Repositioning Figures

Chris,

Think of it in terms of your own body and its joints.
The elbows, knees, wrists, shoulders all are joints that bend in a limited plane.
Keep this in mind and you can bend or reposition the figures how you like.
For example: You can bend an arm or a leg at the elbow or knee. Cut a pie shaped wedge from the area that encompasses the joint. Behind the outside radius of the bend you wish to make. Either by heating or careful bending (or in some cases cutting all the way through and reattaching) the small sliver of remaing material you can bend the limb in the desired direction. Use your putty to refill the area and sculpt in the fabric folds that you cut away or that would be more appropriate to the limbs positioning. The wedge shape that you cut away is necessary to remove the excess material that would be in the way. Think of it as like cutting a straight piece of pipe and then making a 90 deg. bend. You have to miter cut the pipe in order for it to have a smooth turn or corner that is not collapsed. If you just used a pipe bender you stretch the outside radius and collapse the inside radius of the bend. The same material is still there but you can only bend it so much before the pipe kinks or distorts. Same way with the plastic in a figure.

Depending on how much sculpting you want to try you can cut the hands off and keep them, or part of the limb and attach a wire armature in the shape you want to have the limb positioned. Then just build up the material and resculpt from scratch with miliputty or epoxy. Reattach the hands or feet and you are ready to go. This method just mean you have to exercise and develop your sculpting skills on a 1/35th scale.

Hope this helps. I've used both methods in the past to great success but I'm sure somebody else out there has other ways of doing it. Give it a trry and let me know how you do.

Mike

While Renarts has already set a very clear procedure there, I will just add one thing that I have already done in my latest dio.

To avoid a lot of cutting and sculpting work, I try to mix and match parts of figures to find out if certain parts from other figures will give my figure the postion I desired. While this method may mean that you have to have a lot of extra figures to cannibalize, it is also a great time saver as filling-up are only needed at the parts where the parts are joined together.

Thanks guys, should be trying it out on some germans real soon. The ones I have are the only ones that I do have since this is the first german piece I have built so i guess I better get it right the first time or I'll be going to the shop to get a box of them.

Chris,
Just like other models, don't be fooled into thinking that you have to get them perfect the first time. I've gone through several boxes of miniatures practicing to find just the right effect or pose that I'm looking to make. Take your time, don't be afraid to screw a couple of them up, and above all, have fun with it.

demono69

Yea you're right there Demon, I just try not to screw up to much as it eats in to the hobby budget and it's allready been devoured by other things.

Screwing up and the hobby budget are two inseparable things, aren't they? LOL.