get away with a bit of a strange look to the legs , if you've ever seen an athlete in slow motion you know the body moves in weird ways , at least that's my story ....

1025

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 20, 2018, 09:52:44 pm »

The 2 riders a glued to the boxes which can be placed on any of my  T-34s . I probably should have done the same with my other tank riders but I glued them to the rear deck . Live and learn .  The PSC  troops  are in need of a reboot IMO , from what I've seen of them . I think maybe the Heavy Weapons crews might work better for kit bashing than the regular troops  . I've only got their AT gun set , and those troops don't inspire me , just a head or arm swap is possible  . Although I did make a couple into snipers .  I added a new BA arm and head to each and gave them a gauze gilli suit , still needs some Battlefront Poison Ivy bits and some dry brushing

this guy was the gunner and the guy below is one of the loaders
[/url                         Now that the  add on sets for my 2 SdKfz 250s has arrived , I'll have to see what I can do with the figures from the kits

1026

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 20, 2018, 12:27:12 pm »

Love the Russian plastics , so many variations can be made from 8 body types . The big thing is making sure you don't end up with a regular and quilted arm for upper torso and a tall boot and a short boot with putties on the legs . And yes I have a couple of guys like that ( leg wise ) riding in the back of my Russian half track . Both the Russians and Early / Late War Germans are real easy to convert leg wise , as you cut under the skirt of the tunic , not having to worry about trying to patch the crotch with green  stuff  ( like the British  ). Under the tunic you can just about place the legs any way you want .

Here my half track riders  ,built  with the idea being they have a bent leg / knee on the seat and a standing leg on the floor .So I ended up mostly  using both styles of kneeing Russians ( # 20 & 31 ) with leg swaps . The gunner was the # 25 standing figure with his legs moved closer together .Here's how the look heading into combat . The molded on packs are a bit of a problem space wise , they really only fit in the HT one way , and every time I take them out it takes me about an hour to figure out how to fit them back in , probbly should have gone with 6 in the back

Once you get bitten by the kit bash it's hard to stop . I cast up a bunch of 85mm ammo boxes for my T-34/85 and SU-85s . And I thought why not have a couple of guys standing or seated on them like you see in pictures of Russian armor in Berlin 45 . So with a standing leg added to each kneeling figure I have these guys spotting a sniper from the back of a tank

I decided to glue them to the ammo boxes so I could swap them around , here they are " dismounted "

1027

Work In Progress / Re: SdKfz 2 Kettenkrad with if.8 & Goliath - Crew TS1 Plastic 180220

« on: February 20, 2018, 11:45:43 am »

Nice looking kit . Great to have a mobile and static crew for Goliath . Take a look at 1st two pictures , the outside wheels on the left side are wrong , maybe someone put the inside wheels on the outside . I would never , ever  do that  ( again  )

1028

Work In Progress / Re: Codename: Sherman 2016 - Deep Wading Trunk Prototype 180218

« on: February 18, 2018, 10:57:10 pm »

Very nice .

1029

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 18, 2018, 10:54:34 pm »

The medic looks great . Fantastic idea to use the German grenade bag arm . Some of the pieces on the sprues really don't jump out and say variety in use . Are you going to use the arm once or have 3 or 4 guys running around  looking funny .Still haven't used the other bag arm with Panzerfaust . I used that arm , minus the bag on my Para holding the mg on his shoulder , only arm I could find that was bent that tight , remove bag , add hand holding mg bi pod . While I like newer sets with arms and weapons together , I still pick up a Russian sprue every once in a while , you  get almost 30 arms . great for kit bashing

1030

Work In Progress / Re: Codename: Sherman 2016 - T23 Prototype 180217

« on: February 18, 2018, 05:55:00 am »

Looks good . ( note to self - have expansion / add on kit and base kit in hand before building anything ! ) Don't ask 

1031

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 18, 2018, 05:52:03 am »

Thanks . The Russian pancake mag for the DP will be too big , maybe use the drum mag off that odd looking PPD sub machine gun ( part L ) . Your going to have to cut it up but its an ugly little gun so no loss .

1032

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 17, 2018, 11:13:41 pm »

They look really good . Oh yes those special magazines that never run out ammo LOL . A lot like all those  German troops with MP38 machine pistols  and rifle ammo pouches . As kid you never even looked twice , you just drank in the action . Aside from the German grey painted M-47 Patton tanks , the infinite repeating magazines and  men in rubber monster suits those 60s B movies weren't too bad  . Wouldn't a Russian DP-28 machine gun and a Bren kit bash solve your K gun problem , or is the pancake magazine too big . Always fun to try and kit bash weapons from the variety we have in plastic to make something new .

I decided I wanted a Para Panzerschek team , in plastic . Checking out the US weapons sprue , I found a Bazooka , upon checking for scale I found it was too long ! But just the right length for the German weapon , So I trimmed off all the detail , added plastic bits and a wire ( paperclip ) shoulder rest , then the front blast shield was a thin square  with some strips glued on . I even added glass (white glue , dries clear )to the sight hole . Then it was find arms that sort of work , green stuff the gaps and add paint . Toyed with trying to make the wooden back pack for extra rounds but with only having 2 rockets I put one in the loaders hand and one on the base

I think the rear of the Bren and barrel of the DP might work , but you'll need to find a magazine

1033

Showcase & Gallery / Re: Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 17, 2018, 05:39:03 am »

The Yanks look great , like something out a 60s Alien Invasion /  Monster Movie right down to having one kind of weapon and another kind of ammo pouches , well done . You meant to do that right ?  Don't know of any M-16 style looking pouches  in 1/56 , ( cut the BA Brit ones shorter and cast in resin maybe ) you might have to get out the green stuff . Italeri had some pouches in some of their 1/35 sets that were underscale that might work . The Commando looks awesome , very much Tiger Comic if you know what I mean . But he has a Thompson not a captured weapon , did you post the wrong pic ?

1034

Showcase & Gallery / Power to the Plastic ! ( 1/56 figure kit bashes )

« on: February 17, 2018, 01:48:59 am »

I'm going to borrow Tracks idea and create  a thread on 1/56 plastic figure conversions . We've all done them , weather its just replacing a arm or head so your tank commanders look a little different , to full on butchering of bodies , arm and legs to get that unique figure for your squad . Everyone feel free to jump in and post pictures of dudes you've created . Would even like to see Frostgrave type mashups , I've got an idea of the Soldiers chain mail type  bodies with BA German helmets and gas masks , armed with a variety of German and Russian weapons  . Sorry I get side tracked sometimes . If possible tell us what parts you used on your conversions , of course if your like me you have a large stash of left and right arms with no concern from whence they came ,you just pick through the bin till you find one that fits , sort of ... and then you make it fit . Hopefully we get to see lots of neat creations and will be inspired by them to make more of our own . I'll start . I've always like the iconic look of the German mg teams firing over the shoulder of one of the crew . So I decided to make my own using the 2 kneeing Para figures . A lot of trial and error went into this with one arm ending up being made from parts of 3 other arms . Of course no pictures were taken during the kit bash , I've tried to note my progress on builds but I find as I think about what I'm doing , I tend to stop doing it . Creativity for me is just going ahead and doing it . Anyway here's my Para mg crew , and yes that is the extra  machine gun arm from the BA 251 half track crewman , finally found a use for it

1035

Work In Progress / Re: Digital Sculpts - German Infantryman 180215

« on: February 17, 2018, 01:26:39 am »

Tha'ts a great idea for a Gallery thread ,tracks . Power to the Plastic !